Angela has been a spirit painter for years. Channelling the spirits as they commit memories to canvas through her: childhood pets, favourite holiday locations, and sprawling homesteads. But now, something has changed.
The paintings take a dark turn just as her sister, Becky, returns from Italy. People burnt alive, their smouldering remains a vivid, visceral stain on Angela’s canvasses. Already disturbed, her life is thrown into turmoil when a right wing TV news presenter is found incinerated in a facsimile of her new painting.
As the artworks – and charred bodies – mount up, can Angela and Becky find out what’s happening, and how to stop it?
Dark bleatings, my spicy tribe! I am here to proudly review my first Kev Harrison read today, which is odd to say because until I read this, I was absolutely positive that I had already sampled some of Kev’s writing. I must have confused him with someone else, and in any case, I’m super happy that I finally corrected that.
Pyres is about a painter called Angela, whose work isn’t so much hers, as the spirits’ that paint through her. She’s used to this and isn’t too freaked out about it, that is until she repeatedly paints the same picture and wonders what the spirit is trying to tell her with this onslaught, and even if it is a normal spirit that’s attached itself to her. Enter her sister, Becky, a carefree but loving sibling that obliges her sister but doesn’t really believe this whole “ghosts possess me and paint” angle. She thinks it’s a marketing gimmick, but avoids outright accusing her sister of being a spiritual fraud.
However, the weirdness becomes undeniable one night when Becky witnesses things she would never have believed possible, and she starts to wonder if she’s been wrong about her sister this entire time.
The first thing I loved about this story was the concept because it is creepy as all hell, and the opening with Angela painting…er…the horrible thing she’s painting, was so intriguing. I was reeled right in and loved how quickly the story swept me up.
The second thing I loved was the narrative style of switching between the sisters on each chapter, using first person voice. This is one of my very favourite ways to tell a story and I hardly ever see it, so not only was I in love with the style, but the author also did a really great job of showing us the characters and their relationship through each other’s eyes.
I flew through the book and though the action is trickled out in steady little bursts, the pacing is phenomenal. The author knew exactly when to amp things up, and when to give us a little quiet time. The only reason I ranked this 4/5 is because, for me, a 5/5 means it’s a perfect read, and there was one (major) element of this book that I felt deserved a bit more set up. There are clues through the narrative as to what’s happening and why, but the theme of the book doesn’t become apparent until the last couple of chapters, and I feel it might have been more effective if it had been expanded upon a little earlier. There was a lot of room to flesh it out, I think, and it was a great sting in an already awesome story, so I wish there’d been a little more.
Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend this is you enjoy creepy ghosts, supernatural themes, a little politics in your horror, and familial relationships. This has all of that and more wrapped up in a nice, blazing bow.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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