My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Many thanks to Net Galley, Inkshares, and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.
“I got off the interstate to commit suicide.”
An intriguing opening sentence that had me delving into this eerie and desolate tale of a southern town drenched with rituals and mysteries. The House Of Dust is a debut work by Noah Broyles and simply said, horror fiction fans have another author to watch out for!
Three Summers is a forgotten town and Angel’s Landing, the plantation house that presides over the town is equally forbidding. When Bradley Ellison stumbles upon a body in the garden in this godforsaken place, little did he think that his passion for dark and hidden stories is going to unravel something that is too horrific to even contemplate.
“Have you ever been loved? Really? In a way they’d die for you? Even from one person, it’s quite a thing. But dozens? Hundreds? It’s the light of hundred suns, but instead of burning, you bask. And they’re in love too, with their own devotion.”
Noah Broyles’ writing effortlessly creates a creepy gothic feel that burns slowly into the minds of the reader. In fact, the first part of the book was too vague and probably deliberately kept obscure for an explosive revelation in the middle but readers by then would be put off by the time it takes to get to that meaty part of the story. The element of horror with the entire town raises the uneasiness and I was hooked into the story wanting to know what exactly is happening in this sleepy town and what kind of abomination or monster is slinking under the earth?
“Adamah. That name. That thing that seemed to touch all the other things. That presence lurking around the house in symbols and clinging to Three Summers in street and building names. What was Adamah?”
Once you begin reading this novel, there’s a sense of inevitable catastrophe that is layered throughout the story as Brad delves deeper into the mystery surrounding the town. Both Brad and Missy have no choice but to follow the path to destruction or should I say, to the dust, to decipher the quagmire they are mired in. There were parts of the story that kept on tenterhooks but equally, there were parts that became too confusing but the narrative style is unique and different that borders on heavy darkness with some exemplary writing that is gonna make you go even slower than usual to capture the entire depth of the story.
“The South is a ghost, and so am I. Wandering in the ways of the night, we return and return to find the place where we died. Walking circles, running cycles, never reaching beyond, never breaking free. Traveling through time orbiting a black star.”
I am a huge fan of horror thrillers but there’s a sense of depressive bleakness, a melancholic thread in this story that I was not too happy about but for all those who love horror fiction with a solid classical touch, then this one is definitely the one to get under your skin!
4 stars for this nightmarish horror!
“An ambitious first novel full of the mysteries, histories and rituals of a Tennessee town. Full of nightmarish imagery wrapped in elegant prose, this is a strong debut.” —John Langan, author of Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies
Deep in the heat and silence of rural Tennessee, down an untraveled road, sits the forgotten town of Three Summers. Mere miles away, on an overgrown river island, stands the house that once presided over the grand plantation of Angel’s Landing, moss-draped, decrepit. Waiting.
Failing crime writer Bradley Ellison and former prostitute Missy Holiday are drawn to this place, fleeing a world turned against them. For Brad, it is work—he must find a compelling story before the true-crime magazine he writes for judges him expendable. For Missy, it is recuperation—four years at “the club” have left her drained.
But the price of peace is high, and soon Brad and Missy discover that something hides behind the quiet. Something moves in the night. Something that manifests itself in bizarre symbols and disturbing funeral rites. Something that twists back through time and clings in the dust of the ancient house. A presence they must uncover before their own past catches up with them.
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Rain'n'books 
Good review, thanks, but I just cannot read scary books. I try sometimes but it never works. The first time I read a part of Dracula I couldn’t sleep for weeks – I was a teenager at the time.
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Think I can relate, I just can’t do Stephen King’s books🙄🙄🙄
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