Thank you to the publisher for gifting me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Lola Nox is the daughter of a celebrated horror filmmaker, so she thinks nothing can scare her.
But, when her father is brutally attakced in their New York apatment, she’s quickly packed off to live with a grandmother who she has never met, in the small town of Harrow Lake. Harrow Lake is the eerie town where her father’s most iconic horror movie was shot. The locals are weirdly obssessed with the film that put their little town on the map. There are also strange disappearances which the police don’t even try to explain.
Whilst in Harrow Lake there is someone, or something, stalking Lola’s every move. The more Lola discovers about the town, the more terrifying it becomes. And if she can’t find her way out of Harrow Lake, it might just be the death of her.
Harrow Lake is a book that I would avoid reading whilst in bed. I didn’t follow my own advice though and sat up for 2 hours after finishing this book checking every dark area of my room. It it creepy, it is thrilling and mysterious but I loved it!
The atmosphere that this story sets is amazing. I could feel tension building in certain scenes, especially when Lola couldn’t even trust her own eyes to tell the truth. Sometimes it felt a little more like watching a horror film rather than reading a horror book, that is how amazing the imagery this book sets it. At points I could feel my skin crawling whilst reading which doesn’t happen often.
Lola is shown to us to be an anti-social teenager who at first I disliked. She is very isolated and has quite dark and violent thoughts, although she is good at pretending otherwise. Lola has a very twisted relationship with her father Nolan. Although we don’t see much of his presence it is felt throughout the entire book. Their relationship is one I would class as emotional abuse. The parental abuse both emotionally and verbally is written excellently. As a central theme of this book, this one is informative and written excellently.
Harrow Lake is exactly like I pictured it and so is its population. Everyone there is weirdly obsessed with the horror movie that made their town famous. It has a combination of creepy people with the oddity of a town ‘stuck’ in the 1920s. All of this and the towns tragedies really added to the story’s ominous feeling for me.
Mr. Jitters is one of the scariest psychological horror characters that I have ever read. You all those stories you were told of ghosts and creatures as a child that scared you half to death? Mr. Jitters is exactly that! He is terrifying in a different kind of way.
This is the first novel by Kat Ellis that I have read and I will certainly be picking up more by her in the future!
Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a new and intriguing psychological horror story to read. Keep you eye out for when this is released in a months time!
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