Dead Spots= places that are abandoned, but were inhabited, important, and/or loved back in their heyday. A Dead Spot can be manipulated.
Book opens with Mackenzie happily marries to Tanner and 8 months pregnant with their son, Joshua. She loses the baby. My heart broke for her as she grieves and no one really understood her grief. Tanner leaves her. She loses her job. She come to the realization that their friends were really Tanner's friends. Her best friend lives across the country.
Fast forward 6 months later and Mackenzie is freshly divorced and on her way to her mom's. Her mom happens to have OCD, but not not is spend on her mental disorder. What did come across, was her mother was a judgmental bitch. Mackenzie almost hits a deer and stops to explore an bandoned cafe and accidentally gets trapped in a Dead Spot. 
What follows is a nightmare world, fears are given free reign. Nothing and no one is as they seem or first appear. Maybe they are trustworthy.....or not.
Mackenzie was frustrating at first. She did, eventually, morph into someone who kicked ass and took names, but it took the whole book to get there. I did like that there really isn't any romance in this one- it was fitting for the character and setting. Lust yes. Love no. I did like this, I was invested.
I would have liked more at the end. It was a little too abrupt. A little more would have been nice. 

Halloween Bingo:  Modern Masters of Horror

Spoilers behind page break.

“Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in.” ― Shannon L. Alder

Scarlett Bernard is one pragmatic lady. Of course, she has to be considering her job is supernatural crime scene cleanup. As in, get in, clean up the mess, steal the body, and book the hell out of Dodge before the cops arrive. She is truly good at her job, and her boss, the cold and distant Dashiell, Master Vampire of the city, may be scary, but he pretty much allows her to do her job without interference. But then, the worst happens.

She gets caught. Caught by a newly minted detective, Jesse Cruz, just after she arrives at a scene more bloody and grotesque than any she has ever seen. What happens next is fast paced action with terrific world building and interesting characters. I first read the book back in 2012, and enjoyed it then. This time I listened to the Audible edition narrated by Amy McFadden (one of my favorite narrators) and, as sometimes happens, I liked it even more as I listened. Scarlett is a strong character with a well-developed, though brutal, background and is likeable. She isn’t perfect, but that is what makes her interesting. She has taken horrific hits in her life – but the one she walks into later on is absolutely devastating and Olson does a rather wonderful job of writing the horrors of betrayal. I would have liked her to be more mature in her interactions with others – her tendency to cope a nasty, self-serving attitude at times was a downer. I am hoping that the next books will show growth in her as a character (especially since I own them all). Her behavior isn’t as horrendous as other female characters in the genre, but I am hoping for more maturity in upcoming works.

There are some things that were irritating. The Dreaded Love Triangle. Irritating! Not only do love triangles make me retch, this one felt stilted and unnecessary, dragging down the storyline. Also, the POV switches between characters and from first to third person erratically and unnecessarily. Irritating, but not as irritating as the lurrve (titter titter, Groan) triangle. Olson’s take on werewolf psychology was more interesting than a lot of other books in the genre, and her friendship with the Alpha and Beta were more realistic than many others. The Alpha isn’t as ‘Alpha’ as in other books (thank the Goddess!) and the tortured Beta was very realistically portrayed in the vein of “I never wanted this in the first place.”

So, flawed, it isn’t perfect by any means, but I still enjoyed it as much as I remembered, and Amy’s narration was, as always, spot on.

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Have you ever read a book where you were constantly hoping that the whole thing was a nightmare that didn’t really happen? That the main character would wake up, and things in her life were totally the opposite of what was happening? Dead Spots by Rhiannon Frater did just that for me. Her books have never disappointed me. She is such a skilled horror writer that everything that happens in the book, was freakishly scary, and that your heart can’t help but beat faster and harder when the big bad scarys showed up.

In Dead Spots by Rhiannon Frater, main character Mackenzie (aka Mac) goes through a horrible life changing ordeal. In the blink of an eye, Mac’s perfect life – complete with perfect husband and a child on the way – disappears. The baby that she and her husband had so eagerly waited for is stillborn, which tears her and husband apart. Throw in the mix a mother who messes with her mind every chance she gets (like say…saying it’s all Mac’s fault that she lost the baby), getting back on her feet is not an easy one.

To get away from the memories and her pain, Mac decides to move back to Texas with her mom and start over. Little did she know that a near miss driving accident involving a deer, will change everything. Like in horror movie style, our heroine decide to venture into an abandoned café/bistro in the woods (here we go…) and finds herself getting stuck in a Dead Spot.

A dead spot is basically a doorway to an inbetween world. Where things of nightmares are very real, and all seem to be thirsting for Mac and her life glow. But Mac is also lucky to have run into Grant, as soon as she steps into the dead spot. Mac does everything he can to keep Mac safe, including telling who is and is not safe to talk to.

But when things that Mac says are starting to contradict the things she’s experiencing, who can she turn to and trust so that she can figure out a way to get out? With killer clowns and crazy ass wraiths hot on her trail, Mac must decide who to trust and who to avoid…but learning who is trustworthy is a scary path…one that might keep Mac trapped in the dead spot forever.

Let me as you this…Have you read any of Rhiannon Frater’s books? She is seriously one talented chick, and her eye for horror and terror is definitely spot on. Dead Spots is another book that you should add to your must read lists. Although not as grotesque and as gory as her other works (i.e. her As The World Dies series – which was amazeballs), the visions that her words conjured up in my head freaked me out.

That frickin’ clown? OMG… And that’s the thing! The world in Dead Spots is one where anything from nightmares can appear out of nowhere in the blink of an eye! That’s what I loved about it. Everything was guessing what could possibly happen next, if the character that we just met is someone who can be trusted or wants Mac killed, if Mac is actually going to make it out of the dead spot world and back to reality, if she’s actually going through the scary crap or if she’s dreaming this all up while unconscious from a car accident.

The fear mixed with the sadness and pain of what Mac went through had my emotions going all over the place while reading this book. Fans of reads that will keep you up at night and afraid to close your eyes will really enjoy Dead Spots by Rhiannon Frater. I cannot WAIT to see what she has coming out next!