Review: Whispers in the Dark by Laurel Hightower @HightowerLaurel @nightworms #nightwormswhispers #JournalStone #atbr2020 @jessmapreviews
Whispers in the Dark
by Laurel Hightower
A Night Worms book party!
Publisher: JournalStone
Publish Date: December 7, 2018
Paperback
318 Pages
Standalone
Genres: Horror, Thriller
Rose McFarland is a trained killer--a Memphis S.W.A.T. sniper with a secret. Her team knows about the burn scars that lurk under her clothes, a legacy of the house fire that killed her father and brother sixteen years before. Her supervisors know that she spent two years in a rehabilitative facility, healing and learning to cope with the emotional trauma of the fire. But no one knows about the visions that drove her there, angry spirits that consumed her childhood, alienated her from her family and made her doubt her own sanity--the Whispers.
When Charlie Akers, a half-brother she never knew, ends up on the wrong side of Rose's rifle, she unwittingly sets off a chain of events that puts her family in the middle of increasingly dangerous paranormal visitations. Charlie won't stay dead, and soon ghosts from Rose's past are creeping back into her life. People she's killed in the line of duty, family she thought long buried, every one of them under the influence of Rose's greatest fear, the Whispers themselves.
As the walls between our world and the world of the dead grow thin, Rose will have to face her old nightmares to stop the Whispers from breaking free. If she can't, it won't just be Memphis that falls to the dead--there will be no safe place left on earth for the living.
My Review:
A woman named Rose who is a mother and S.W.A.T sniper with fierce loyalty, a sordid and painful past and a fierce personality - this is a woman you do NOT want to mess with. What can I say? I fell in love with this book. Solid writing, a very interesting story line, some shiver inducing scenes and characters that felt extremely human. What more do you need?
I absolutely love Rose's characters. For all that she's endured, she has risen above and yet now she's in for the fight of her (and her children's) lives. I appreciate that the men around her have supporting roles and she's not a character who depends on them to take the wheel. Absolutely engaging, I was riveted from the very first chapter and didn't feel like the book let up much throughout the entire read. I do wish that the synopsis didn't mention that Charlie is her half-brother as I felt this was a good reveal within the story that would've been more impactful had that piece of news hadn't already been known. But that's just being nit picky.
Debut novel?! So very impressed with this entire story. As an avid thriller and horror lover, this book encompasses both of these so well that it's like this was written for me. (I'm just gonna pretend it was.) Then I see that Hightower is a paralegal who loves beer, bourbon and horror movies and I know that I would absolutely hang out with her because I resemble all of those!
I will be waiting (impatiently) for Hightower to grace us with another book. Until then, I'll try not to let the whispers get to me.
★★★★★
Jessica's Review:
For those horror and thriller fans out there, this is the perfect mashup of those two genres! WHISPERS IN THE DARK isn’t what I was expecting and I absolutely loved all of the twists and turns that Hightower threw at us.
A bad ass female protagonist and plenty of action and thrills to go around. I almost don’t want to describe too much because I loved going into this knowing as little as possible. Paranormal elements, gore, and evil around every corner. Rose is a force to be reckoned with and the author does a great job developing all of the characters for us so we get a more rounded image of them. The Whispers – well I think those will haunt you for awhile after putting this one down.
Once I picked it up I flew through it. Only positive to being sick, I have zero interruptions and responsibilities besides getting rest – and the best way to do that is to binge a horror thriller novel. I feel that Hightower was able to weave everything together in the end and I was satisfied with how it all ended. Sometimes there are too many unanswered questions, but I feel like she got it all for us. Overall, if you love horror and the paranormal, then pick this one up. If you want a binge read and want to support a new author? Add this to the TBR now! I can’t wait to see what Hightower releases next for us.
5 stars
Ah! I snagged an ebook of this but haven't had the chance to dive in yet! Thanks for the reminder!!
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