Book Review: The Return (Audio Book) by Rachel Harrison / Women in Horror Month

Title: The Return

Author: Rachel Harrison

Publisher: Audible/Berkeley

Page Count: 304 Pages / 9 Hours, 34 Minutes

Publication Date/Year: 2020

Narrator: Sara Scott

Genre: Horror

Rachel Harrison’s debut novel, The Return, has been on my radar, probably since it published a couple of years ago. Three friends are surprised when their friend, Julie, disappears. Julie went hiking and never returned. Many people think she’s dead, but not Elise. Elise assumes Julie will return. She goes through the motions of attending the funeral (which happens a year after Julie disappears), but she also loses touch with Mae and Molly. Until Julie does return exactly two years after she vanished, Julie’s friends, Elise, Molly, and Mae, organize a weekend getaway at the Red Honey Inn, an exclusive, new, themed hotel in upstate New York. Julie is the last to arrive and this weekend is her friends to see her. Julie is much thinner, she looks sickly, a pale imitation of her former self. Julie is also acting strangely, for example, she now eats meat. Before she disappeared, she was a vegetarian. There are only occasional flashes of Julie’s former self.

Harrison frames her story through the voice of Elise, who as I suggested above, was the least concerned of her three “living” friends about Julie’s fate largely because she was closer to Julie than her other friends. Elise is a loner, somewhat self-imposed, compared to Mae and Molly. It was pretty easy to identify with Elise for me, Harrison did a nice job of making her situation grounded. For example, I thought it was a very nice touch that Elise expressed concern over the weekend getaway. First she thought it might be too much too soon, but second, and what gave the story that much more of a genuine feel is that Elise was concerned with the cost of going away to a fancy hotel. A seemingly small detail like that goes a long way to allowing the reader to “buy in” to what is happening in the story. Of course, with Elise as the narrator of the story, we only get her opinions on her friends and the situation.

Elise’s trepidation is a hint of the unsettling nature of the story that will unfold. A sense of dread slowly creeps into the story. The hotel is eerie, for starters. While it isn’t as haunted as say, the Overlook, it does give off a vibe of not quite being normal. The mountain setting doesn’t help, either. The limited number of staff, as Elise relays to us, come across as almost too perky. Each of the four characters is in their own themed room, each room feels like it could be in a Tim Burton movie.

As I said, the three friends realize Julie is very different. There’s an odor about her, Julie’s teeth are falling out, and she only seems to have an appetite for raw meat and alcohol. Elise soon thinks she’s seeing shadows moving, adding to her unease and an overall sense of being haunted. Julie’s presence continues to unnerve the three friends, with Mae and Molly urging Elise confront Julie about her memories and her appearance.

I don’t want to go too much further with plot details, but suffice it to say, Harrison does a fantastic job with an unsettling narrative. The creep factor increases as the novel heads to its inevitable conclusion, with some of the elements being explained, others not so much.

At times, Elise explained things that didn’t require explaining. But in the little moments, the intricacies of the friendship of these four women, Harrison excels. As I said, sometimes the smaller “devil in the detail” elements can pay it forward for the larger narrative. Overall, Harrison manages to infuse her narrative with a very strong pull that was difficult to deny.

An impressive horror debut. I’ve seen this novel labeled as a feminist horror and I suppose with the majority of characters being women (Tristan, Julie’s husband is the lone significant male character) I suppose that could be true. What The Return wound up being for me was a gripping, horror novel that was told with well-measured reveals. I guess I’d say folks who enjoyed the film The Descent would likely find a lot to like in this novel.

Highly Recommended

Book Review: The Bird Eater by Ania Ahlborn / Women in Horror Month

Title: The Bird Eater

Author: Ania Ahlborn

Publisher: 47 North

Page Count: 267 Pages

Publication Date/Year: 2014

Genre: Horror

Over the past few years, I’ve come to be a fan of Ania Ahlborn’s horror novels. Some are flat out horror stories featuring ghosts and demonic children, others feature serial killer families. The latest novel I’ve read by Ania Ahlborn, The Bird Eater, is a novel about a haunting; a haunted place and a haunted person. It also features something that could be classified as an evil presence.

