by Red Lagoe

I LOVED this book. I am not playing around - this needs to be added to TBRs across the horror community right now.

An absolutely indelible collection of real-life atrocity. There are a myriad of themes here, but I leaned towards favoring the elements of day to day terror brought on by losing a child, battered women's retreats, and neglectful husbands. That good stuff, those twisty shocks. The turn of the page and physically shuddering at what you find. This is another one that doesn't have enough buzz. I haven't seen enough people out there reading this book or talking about Red's stories in general. This book came to me with zero expectations and maybe that is a good thing. This book was a perfect start to my "Ladies of Horror Fiction" 2020 reads.

16 stories in roughly 200 pages.

I will briefly touch on all the stories in this book in my video review, but here, I just want to highlight my top 4.

#4 - Helping Hands Retreat – a story of a woman who escapes an abusive husband, ends up at a retreat for battered women, only to realize it does not provide the help she was seeking.

#3 - Lucid Screaming - I don't want to give too much on this one away. I will just say it is about a heroin addicted mother overlooking the needs of her children.

#2 - Memory Lane - A father who has lost his child listens to a brief recording of the baby's voice over and over (and over). Twisty as hell.

#1 - The Astronomer's Mistress - My absolute favorite. An astronomer's affection for the night sky causes him to neglect his wife.

“Slice” was the funniest story for me. I mean it's not really funny, but you will see what I mean.

“Empty Nest” is important, but I don't want to say anything about it because it will ruin one of my favorite aspects of the book. 

This book was published by LaRed Books on 28^th February 2020.

5 Stars

Purchase on Amazon

Review by Well Read Beard
Twitter: @WellReadBeard

I received a copy of this from the author for review consideration.