Dead Eleven - Jimmy Juliano - Top Book Pick!

Horror

Rating: 9/10

A great way for an author to hook me in is with a powerful opening. In this phenomenal debut, we start off with a dear reader letter. One with a warning. That we won’t believe the story we are about to be told. That evil dwells in the places we least expect it. And that it will be revealed to us exactly the nature and depravity of that evil.

We know within the first dozen pages or so that something is off about Clifford Island. There are strange things happening. The residents seem stuck in a time loop and have some rather odd superstitions. Everything must be precise and on schedule. The rules must not be broken. Anything that deviates from that will result in dire consequences. Those consequences will be revealed to us over the course of this story. And what a story it is my fellow readers!

Willow is grieving the death of her young son when she gets a message summoning her to the island. She soon meets high schooler Lily with whom she begins to talk about the peculiar things happening around them. When Willow disappears her brother Harper comes to Clifford to find out what happened to her. He will discover something far more sinister than he could ever have imagined.

Using alternating narrative voices, letters, texts, and interview formats to tell the tale only enhances the terror for the reader, demanding that we keep turning the pages to find out what’s coming. Something wicked, that’s what.

A new favourite author for me, I immediately tried to find out when his next book would be…still waiting for my google searching to result in good news.

Book Pairing(s): Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak, The Homecoming by Andrew Pyper, Final Girls Support Group by Grady Hendrix, Night Shift by Alex Finlay