Aaron has had what some may call a challenging life; he didn’t know his mother and the aunt who raised him (and who he thought of as a mother) died when he was young. The opening chapter is from the point of view of Aaron’s aunt/mother figure. She provides minimal details about his mother except that she was unstable and killed herself (which she doesn’t tell Aaron) shortly after Aaron was born. Despite that, Ahlborn paints a fairly nice picture of Aaron’s life growing up in this unique family. That is until his Aunt is killed at the end of that first chapter. Fast forward twenty years, Aaron is fighting addiction and separated from his wife after their son Ryder died in an automobile accident. In other, Aaron is a haunted individual. His therapist suggests he return to the home in Arkansas where his aunt raised him and renovate the house, Holbrook House, which has laid abandoned since he left when he was a teenage twenty years ago.

Aaron re-connects with some of his old high school friends, including his old high school sweetheart Cheri. His departure was rather sudden when he was a teenager, a couple of the friends (Cheri included) thought he was dead. In those twenty years, Holbrook House has become a local legend, thought to be haunted. His old friends have a tough time understanding why Aaron would want to stay there given the house’s history and his history with it.

Aaron isn’t prone to believing in the supernatural. So when a young boy seems to be stalking him, Aaron thinks it is just an annoying teenager. When dead birds continue to pile up on the ramshackle house, Aaron has a tough time explaining that to his friends. The creepy kid gets closer, taunts Aaron, and even vandalizes Aaron’s vehicle.

Aaron’s sanity begins to slip as he sees the boy more often, he descends into despair over his ruined marriage and dead sone. He questions what is real, self-medicates, and consumes more alcohol. His friends worry about him, but he has a tough time breaking from his cycle of self-destruction. After relatively slow build, and that great foundational first chapter, The Bird Eater draws to a heightened and potent conclusion.

So, let’s get this out of the way, shall we? Anytime a story features a house with a Proper Name, chances are that house is haunted. Those chances go up to 100% when the Named House is central to the Horror story. Holbrook House is no exception, rather, it proves the rule. Looking at Aaron, he is very much an unreliable narrator, especially as he relays his harrowing experiences with the creepy kid and Holbrook House to his friends. His personal demons and haunted presence mirror the haunted nature of Holbrook House Ahlborn walked the line of reality and supernatural quite finely, especially as she pulled Aaron to the conclusion of the novel.

There are quite a few implied connections between characters and elements throughout the story. Clues blatant and subtle that, as a reader, I found enjoyable in the reading experience. In that respect, The Bird Eater was very successful as a conversation between reader and writer. Aaron seems to be the latest (or current) person affected by Holbrook House, there is a deeper history to the house and area that Aaron discovers and hints that Holbrook House isn’t quite done torturing people.

Very creepy with a magnetic narrative that kept me reading, The Bird Eater is another excellent horror tale from the mind of Ania Ahlborn.

Highly Recommended

Book Review: The Winter People (Audio Book) by Jennifer McMahon / Women in Horror Month

Title: The Winter People

Author: Jennifer McMahon

Publisher: Audible

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell & Kathe Mazur

Lenth: 10 hrs and 45 min

Publication Date/Year: 2014

Genre: Horror

Jennifer McMahon is a best-selling writer of suspense novels, some of which easily fall into the horror genre, like this particular novel, The Winter People. I’ve been wanting to give her work a try for a short-while now and have been wavering on which book would be my first from her and decided on this one, the creepy description was intriguing. I’m also a fan of stories told in parallel timelines, which is a feature of this novel.

