I kept hearing whispers about this book. People were SO excited and wanted it so badly and those whispers stuck in my head but I hadn’t read the author and I REFUSED to visit Netgalley because I have absolutely zero willpower when it comes to their offerings. But then a few super early reviews came in and naturally I had a weak moment and hit up NetGalley and I am not at all sorry. Well, perhaps a wee bit because there was some animal stuff in here that was hard to read (prepare thyself) but trust me when I say this book is an experience that has the power to take your damn breath away. I don’t say that about a lot of books, hardly any at all actually, but this one managed to do it several times.

It’s about a horrifically bleak and terrible dark deed done by a few over-zealous young punks on a part of the reservation that did not belong to them. This memory will follow and haunt them (as well it should if you ask me). This book is painful to read but truly hard to put down at the same time. Whenever I had to put it aside to return to reality it lingered at the edges of my brain.

“When the whole world hurts, you bite it, don’t you?”

I struggled with this review. I kept starting it and stopping it fearing I’d never be able to do any kind of justice to it without spoiling the hell out of it and I am not going to do that. This book shocked me even though I was warned that it was going to do just that. I figured, “Nah it’s not going to get ME” but I was wrong. The writing is engaging and harrowing, the characters flawed and hard to look away from and it’s simply a beautifully tragic masterpiece of horror on so many levels with anguish so strong you can feel it stain your soul. Read it if you want your heart ripped out of your chest, chewed up, spit out, rubbed in the bloody dirt, and then super glued back together with your tears.

Brilliantly breath-stealing. Just go read it if this is at all something that you think you’re into. I'm giving this one a rare five star because it is deserving and this book is the reason why I am so miserly with my five stars!

I’m going to be honest here and say that I’m not a major fan of police procedural type books, movies or tv but I’ll always make an exception when several someones tell me I need to pay attention to something and that’s why I decided to read Whispers In The Dark. People on my Twitter feed would not shut up about it and now that I’ve read it I can understand the positive buzz.

Rose is a sniper with a painful past and when the book begins she is in a standoff with an irrational man. The scene is intense and shows Rose is calm, cool and knows what she’s doing but this event is more than it seems. Rose is also more than she seems and soon after finds herself and her family embroiled in a battle for their lives. The stakes are high and the revelations are chilling. You’ll have to read the book to discover them though because I am not a spoiler of books.

The best thing about this story, besides the history and the creep-factor and the ever-lurking dread, were the characters and their very complicated relationships with each other. They’re flawed, realistic, relatable - all of those things, and I really enjoyed reading their stories and reactions to events. Life is often messy, imperfect, frustrating, and disappointing and this book felt real to me because of the character’s interactions with each other and the realism and emotion written into the scenes. I still find it difficult to believe this novel was a debut. That sort of blows my mind.

I’m glad I listened to my horror people and gave this book a chance. I can easily recommend it to anyone looking to escape reality for a while and fall into a tension-filled novel with unforgettable characters.

I’m a little late to this one so I’ll only add my one cent instead of my usual two. You’re welcome, lol. Also, everyone else has already said all the things and said them better than I ever could at this point.

So I'll start off with my complaint because, sorry for those who don’t know, I’m kind of a jerk. This book about proper southern housewives and the possible pasty-ass vampire in their midst is set in the ’90s and I continually felt as if I were reading a book set in the ’70s. It might be because the whole housewife under the thumb of her man is rather foreign to me and it feels  outdated in the ’90s but I could probably chalk this up to different life experiences. Anyhow, I pretended it was set in the late ’70s and it was easier to swallow the fact that these ladies were feeling so beholden to their menfolk. And, argggghhh, these men. They are all so TERRIBLE. Terrible, horrible, evil, selfish creatures who were rude and condescending and infuriating whenever they were on the page.  I’m not even talking about the vampiric one either. He’s even worse but at least he has a bit of an excuse. He IS a monster. He is expected to behave like a monster (and damn does he ever!) The rest of these dudes are simply vile humans and I’m so glad all men weren’t like this in the ’90s and that’s all I have to say about that.

Whew, sorry about that. The rest of the book is fantastic. It’s full of dark humor and takes its time with the horror. The opening chapters set the scene and bring the characters and their daily struggles to life but when the horror happens hold on tight because things get creepy, disturbing, and gross. These ladies are smart and when no one will listen to them (see above) after children start disappearing and other horrible things happen, they have to take matters into their own hands and things get gloriously grisly. 

“Let me tell you something there’s nothing nice about Southern Ladies.”

I’d like to see a sequel where the husbands are taken care of properly in the end. And when I say taken care of properly, I mean served up on a platter instead of being waited on by their ladies. Sorry, but I can only speaketh the truth.

Dead to Her is Sarah Pinborough’s follow up to her pitch-black perfection of a thriller ‘Behind Her Eyes’. I LOVED that book so much. It was moody and evil and filled with horrible, selfish people doing horrible things to each other. Dead to Her is filled with an equal amount of evil and selfish people too but it took me a long time to warm up to the story because they were all beautiful, wealthy second wives and I was just “eh, who gives a cats bum about these witches and their inner thoughts”. This is where you call me a jerk and I totally agree.

“They were all poison one way or another and maybe she was the only one honest enough to see it.”

But somewhere along the line when the lusty interludes and evil goings-on began, my attention was caught and I couldn’t wait to see the devastation hit them all hard. This is the part where some people might want to tune out but I was there for it. I’m not going to pen a detailed review, this is a lurid thriller and the fun of them should be experienced by the reader and never spoiled beforehand.

This wasn’t a perfect read for me but I enjoyed it once it hooked me and I got over my dislike of the grasping second wife trope. There is a little voodoo, a little passion, a whole helluva lot of betrayal, delectable villains, and some nicely haunting turns of phrase as well as my favorite thing: secrets!

“Even in the sunshine, it seemed ghosts fought for breath.”