Now, just to get this out of the way, if you don’t like scary things, don’t read this book. Sincerely. You won’t like it. Now that’s out of the way.
Cleaving Souls, written by Chauncey Rogers, “Some dangers you cannot outrun. Some nightmares do not end when you wake. Something is watching Katherine Harris. She can feel it when she goes out. She can feel it inside her home. She feels it in her bed. Her husband, Alex, wants to blame her anxiety on her pregnancy, but he’s often away for work. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be stuck in a small town, to be trapped in a tiny house on a run-down street, to be alone. Kat does, and the feeling only grows worse. Whatever is going on, Kat’s certain that it’s far more serious than pregnancy jitters. When Alex takes Kat on a second honeymoon to get her mind off things, it becomes far more dangerous as well.”
Which is to say that Cleaving Souls, with a very Stephen King feel, opens with a detective investigating what looks to be an accidental death of a man who died messing with his circuit breaker. After that short intro, we move to Kat, pregnant, with a husband who is on the road a lot, and feels as if someone is watching her, following her, sleeping in her bed.
I really enjoyed this novel, and the twists and turns it takes. I enjoy that it isn’t cluttered with a ton of characters to try and keep straight and follows the best kind of stories at night. Those that could hold just a bit of truth to make it believable, and send a chill down your spine.
The writing is done so that each chapter is concise and exactly how long it needs to be without pushing filler in to make the pages reach a higher number. The characters are built from their actions and their dialog. The background is shown to us so subtly that the personality of the characters naturally flows and develops.
I also like these characters, in general. Each is different, but they also each have depth. Alex, the husband, really does feel real, and like a lost husband who is trying to understand his wife.
Now, this isn’t a novel for everyone. This is a novel for fans of dark literature.
Fans of horror, ghost stories, and stories about the psychological will enjoy this novel that took me far too long to get started reading. (Once I got past the intro chapter, I was hooked.)
*I was given a copy by the author in exchange for an honest review. For those of you who don’t know how honest my reviews are, please see the about page.
