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brennanlafaro 's review for:
Dead Daughters
by Tim Meyer
One night, Drew and Eve Lowery receive a polaroid of their daughter, tied up and murdered. The only problem is, their daughter is upstairs in bed. The back cover synopsis (you can click down below for it) gives a little more detail, but honestly this is all you need. From the beginning I got the vibe I got from Stephen King’s The Outsider in its’ first half, my favorite part. The vibe where the reader is thrown into a situation that can’t possibly exist and has to try and make heads or tails of it.
There are a lot of sub-genres that could be assigned here. Psychological thriller would fit well. Slasher could be loosely applied. Perhaps even science fiction if you dig deep enough, but I prefer to think of this as a mystery. What drew me in and held me was trying to guess where the story was going and what was going to be revealed next. Sometimes I would be close, but Tim Meyer always had a bit more to throw at me, consistently keeping me guessing and surprising me.
This may just be my experience, but I felt like a lot of the success of the book hinged on the first person narration. Drew is likable and we want to base our assumptions on his observations and experiences, but Meyer plants just the littlest seeds of doubt as to whether or not we can fully trust him. It adds another layer to taking the ride with the character because the reader is not just making assumptions based on things that are clearly presented to us. There are some elements to this character that were left ambiguous, or at least not fully filled in, and I would have liked a bit more, but as a fan of ‘draw-your-own conclusion’ style character development, I suppose I can’t complain too much.
While I would say suspense is the biggest selling point that Dead Daughters carries, there is enough violence and mayhem, especially in the third act to satiate the most rabid horror fans. Tim Meyer clearly made it a point with this novel to craft a story that would leave the reader guessing, and never quite comfortable that what they are seeing would be what they’ll get. Dead Daughters is out on April 16th from Poltergeist Press.
I was given an e-book copy by the publisher for review consideration.
There are a lot of sub-genres that could be assigned here. Psychological thriller would fit well. Slasher could be loosely applied. Perhaps even science fiction if you dig deep enough, but I prefer to think of this as a mystery. What drew me in and held me was trying to guess where the story was going and what was going to be revealed next. Sometimes I would be close, but Tim Meyer always had a bit more to throw at me, consistently keeping me guessing and surprising me.
This may just be my experience, but I felt like a lot of the success of the book hinged on the first person narration. Drew is likable and we want to base our assumptions on his observations and experiences, but Meyer plants just the littlest seeds of doubt as to whether or not we can fully trust him. It adds another layer to taking the ride with the character because the reader is not just making assumptions based on things that are clearly presented to us. There are some elements to this character that were left ambiguous, or at least not fully filled in, and I would have liked a bit more, but as a fan of ‘draw-your-own conclusion’ style character development, I suppose I can’t complain too much.
While I would say suspense is the biggest selling point that Dead Daughters carries, there is enough violence and mayhem, especially in the third act to satiate the most rabid horror fans. Tim Meyer clearly made it a point with this novel to craft a story that would leave the reader guessing, and never quite comfortable that what they are seeing would be what they’ll get. Dead Daughters is out on April 16th from Poltergeist Press.
I was given an e-book copy by the publisher for review consideration.