The Seven Visitations Of Sydney Burgess - Andy Marino

Horror

Rating: 8.5/10

I hesitate to put this in writing, lest I jinx it, but the book world may have been delivered an exceptionally promising horror writer in Andy Marino. Truly good horror fiction, which to be clear is a rarity, must be a palpable experience for the reader. This is one of those.

Sydney opens her front door, expecting to luxuriate in some me time and is instead confronted by a masked intruder who knocks her unconscious during a struggle.  When she awakes in the hospital and tells her story of a harrowing escape, it turns out that the police have a different story.  And entirely different one.  And at this point things begin to unravel for Sydney, in ways that are both ceaseless and insidious.

I went into this book thinking I was going to be reading the story of a woman haunted by a home invasion.  Oh, she is haunted alright, but not by what you might think.  And with every part of the story, broken down into the visitations referenced in the title, I thought that I finally got it.  Nope, the author had only just begun to tease and terrify me.

Brutal and devasting in all the ways you can imagine, and many more you cannot.

It must be noted that beyond the ingenious plot, the writing here is a triumphant use of language and its arrangement.

My thanks to NetGalley, Redhook Books and the author for the advanced readers copy.

Book Pairing(s): The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, Wonderland by Zoje Stage, Cabin At The End Of The World by Paul Tremblay