Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean things get easier…
Charlie and Naomi Oates had the perfect life with their daughter Jessica – until their house burned down with them inside. Now Charlie and Jessica find themselves trapped in the family home as ghosts, while Naomi rejects Heaven because she doesn’t want to be there alone. But there are reasons Charlie and Jessica were left behind, and Hell has taken an active interest in bringing the family together – on its own terms. Can they reunite, even with lovesick angels, demonic cell phones, a snarky lightning spirit, and more standing in their way? Or will the dark secrets they’ve kept from each other end up costing them everything?
Because if you think your family is Hell, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Dark bleatings, my lovelies! I’m talking about a spooky book today from one of the loveliest authors in the business. It has death, ghosts, otherworldly beings (besides ghosts), religious themes, and also deep family connections. This is horror but, to me, this is also majorly about love. Let’s dive in!
Charlie wakes up dead. Yes, rather deceased. It appears that his house somehow caught fire, killing not only him but his wife and daughter too. He quickly finds his daughter, Jessica, but his wife, Naomi, is nowhere to be found. They don’t know what the afterlife situation is, only that there surely must be some sort of afterlife, and for some reason, they’re not in the same place as Naomi. When we get to Naomi, her situation is very interesting indeed, as is a particular choice she makes.
So, Charlie and Jessica are ruminating over life, death, and if the rules between them should be different now that they’re ghosts. Jessica is struggling greatly with being confined to the house for a multitude of reasons, and Charlie is struggling with this too, plus worrying about the fates of those he loves. There’s also something lurking in the basement and they both feel strongly about it, but – and this will become a major problem – they also have different opinions about what’s down there.
For reasons I don’t want to elaborate on too much because of spoilers, this story really reminded me, at times, of Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil. There’s a significant religious aspect to it but I didn’t find it preachy (I honestly have no idea what the author’s religious affiliations are, if he has any at all, I certainly didn’t read them either way here). This neutrality in the authorial voice combined with these elements made for what felt like an immense merging of horror with grandiose fantasy, with no idea about where things were leading. There are shocking revelations, one of which had me clapping my little hooves together in delight because it was so well planted and yet so delightfully surprising.
I’m not religious myself but I have read the Bible a couple of times and would like to think I know it sufficiently well, and this familiarity made me notice something about the structure of the plot in this novel. Tonally, I think it actually bears some similarity. Like the Bible, we begin with how things are, mysteries and trials and troubles unfold, and then the further we head into the final scenes, the more the fantasy veers sharply into “Oh good grief, is that actual brimstone and fire?!” Kind of like sliding out of those good Samaritan tales and right into the Book of Revelation. This mirroring worked extremely well, I thought.
I have but one criticism, and that’s that at times, the dialogue felt a bit repetitive. There were instances where we’d learn something and then a character would repeat it shortly after, and I think in this regard, things could have been nipped and tucked a bit, but in general I do love Dansky’s dialogue. He’s especially skilled with quickly showing us the nature of complex relationships through it, and establishing the different voices of all the characters.
If you’re a fan of stories of familial and immortal peril, fate, consequences, and love, set on a backdrop of fantastical but horrific religious imagery and themes, I think you’ll enjoy this. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you. The book will be out on the 19th (Feb).
Bleeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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