(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

I do not care for true crime. I am not a fan nor a hater, I think it just doesn’t mean anything special to me. Still, I was hooked on Cally’s journey through the beginning and thought the pieces were falling in place nicely, even when truly bizarre stuff started happening. It reminded me of the movie Session 9, which I really like.
But then, THEN… The Trinity. I don’t understand the decision of the author to take such a turn into the fantastic (I don’t even know if that is the best word to describe it). I know the supernatural elements were there, hidden in the shadows, ready to jump in nightmares, and I would have preferred it if the tone stayed more or less the same. It did not work for me. It completely lost me. And after devouring the rest of the book, I found myself struggling to make it to the ending.

There is a solid premise here but, for me, the novel took too long to get anywhere. Nothing against slow build or longer works but this one just didn't work for me.
Many thanks to Angry Robot and NetGalley for the e-galley.

If you read and loved THE PATIENT by Jasper DeWitt, then this one will absolutely reel you in for the first half because it lies in that same psychological thriller vein. The second half is more supernatural thriller as it (possibly) reaches its resolution. Or as least A resolution.

This is my third novel by Daniel Church and I am incredibly grateful to Angry Robot Books and NetGalley for approving my request to read the Advanced Reader's Copy. Happy to say I'll be back on watch for further novels by Daniel Church and he's now batting 3 for 3 for me!

I was instantly hooked. I read the first half in what felt like one breath. (This very well could have been because I was HOLDING my breath as there were some very intense moments! I've been doing a lot of late night reading before bed these days due to work and training and let's just say there was one night after a particular chapter where I slept with the lamp on.)

I am a fiend for psychological thrillers and Daniel Church absolutely nailed this aspect. I couldn't get enough of the intrigue and the huge mystery surrounding a family in which the father killed his wife and two children - brutally - before turning the gun on himself. It was so out of character according to friends and family - and as our main character starts to dig into it for her true crime podcast - a larger mystery looms.

Now, vague spoiler here, I really wish the mystery had been left a mystery. As soon as our main character finally starts getting some answers and the picture of what really happened starts to become clear - that made the switch in the narrative from psychological thriller to just plain ol supernatural thriller and that ratcheted down the thrills, chills and squeals for me. (If it had been left a mystery, I'd have probably complained about not getting answers, so take this last bit with a grain of salt, lol)

Daniel Church's writing makes you feel things, which is something I crave when I read horror. I want my blood to race, I want to feel the terror and blast it, make me sleep with the light on! There were 2 nights reading this that messed me up, lol. I loved the slow build up of dread and suspense as I turned the pages, the anticipation of what might be revealed on the next page and the resulting reward of creepiness.

If you love thrillers, folklore and rich, atmospheric writing, then I think this would be an excellent choice for you!

3.5/5

This book had me hooked from the start. Now, it doesn’t slam you with jump scares or endless action. Instead, it takes its time to build the suspense and unnerving atmosphere. I liked that slow-build approach. You know something bad is coming, but you’re not sure when or what shape it’ll take.

And in does come in creepy shapes and whispers, creatures made from the darkness trying to be solid. Initially, they’re not in-your-face monster-movie scary, but deeply, deeply unsettling. The more we see of them, the more horrifying they become. There are also audiotapes and interviews with people that help in building an unnerving atmosphere.

Character-wise, Daniel Church does a good job. Cally is dealing with depression, is slightly directionless in life, but she’s also obsessive and determined even when she’s in over her head. Her relationship with Ellen might feel rushed to some readers, but I liked it. It felt authentic enough that I bought into it. Most of the supporting cast is well drawn too, though the chief antagonist is almost cartoonishly vile, which made him feel a bit flat compared to everyone else. But there’s a reason for that, explained later in the story.

What’s interesting is how polarizing this book seems to be in early reviews. Some readers love the slow-burn pacing, others think it drags. Some think the horror is brilliant, others wanted more visceral scares. Personally, I thought the writing was effective - moody and tight, with just enough detail to make the setting feel alive. The pacing isn’t perfect, but once the story gets moving, it stays steady and doesn’t let up. There’s room for some tightening in places, sure, but it never lost me.

Unfortunately, the ending does. After such a careful buildup, the finale rushes in like someone realized the book was running out of pages. Explanations are dumped out quickly, the mystery gets over-explained, and the sense of creeping dread gives way to something more predictable and popcorn-like. It didn’t ruin the book for me, but compared to the careful tension of the beginning and middle, the resolution felt like a step down.

