BOOK REVIEW: ​EVERY FOUL SPIRIT BY WILLIAM GORMAN

The opening scene in the graveyard I found to be intoxicating. I was pulled into this gothic world of death and rebirth and the author had me hooked from here. I started reading this just before my shift at work, I did not want to put it down. I found myself quite excited for breaks just so I could read some more. I was that engrossed I actually finished it in one sitting.

This is what is needed in stories. To be hooked in from the get-go. To be so engrossed from the first sentence that you need to know more. To feel it running through your head all day long, questions that you desperately need to know the answers to. Perfection in print.
Our lead character, Katie, has spent a long time in a mental institution. She learned to cover her ‘abilities’, as well as learning to ‘fit in’ to her predicament. As a girl with special talents that regular folk could not understand, she was forced to normalize herself as to avoid any more ‘treatments’ from the facility.

Going back to her childhood home on the request of the police chief, an old friend of her and her father, he informs her of a gruesome string of unsolved murders, referring tentatively to a ‘what’ rather than a ‘who’. Ritualistic killings of children, a most destructive and disturbing crime. The chief needs Katies help in finding out just what is happening in this once quite town. He is aware of her abilities and knows she can help, she is the only one who can. I won’t really say anything else about the plot because SPOILERS!

Impressed would be an understatement with regards to the imagery used in this story. There is a poetic graphicness to it. The grotesqueness is somewhat beautiful in a way. I can’t think of the words to describe this, but the mental image from the mutating monster is very alluring for the horror monster fan. I was little disturbed as it is something I am terrified off, but I won’t give too much away. It has been written so well you can really put yourself there, right in the thick of the action.

There is something great about reading an author’s work of whom you are completely unfamiliar with. There are no expectations, no comparisons to be made, a blank slate. It is highly refreshing. I note that this is book 3 in the series ‘Blackwater Val’. I will certainly be looking forward to reading book 1 and book 2 now.

I don’t feel like it is ‘samey’ or just another horror story. I found it quite original and thought provoking. The level of thought that has gone into this piece of work is obvious. The story has been mapped out very well, and the level of detail blew me away. It’s a very immersive, quite horrifying tale. One I would highly recommend others to read.
A full five out of five from me for ‘Every Foul Spirit’ 

So . . . what am I told?

A familiar small town. A wrathful, metamorphic killer with supernatural abilities. A young girl whose time has come—angel of life, and death—is the only one who can stop his unspeakable deeds.

Katie Franklin has turned twenty-one at last, and been released from the Ransom Sanitarium. And hell has been released with her. Now it’s back to the Val, where monsters are real . . .

Something evil is stalking the shadows of Blackwater Val, and it wants lifeblood and flesh. What she finds waiting in the unhallowed darkness there will forever haunt her—and you. Return with her if you dare. To see the dead children. Feel their torment. To face the old terror.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

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