While both storylines take place in West Hall, Vermont, one timeline is told in 1908, during an uncompromising and difficult winter. Sara Harrison Shea’s* daughter Gertie dies during that winter and unfortunately, Gertie isn’t the first child of Sara and her husband Martin to lose. In denial, Sara puts the full blame for Gertie’s death on her husband Martin. She is driven beyond the bounds of sanity to do anything to see her daughter one more time, she is convinced her daughter hasn’t died.

* I'm always wary of characters with three names like that, who are constantly referred to by their first, middle, and last name. Lots of serial killers go by the three names and characters with three names tend to not be the most...stable?

In the “current timeline” there are additional parallel stories occurring: Ruthie and her kid sister wake up one day and their strict mother Alice has disappeared. Oh, by the way, these folks live in Sara Harrison Shea’s old home. There have been a spate of missing people in the West Hall area, specifically where Ruthie and her family live, and Ruthie is worried her mom might be the latest victim of some cruel and twisted presence. Adding to the creepiness is the dark history surrounding Sara Harrison Shea. She was labeled a witch, and supposedly had a book that could bring the dead back to life. These living dead people have been dubbed, by the local populace, as Winter People.

Adding another layer of parallel story is the arrival of a woman named Katherine, who is mourning the recent loss of her husband as well as the death of her son not so recently. She is drawn to West Hall when she learns her husband made an unannounced visit there just before he died.

McMahon has a great knack for compelling narrative. She switches between the parallel stories in a deliciously powerful manner. What do I mean? We’ve all had that “oh just one more chapter” thought cross our minds when we’re invested in a good book. McMahon is really good at implanting that thought in readers’ heads.

Of course one of the most enjoyable elements of stories told in parallel narratives is trying to figure out how those narratives cease to become parallel and intertwine. McMahon does a great job with this storytelling element as well, and is a complement to that whole “just another chapter” thought.

I felt ingrained in these character’s heads with each switch of viewpoint, Jennifer McMahon built a solid foundation for them that allowed for a great deal of empathy. I will say; however, I found Ruthie’s little sister somewhat annoying, but I suppose that is kind of the purpose of the character.

My issue; however, is with the audiobook edition which has two performers/narrators. The present day narrator is fine, excellent actually. The narrator who performed the story in the past sounded strained as if she were trying to whisper, or whisper shout. I wish audiobook narrators and producers would stop with this trick, which is not dissimilar in annoyance to how darkly streaming shows are shot these days.

In the end, The Winter People was a thrilling, creepy, compulsive read. It’s no wonder Jennifer McMahon is a best-selling writer, she spins a compelling, tale. I'll be seeking out more of her work in the future. This book should appeal to horror readers and thriller fans, as well.

Recommended

Women in Horror Month (2022)!

March is Women in Horror Month, a celebration of women's contributions to the Horror Genre. A few of the bookstagrammers and bloggers I've been following are highlighting works by women in the horror genre during the month of March. This includes the Ladies of Horror Fiction, who is hosting a readathon, which functions as a pretty good "to-read" list. 

Another great way to find some goods books to read in the spirit of this month is to follow the  #WomenInHorrorMonth and #WiHM hashtags on twitter or Instagram. You could als follow Ladies of Horror Fiction on Instagram & Twitter and Mother Horror/Sadie Hartmann on Instagram or Twitter for good recommendations. Hell, those accounts should be followed regardless if you happen to enjoy horror.

For my part, I've got a review posting here on Wednesday (03/09), of an excellent, spooky novel I recently enjoyed as an audiobook. I may have one more audiobook review of a book I just started enjoying recently; a non-audio book review of another recent favorite writer, and perhaps an author profile going live over the course of this month. Life outside the pages (and earbuds for the audiobooks) may dictate what happens 'round here. Could be more, could be less.

All that said, here's a picture of my puppy, Dusty, sitting with me while I read the excellent Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes (a.k.a. Stacey Kade), which I reviewed for SFFWorld.