A dark twisted tale of flesh and blood.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this audiobook free of charge in exchange for an honest review.

I grew up reading horror, starting with The Outsider by H P Lovecraft and moving on to James Herbert and Clive Barker before widening into a broader spectrum of types but this has changed over the years. I find horror tamer these days, lacking the sense of darkness or aura of disquiet that I grew up with and so I've moved away from the genre of late.

Following a few good books in 2021 I've been trying different books that promise to contain scenes of terror and shock in the hopes of rekindling my love for the genre and so, did I find it here?

First let's make one thing clear, I've not read either Urban Gothic or The Freakshow and so I was naturally concerned that I'd be unsure as to what was going on. Thankfully, for the most part it isn't an issue as little is harkened back to in the book in a way that leaves you confused.

So we follow 3 primary groups, the deformed family led by Skug, sadistic cannibal mutants led by the evil Dr Midnight and a group of YouTube stars who spend their time visiting abandoned places. When the vast of Lost Places visit the Westgate Galleria for their show the last thing they expected was to fall victim to Dr Midnight and his cohorts.

With a wide range of characters ranging from normal men and women to truly unusual beings, the book would love it die by the narration and thankfully Dean Gallagher does a fabulous job of bringing life (and often screaming death) to all these characters, be them male, female or somewhere terrifyingly outside the genders and equally adds a decidedly creepy and psychotic vibe to each.

This leads us to scenes of intense torture, body mutilation, sexual diversity and canabilism. Now as someone who is used to intense horror, both in book and movies, there was nothing here that upset or shocked me but I'm fully aware that I'm in a minority here and there is more than enough here to upset peoples dinnertime.

Story-wise I enjoyed the dynamic between the two factions who call the Galleria home, but I did feel conflicted as I was sympathetic towards one group and, not knowing their history I was unsure if this was well-placed or not. Equally there were some threads to the story that were left loose at the end and so I assume these will be picked up in their respective authors' continuation of their own stories. If one thing's for sure, this has made me want to go back and check the earlier books out, as well as picking up any future ones as I really feel there's a brilliant story being told here.

In closing, for gore hounds and fans of horror, there is more than enough here to keep you interested and, while not something I find frightening, it is nothing if not entertaining.

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