A review by kellyvandamme
Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner

4.0

Your Turn to Suffer tells the story of Lori. Lori is a physical therapist leading a perfectly normal life until one day she’s accosted in the supermarket by a woman with goat-like eyes who tells her to confess and atone – or suffer. Lori is not quite sure what she should be confessing nor what she should atone for, but before she can properly think things through, her suffering has already begun…

First targeted by clawed shadowy creatures, then tortured by members of the so-called Cabal, is Lori experiencing a lifelike nightmare, is it real, is it both? I wasn’t sure for quite a while, but in any case it’s terribly nightmarish and there I was, sitting in the sunshine on a balmy spring day… covered in goosebumps!

Before long, not only Lori is targeted. No one is safe, her co-workers, friends and family are all accosted, hurt, tortured to get Lori to confess and atone. What exactly? Well who knows?! Lori doesn’t. And so neither does the reader, although we do know that something must have happened, something bad that Lori has apparently forgotten, something that put into motion other actions or events, all leading up to… this. Call it what you want, butterfly effect, karma, it won’t stop until Lori has figured out what she did or didn’t do, and unravelling these memories really kept this mystery lover’s mind whirring!

The mystery of it all is definitely what I enjoyed most about Your Turn to Suffer. What is it that Lori has to confess, what does she need to atone for, what has she done to bring down the Cabal’s wrath on herself and everyone she knows and cares about? Speaking of, who are these Cabal members anyway? Are they real, are they a highly realistic figment of the imagination? Are they people, are they demons? So many questions spurring me on!!

One more thing we need to talk about. Now I’m going to assume that if you’re a horror reader and you’re interested in this book, you, like me, don’t have many triggers. But just in case, I’m going to mention two minor story elements that might not go down well with some readers. Firstly, there are some goings-on with a dead cat (it’s dead, you don’t see it suffer, only people suffer in this book!). I’m a cat person myself – although not as much as one of the characters ahem