In the end, The Sound of the Dark is less about big shocks and more about letting dread creep in and stay there. It stuck with me thanks to its creepy creatures, unnerving atmosphere, and characters I actually liked. It’s not perfect, especially the ending, but it doesn’t need to be - I found it memorable, and that’s what matters.

I would recommend it to readers who enjoy slow burn horror and creepy stuff.

First things first: This book should have been 200 pages shorter. Like, I am usually a fairly fast reader and I have been working on this thing for almost two weeks. Not just because it's long, but also because it takes until around the 70% mark for anything even remotely exciting to happen. The first two-thirds is mostly just the main character interviewing people and whining about how much her life sucks, and I couldn't really bring myself to care enough to actually want to read the book for any length of time.

At the same time, though, I didn't exactly hate this? The initial premise is fantastic: a visit to an abandoned military base causes a guy go home and kill his entire family, and when true crime podcaster Cally investigates the decades-old murders, supernatural shenanigans ensue. I mean, yes please! But then there's dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of pages of Cally interviewing a bunch of other characters about the murders (whoo, secondhand knowledge of the same event from 27 different perspectives!) and going on and on about her seasonal allergies. Like, I seriously wouldn't be surprised to find out that Clarityn paid for product placement in this novel because she mentions it approximately one zillion times. But I kept thinking that it was going to lead to something big and exciting and so I kept reading … and reading … and reading … and, well, you get the picture.

And then things start to happen! Yay! But it's kind of an unfunny Men in Black film meets a superhero movie meets the Buffy-meets-the-first-slayer episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets H.P. Lovecraft meets a Hieronymus Bosch painting, and I'm not even sure what to think about the whole thing. But I did get invested in the climax of the novel and found myself rooting for the main characters, so I guess I can't complain too much there. Like much of the rest of this book, however, the climax does take much too long to get to the point and it's drawn out for ages. *insert Monty Python “Get on with it!” clip here*

Do prepare to hate the main villain. Not in the way that you normally hate literary villains, but in a “this guy is an over-the-top caricature of an incel” sort of way. I wanted to DNF this book each and every time he used the phrase “pretty Cally Darker” because, well … because it was bloody annoying, that's why.

Also, "pretty" Cally Darker defrosts bread in the microwave and I'm sorry (not sorry) but this is unforgivable sociopathic behavior.

Anyway, to sum things up: I liked the premise, I mostly liked the climax, and this author apparently has a unique deal with his publisher where he gets paid per word. Seriously, you guys, there are way too many words in this book.

My overall rating: 2.8 stars, rounded up.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Angry Robot for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is October 28, 2025.

This was intense and has the makings of being a true horror phenomenon. I can’t wait to read more of Church

Haunted military base… again. Pretty standard horror, but I can’t get over how a podcaster, fifty years later, tracks down everyone alive and ready to spill their guts. Life is weird like that

**spoilers ahead** thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

i hated it, unfortunately. i was really excited for this book because the plot sounded so compelling but it ultimately fell completely flat. i’m still giving it two stars because there was part of me that, despite the issues i’m about to outline, still felt intrigued enough by the mystery to finish the story.

as a reader i’m extremely particular about prose and if a story has poor prose it will completely ruin my enjoyment. the prose in this novel was just not great in my opinion.

i also had issues with the pacing. it shouldn’t take me getting to 65% to finally feel like the pace is picking up. and even then, it started to slow down again towards the end and i found myself so frustrated at what was focused on. so much of this book could have been condensed.

i HATED how the women in this story felt like caricatures of women. i like to read stories and feel as if these characters could actually exist in real life but instead it was like someone who has only ever interacted with fictional iterations of women writing about women.

i hated the random and unnecessary inclusion of disordered thoughts from cally. it does not give her more depth by inserting irrelevant and outright insensitive ideas about weight loss and calorie intake when the plot itself is about solving a decades old murder case. all it did was trigger and annoy me. all of those comments could be cut from the story and it would have no influence on the plot whatsoever.

also cally and ellen’s relationship while i guess sweet at times, still felt rushed to me. obviously you’re bonded now because of this fucked up shit you saw together but i couldn’t connect to them. i can recognise the attempts at giving depth to the characters but again none of these attempts landed for me and i pretty much disliked every character! sorry.

roland’s inner monologue was so heavy handed like okay we get it.. i feel like he could have been a much more interesting villain if his characterisation wasn’t so in your face.


i don’t really have any major gripes with the conclusion of the story but the emotional beats didn’t hit for me because i already had a dislike and a disconnection for/from the story and characters. i’m sad because i wanted to love this but unfortunately it’s not the story for me!

