The Lodge - Jeremy Eads

 

"A demon runs a bed and breakfast in southwest Virginia where sin never needs a reservation. A guilt-ridden retiree, two little boys, and a pair of meth making cousins will challenge America's most wanted black widow, a haunted southern town, and the Devil himself. The quest for salvation will lead to the darkest parts of themselves as well as the beating black heart of Summit Valley, Virginia. The Maple Lodge, a B&B where the turn down service is to die for."

 

 This horror read took me a little while to find my footing, but once I figured out what the story actually was, I absolutely loved it. This, for me, was very much a 'let it cook' type of book where you just keep turning the pages and slowly the deeper plot comes through. At first, we were changing characters so many times that I thought these were just little glimpses into this world. But once the characters start recurring and interacting with each other, then I knew there was more going on and the last 25% was a great ride.

We are following multiple characters throughout the book and Eads did a great job of giving each character a distinctive voice that helped me keep all the different plot threads straight.  Given how many characters we interact with across only a 250-ish page book, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of character development Eads was able to fit in.  I had a good grasp on each character and their specific desires and life situations. 

The horror elements were fantastic and surprising.  The horrific parts were sprinkled in and not overused at all.  A lot of the tension I found while reading was when characters were flirting near the edge of the danger without knowing it.  When we do see the horrors of the lodge on paper, they are always shown through the character experiencing it so it felt extra horrific as many times they couldn't fully comprehend the gravity of the situation they were in.  We get a good mix of gore, supernatural, and psychological horror - all used expertly.  

Overall, this was a great horror story that I loved the more I read.  The horror elements were used masterfully and the care that Eads took with crafting the characters just meant that I was that much more invested when it was their turn to face the horrors of the Lodge.

 Thanks to NetGalley and Wicked House Publishing for the ARC.  

Publication date was July 28, 2023