A Black and Endless Sky
Ratings3
Average rating3.3
One of Tor Nightfire's "Horror Books We're Excited About in 2022"! "Lyons burnishes his reputation as a rising horror star . . . [and] keeps the pages flying with fast-paced chills." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) From the author of The Night Will Find Us comes a white-knuckled horror-thriller set across the American Southwest. Road trips can be hell. Siblings Jonah and Nell Talbot used to be inseparable, but ever since Jonah suddenly blew town twelve years ago, they couldn’t be more distant. Now, in the wake of Jonah’s divorce, they embark on a cross-country road trip back to their hometown of Albuquerque, hoping to mend their broken relationship along the way. But when a strange accident befalls Nell at an abandoned industrial site somewhere in the Nevada desert, she begins experiencing ghastly visions and exhibiting terrifying, otherworldly symptoms. As their journey through the desolate American Southwest reveals the grotesque change happening within his sister, one thing becomes clear to Jonah: It’s not only Nell in there anymore. Pursued by a mysterious stranger who knows far more about Nell’s worsening condition than they let on, the siblings race to find a way to help Nell and escape the desert before they’re met with a violent, bloody end. But there are far worse things lurking in the desert ahead... some of them just beneath the skin.
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Rating: 4 leaves out of 5
Characters: 3.5/5
Cover: 3/5
Story: 4.5/5
Writing: 5/5
Genre: Thriller/Horror/Paranormal
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Yes!
First want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review! I was excited to see this up for an ARC because I had it on my TBR list. I was so engaged into the story that I got over half way through it on the first day. I didn't like 3 of the 4 characters. Nell, being 35, seemed to act like she was this 16 year old buttface. Her poor brother had just gotten a divorce and instead of being sympathetic she bashed him for “not being himself.” She got a little more points for being so determined when it came to her family but at the same time I didn't care for her. Anna was opposite. I liked her at first and she just ended up being a grade A buttface. Terry is well... an idiot. Just going to leave it at that.
I did think it was going to go a route given where it was taken place but it didn't and I don't think I am too mad at it. I wish Matthew would have given more on the situation with Nell but it just felt... a bit flat? I gave it a 4 because despite all that I said the story in WHOLE was really good. I enjoyed following each and every character and to be honest if it was a movie I would freaking watch!
Like a B horror movie that blows its special effects budget on the opening action scene and then proceeds to go downhill with a mediocre plot and bad acting, that is my opinion of this story. I thought I was in for a possible Lovecraftian tale when a high security industrial base in the Nevada desert blows open an entrance to something that's been buried beneath tons of earth for millennia and releases what has been trapped there. But then the story devolves into a cross country trip between an estranged brother and sister as they travel between San Francisco and their father's home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. These are two very unlikable characters whose whole existence seems to revolve around getting into fights with each other and various dangerous strangers. After the two cause mayhem and death in a biker bar and flee the scene, the sister manages to get possessed by whatever evil came out of the Nevada desert pit. The rest of the story mainly becomes a chase as bikers pursue the pair looking for revenge and a lady exorcist of sorts (who releases the possessed victims by murdering them and then taking on the released evil) also chases after them in order to relieve the sister of her evil burden. Many bloody encounters occur along the way as all unlikable parties are beaten, sliced, diced, punctured and shot, but yet manage to continue on, with the sister's venom-like intruder occasionally making an appearance.
