Malice House (The Malice Compendium)
From New York Times bestselling author Megan Shepherd comes a complex tale of dark magic, family secrets, and monsters that don't stay on the page.
"A propulsively charming nightmare, pooling like spilled ink across your imagination." -- Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of Hide
"Haunting and beautifully written . . . an exploration of the mysterious power of stories." --Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and The Last to Vanish
"One step away from our world lies another: a land of violent fantasies, of sharp-toothed delights. . . ."
Of all the things aspiring artist Haven Marbury expected to find while clearing out her late father's remote seaside house, Bedtime Stories for Monsters was not on the list. This secret handwritten manuscript is disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works: its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next. The stories unsettle but also entice Haven, practically compelling her to illustrate them while she stays in the house that her father warned her was haunted. Clearly just dementia whispering in his ear . . . right?
Reeling from a failed marriage, Haven hopes an illustrated Bedtime Stories can be the lucrative posthumous father-daughter collaboration she desperately needs to jump-start her art career. However, everyone in the nearby vacation town wants a piece of the manuscript: her father's obsessive literary salon members, the Ink Drinkers; her mysterious yet charming neighbor, who has a tendency toward three a.m. bonfires; a young barista with a literary forgery business; and of course, whoever keeps trying to break into her house. But when a monstrous creature appears under Haven's bed right as grisly deaths are reported in the nearby woods, she must race to uncover dark, otherworldly family secrets--completely rewriting everything she ever knew about herself in the process.
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Community Reviews
Official synopsis: Haven Marbury is just getting out of a failed marriage and moves into her late fathers seaside house. Her father was a famous writer and while moving into his old house she stumbles upon a unwritten manuscript that is nothing like he has written before. Its horrific and scary and she instantly decides to publish it and do the illustrations herself in attempt to jumpstart her career. Of course there are people who want their hands on the manuscript and why is there monsters under her bed and people dying in the wood?
Ok, one thing I love is stuff totally creative and different and this book is it. Its beautifully written and has no clear genre. It's a mystery, thriller, and horror mashed into one. I was told to go into this one blind and that is the best advice. Just read it.
Pros: Another thing I love is batshit crazy characters and Haven definitely may be one of them. I think it's totally awesome that she just haphazardly breaks into people houses to find clues or just simply breaks into some one's truck and steals their shotgun even though she has never fired a gun in her life. The ending was also nails. Without spoiling anything it's basically a 40 page, fiery, bone crushing, violent, horrific, train wreck of a ending.
The book also has one of the most terrifying characters I think I have ever read. Again I can't give anything away but imagine someone who can force anyone to do anything he wanted just by asking. "Go and shoot that person and then kill yourself with the same gun" And then you can't help but do it......
I can't think of anything I didn't like about the book. Maybe too long? But I like my books around 300 pages and I can't think of anything to take points from. One of my favorite books of the year so far.
Advance Reader Copy given free for honest review.
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