3.5 stars!

Hometown is an atmospheric, sometimes surreal tale of horror, revenge and abuse in a small town.

Sometimes there are wrongs that can never be corrected. Even death can't set things straight. In the town of Dalry, something is awry and it's up to a group of old high school chums to figure out what. This proves difficult, due to the influence of a dead childhood friend, who often pulls them out of the hometown they know into some sort of parallel world that looks the same, but...isn't. Terrors live in that parallel world and not everyone will survive.

I loved how the story was told and the direction it took, but I had problems with differentiating the characters and their relationships with each other. It took a fair amount of the story for me to pull everything together as far as who everyone was and what was happening. Once I was able to get the characters straight, I didn't feel I knew them well enough to develop a deep caring for them. I felt more for the characters that were already dead, to be honest.

There were some instances where the writing reeled me right in, but there were also instances where a little more editing or proofreading might have helped. (The use of the word scrapping instead of scraping, for instance, happened more than once.)

Overall, though, this was a heart-wrenching story about a damaged family and how that damage can ripple outwards like a stone tossed into a pond-affecting everyone it touches. This tale does have a lot of heart, it just takes some patience and care to get there. Recommended because your mileage may vary and the issues I had may just be mine and mine alone!

You can get your copy here: Hometown

*I received a free e-copy in exchange for my honest review. This is it!* ( )

"Snake Plissken would get us out of this."

I haven't read horror in ages. This was a good return to the genre, and my first read from Luke Walker.

Initially I couldn't avoid comparing it to Stephen King's IT (the book, not filmed adaptations) but it soon diverges into its own thing, and once that happens it is a cracking good read.

The blurb on Amazon reads like it was written from an earlier draft, and it needs a trigger warning for references to child abuse (not the worst I've read, but still discomforting).

Potential trigger aside, recommended. ( )