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A review by puzzledbooks
The Devourer Below: An Arkham Horror Anthology by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
3.0
Thank you to Aconyte Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this anthology in exchange for an honest review.
"The Devourer Below" gives eight short horror tales, each one providing more windows into the world of Arkham, Massachusetts, and its strange, terrifying happenings. The "hunger" that has overtaken the town unfolds bit by bit with each tale, from the origin of its lore to the story's present, and with that, the reader is left with a very well-rounded and overall satisfying story as each piece connects itself.
While each of the eight stories does give overall information on the lore for this "hunger", there were only two that I was really blown away by. That's not to say that the remaining stories were uninteresting or poorly written, because they certainly weren't, they just lacked that OOMPH and hook that keeps me turning pages with excitement. Stephen King referred to it as the "gotta" in "Misery" ("I gotta know how this ends", "I gotta stay up a bit longer to see what happens in this chapter"), and that's where the majority of these tales fell flat for me.
That said, I did enjoy the puzzle aspect of this anthology, where each story continued to build the lore and background to this horror in Arkham. If you enjoy horror anthologies, especially with a bit of a Lovecraftian vibe, I would definitely recommend this. To me, the tie-in with Greek mythology in the "Labyrinth" story, and the "Silence of the Lamb" vibes in "The Hounds Below" would be worth picking this one up.
"The Devourer Below" will be out on July 6, 2021!
⭐⭐⭐/5
"The Devourer Below" gives eight short horror tales, each one providing more windows into the world of Arkham, Massachusetts, and its strange, terrifying happenings. The "hunger" that has overtaken the town unfolds bit by bit with each tale, from the origin of its lore to the story's present, and with that, the reader is left with a very well-rounded and overall satisfying story as each piece connects itself.
While each of the eight stories does give overall information on the lore for this "hunger", there were only two that I was really blown away by. That's not to say that the remaining stories were uninteresting or poorly written, because they certainly weren't, they just lacked that OOMPH and hook that keeps me turning pages with excitement. Stephen King referred to it as the "gotta" in "Misery" ("I gotta know how this ends", "I gotta stay up a bit longer to see what happens in this chapter"), and that's where the majority of these tales fell flat for me.
That said, I did enjoy the puzzle aspect of this anthology, where each story continued to build the lore and background to this horror in Arkham. If you enjoy horror anthologies, especially with a bit of a Lovecraftian vibe, I would definitely recommend this. To me, the tie-in with Greek mythology in the "Labyrinth" story, and the "Silence of the Lamb" vibes in "The Hounds Below" would be worth picking this one up.
"The Devourer Below" will be out on July 6, 2021!
⭐⭐⭐/5