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Monday, September 23, 2019

BLOG TOUR & Review: One By One by D.W. Gillespie @flametreepress


One By One
by D.W. Gillespie

Thank you Anne Cater and Flame Tree Press for this copy and stop on the blog tour.


Publisher: Flame Tree Press
Publish Date: September 26, 2019
Paperback
Standalone
Genre: Horror

The Easton family has just moved into their new fixer-upper, a beautiful old house that they bought at a steal, and Alice, the youngest of the family, is excited to explore the strange, new place. Her excitement turns to growing dread as she discovers a picture hidden under the old wallpaper, a child’s drawing of a family just like hers.

Soon after, members of the family begin to disappear, each victim marked on the child’s drawing with a dark black X. It’s up to her to unlock the grim mystery of the house before she becomes the next victim.


A fan of all things dark and horrific, D.W. Gillespie has been writing horror, sci-fi, and fantasy for longer than he would like to admit. After years of daydreaming, he started taking it seriously in college after a creative writing class helped spark his motivation. After winning a local writing award, he realized that his path forward was clear.

In the years since, he’s been featured in many publications, both online and in print. He’s the author of more than a dozen novels, including The Toy Thief, Still Dark, and Handmade Monsters. For One by One, Gillespie was influenced by his experience of moving houses often when growing up. One particular house was supposedly haunted (according to previous tenants)and became specially inspirational, and he knew he wanted it to feature in one of his books as a character in the story.

A lifelong native of Middle Tennessee, he still lives there today with his wife
and two children.



My Review:


An old house with a sordid history that you can get as the best deal EVER?  NO THANK YOU.  Why do people continue to move into these houses that are in the middle of nowhere, especially knowing about all the death and despair that surrounds it?

Ok, ok.. I know people sometimes LIVE for these kinds of things.  And there's a certain appeal to living away from the swarms of people in the city.  But when strange things start to happen... um, GTFO! Haha.

What starts out as a standard creepy haunted house type of read, turns into a twisty family conclusion.  While very intrigued with the storyline and spooky feel, it lost some of the spook during the last half of the story.  I'm not quite sure what I think about the ending and how it all came together but I am sure that I was enjoying the feel.  The voices of the characters tended to get lost a little bit through the pages in my opinion and Alice felt much older than her age. (But I know some kids actually are like this).

I think I expected more creep factor from this, which waned from beginning to end.  However, it definitely gives you that tingly gothic vibe and certainly is keeping me a city girl.

★★★☆

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