I hadn’t read any of the author’s previous work, but the premise intrigued me, so I was pleased to receive an eARC from NetGalley to review.

Podcaster Cally Darker is investigating the mysterious murder–suicide of artist Tony Mathias and his family in the 1980s. The trail leads her to an abandoned RAF base, Warden Fell, which Mathias had visited while working on a new multimedia art installation. As Cally digs deeper into the site’s history, she realises that something terrible has been unleashed, and it’s up to her to stop it.

The first 30–40% drew me in completely. The mystery built gradually, creating a strong foundation for what I thought would be a tense and gripping thriller. While there were some unsettling moments, the horror element didn’t quite work for me. There were a few gruesome moments, but I never truly felt scared. At times, the pacing dragged, and the tension faltered. That said, the writing itself was good, the set-up was compelling, and overall it was good read, even if the horror lacked the impact I was hoping for.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions

DNF @ 25%

I'm dumbfounded at how 100 pages into this book virtually nothing has happened. There's so many tedious details that don't need to exist, I'm convinced if they were all edited out there would hardly even be a book. How many times am I going to read that Cally has seasonal allergies? Why are there an endless amount of hideously annoying tertiary characters to wade through? I'm convinced the author wanted to make every single person have the loudest personality possible, and maybe it's my seasonal allergies but it's giving me a headache.

Does it count as a horror novel when a quarter of the way through (and that's just as far as I could handle) the most horrific thing is the pacing? This is coming from a reviewer that has read The Count of Monte Cristo clocking in at 1200 pages.

There has to be something to keep a reader engaged, and one tiny thread of, "but why did he kill his family!?" is not even close to enough. I don't think any answer on Earth would satisfy me enough to spur me to continue reading.

Best wishes to Daniel Church and their future publications

3 stars.

I thought/hoped this movie got be something innovative, like how it is that audio tapes can come to be haunted, but, alas, it wasn’t to be and this is your standard, mid-grade horror about a haunted military base going for the long con. It was OK; it was amazing how a podcaster from nearly fifty years later found nearly everyone still alive, within driving distance and ready to spill their guts to a perfect stranger, no? Life is weird like that. Not MY life of course, but, you know, somebody’s.

This is novel for people who think they don’t write them like this anymore. A haunted media chiller set in the northeast of England this hits all the right notes- Ramsey Campbell, James Herbert, Graham Masterton- and it works all the way through. Highly recommended. The only thing wrong with it is an Echo and the Bunnymen song not released until 1984 is playing on the radio in 1983.

I was intrigued by the premise here, and I think imagined something more 'Mothman Prophecies' like than the actual story. There were some genuinely effective scares early on, but at some point the story started reading to me more as a superhero battle than an eerie horror novel. I also just didn't find some of the alliances that form between characters, or a romantic relationship that emerges, very plausible. But - maybe it was just me. I do think the story is well written. I just didn't care for it as a horror novel.

Thank you, NetGalley for the digital copy of The Sound of the Dark.
A true crime podcaster who is researching an unexplained crime, find both herself, and those few people willing to help her, in danger of being victims of an another crime.
The only concern that I have is based on the very small number of people that I know who still have machines that can play audio tapes. I wonder if anyone under the age of 35 we’ll even remember audiocassettes or recognize the tangles of brown audio tape on the front cover of the book.

This was very good. Exactly what I needed. I'll reread it before I leave a proper review on Goodreads.

If you're interested in 'The Bottomless Pit' and Eldritch monsters, this book might be for you.

A True Crime podcaster gets an email from a fan to check out the End of the World Murders. No, not the ones that come right to mind, but a different set of murders that has something to do with an abandoned military base with a strange past.

What a deliciously creepy tale! Reading at night, home alone…definitely set the mood!! I really enjoyed this and found myself really rooting for Cally. The mental health references and how we fight our demons but still fight back and remain resilient is a very important message. Don’t give up, even if it seems all hope is lost! Recommending to my horror lovers for sure! And the fact it’s coming out around Halloween? Perfection!