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A review by screamdogreads
Murder Road by Simone St. James
4.0
"I'd seen a lot of bad things in my life - maybe more than my share. But I had never seen anything as terrible as that girl, as her face, as her undead hands. She was a dark, cold hole in the fabric of reality, punched through with a naked fist. The word that came to mind was unholy, though I had never been religious a day in my life. I had never imagined anything could be as vibrantly, furiously dead as she was."
Murder Road is a fantastic genre-bending blend of 90s nostalgia and supernatural horror. There's plenty of ghostly elements mixed together with a good bit of slasher/serial killer fun, a touch of gothic flare, and theatrical levels of small town drama, all packaged in a thriller format. At the heart of this story, there's a delicious little mystery to uncover too. This novel is so brilliantly unsettling, it delivers so wonderfully, on this campfire story like atmosphere, this is the kind of tale you tell your friends when all the light is sucked from the universe.
This is only my second read by Simone St. James, but what is abundantly clear, is that she knows how to create atmosphere, how to spin a tale so wildly unnerving and discomforting. The whole book, from start to finish, is rather eerie, a heavy sense of dread hangs over every page. Even in the slower sections of this novel, it's a fast-paced thrill-ride, entertaining without ever lagging, there's always something dramatic lingering around the corner, waiting to pull you under. Small town mysteries will always be something I gravitate towards, especially when, like this one, they are entwined in the supernatural.
Murder Road is a fantastic genre-bending blend of 90s nostalgia and supernatural horror. There's plenty of ghostly elements mixed together with a good bit of slasher/serial killer fun, a touch of gothic flare, and theatrical levels of small town drama, all packaged in a thriller format. At the heart of this story, there's a delicious little mystery to uncover too. This novel is so brilliantly unsettling, it delivers so wonderfully, on this campfire story like atmosphere, this is the kind of tale you tell your friends when all the light is sucked from the universe.
This is only my second read by Simone St. James, but what is abundantly clear, is that she knows how to create atmosphere, how to spin a tale so wildly unnerving and discomforting. The whole book, from start to finish, is rather eerie, a heavy sense of dread hangs over every page. Even in the slower sections of this novel, it's a fast-paced thrill-ride, entertaining without ever lagging, there's always something dramatic lingering around the corner, waiting to pull you under. Small town mysteries will always be something I gravitate towards, especially when, like this one, they are entwined in the supernatural.
"I had expected this, possibly even wanted it, but still, when I saw her pale face and long, brown hair, my chest seized with fear. My breath stopped and we locked eyes in the mirror. She was a girl, but she wasn't. She was a person, but she was also an empty hole where a person should be, sucking all the air through it and spreading darkness. I could see how thin her arms were, and I thought I could hear her breathe. But she wasn't breathing, was she? She'd been dead a long time, and this close I caught the faint scent of rot, earthy and sweet."
Cold Lake Falls has all the makings of a perfect strange little town, countless disappearances, residents submerged in gossip, barbed rumors, an enrapturing and beautiful location carved up by a road that brings about hauntings, it's all really very immersive and engrossing. This is small town horror done right, bone-chilling and hyper-captivating. So often, books like this, tease their supernatural stories, only to drop them for a bland and reasonable explanation, Murder Road however, decides to let the supernatural shine. This is a sensational paranormal mystery, a twisty, well-developed, nostalgia drenched page-turner. It's not one to be missed.
"If there was one thing I knew, it was the feeling of carrying someone's death on your hands. The knowledge that if you could rewind time, you could do something differently and that person would still be alive. Sometimes, you regret it, and sometimes you don't. But you carry it either way."