A review by sharron_joy_reads
Beneath by Kristi DeMeester

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Cora is sent to the small town in Appalachia to report on a snake handling cult. She is reticent as her childhood of religious oppression and abuse is something she has left behind but takes the job. 

Leah is old enough to handle the snakes and though afraid wants to please her highly religious mother. 

But an accent evil lurks below the town’s surface and it is waking up. Can Cora save herself and the world from the horror beneath 

A fever dream of old time religious horror and ancient evil set in a small isolated town in North Carolina. It feels sleazy and demonic, not particularly scary but certainly uncomfortably creepy and explicit in places. 

Cora is haunted by her past and Leah is trapped in her future. It plays on the trope of weird cult really well, the townspeople are strange and insular, the preacher trapped and fighting his salacious thoughts, the hyper religious mother, the young woman destined for evil and the modern reporter with a dark violent past. 

A great read if you like cults or religious horror, I really enjoyed it!