Against the Void

After years in the Queen's Army, Luke is suffering from PTSD. One night, in a drunken stupor, Luke beats a man to death. Luke's criminal past catches him a death sentence but is saved at the very last moment by his old friend Lazare . Luke soon joins Lazare and his crew on an expedition to obtain new land. While on this trip, he begins to see apparitions of his dead wife Lucille. Lucille was executed for witchcraft, although Luke knows Lucille was simply a healer using basic science to advance medicine. But, is that the truth? Mysterious, deadly events begin to unfold as Luke stumbles across an ornate dagger resting inside a stump surrounded by glowing mushrooms. What secrets does the mysterious land hold? What secrets will Luke unveil? Most importantly, will Luke discover the real reason for Lucille's appearances?

I don't usually read fantasy books but I enjoyed this dark novella. I love that the author spun fantasy elements with horror elements. It worked perfectly for the story.

The author created an interesting story about the Roanoke colony that I enjoyed a lot more than other spins on the tale. The novella is well written, entertaining and has a good amount of gore.

Characters are written well and dialogue between characters is natural and realistic. My favorite character is Lucille, but I won't say much about her because it's important to the storyline.

At first I was a bit bothered by the portrayal of Lucille by the other villagers, considering I am a practicing witch, and the heavy Christian elements made me nervous that witchcraft was considered “evil,” in this story, but that's not the case at all. Any hatred towards witchcraft is written on purpose to showcase the characters disdain and hatred for witches and witchcraft. After all the setting takes place during an era where Christianity was on the rise and hysteria about witches was extremely widespread, but the ending was satisfying and exactly the choice I expected Luke to make. Bravo to the author for catching me off-guard!

Overall Against the Void by Luke Bushman is a fun, eerie, dark read with copious amounts of gore to leave even seasoned horror fans like myself satisfied.