Bark at the Ghouls

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.