Molly’s dad is a practical joker, a proper wind-up merchant, his sense of humour holds no bounds and when, what he thinks is a trick at his expense backfires he is left feeling a little unusual.
His silliness stoops to new and more juvenile levels but strangely he has no memory of his bad behaviour.
Things go from silly to serious when these events turn into regular blackouts and Molly’s dad reveals secrets from his past that may have implications on his present day mental health.
With his family and friends trying to support him and come to terms with living with someone who may have a Dissociative Identity, or Multiple Personality Disorder it’s only his daughter Molly who wonders if there is more to his illness than the psychiatric team can deal with.
Dark bleatings my lovely tribe! Today I’m reviewing a novel, a nice creepy novel that – as you might guess by the title and cover – *might* include some sort of demon. Possibly a possession.
So, in general, I enjoyed the story and this was largely down to the author’s character work. I really enjoyed their personalities and relationships, and they felt real to me. The dynamics felt familiar and warm, and despite the horror unfolding in the plot, it was weirdly warm. I especially loved Molly’s relationship with her dad.
I have a couple of criticisms so let’s just get them out of the way because I hate bringing up criticisms., and this will seem a bit vague because I’m avoiding spoilers. I guess my biggest gripe is that there was a huge question posed about what was happening with Wayne, but I knew exactly what was going on the whole time and there was never really a mystery for me. The thing is, I don’t think we’re supposed to know, I think we’re meant to be conflicted. However, because we get this story through Molly’s eyes, it was quite obvious what was happening. Had she not personally experienced certain things, I think this could have been avoided. For this reason, the story dragged in the middle a bit for me.
Now let’s move on from that discomfort to what I liked!
Something that I thought worked particularly well is that when Wayne (Dad) starts acting strangely, the author didn’t go too far with it. His behaviour does escalate and become stranger and more extreme, but she didn’t just throw us right into “oh look, he’s on the ceiling” or something. Possible possession stories normally open with something extreme, something that throws us into the danger with a bang, but in this case we got a slower build, and I really appreciated that element of it. Wayne is just a bit unsettling at first, but those cold fingers of dread are clutching you before you realise it.
I also really enjoyed the resolution. The themes in this story worked so well for me. I enjoy great scares as much as the next person but the underlying thing in this story, for me at least, was just good, old-fashioned love. There doesn’t seem to be enough of that in the world right now, and I’m grateful to stumble upon it in my horror from time to time.
PS. The title is just so cute.
I’d recommend this novel to fans of possession stories, and people who are intrigued by mental health mysteries. If you’d like to check out the book, you can find it below:
Happy Goat Horror 
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