It pains me to do this however, I just did not enjoy this book. It took me forever to even get though it. I felt that the characters were bland and I didn’t find anything that made me really connect with them.

I have loved everything LaRocca has written but this book was slow and a bit boring.

If Eric LaRocca writes it, I read it.

I ripped through this. I was curious to see how the seemingly discordant threads would come together in the end and man, it's weird as hell, but I was thoroughly gripped by each character (even when they sometimes did incredibly stupid things that I found myself wanting to reach through the page, shake them by the shoulders, and scream at them).

The element of cosmic horror gave me "The Hellbound Heart" by Clive Barker vibes with the meeting of body horror, the divine and arcane. It's far from perfect, but I personally enjoyed the ride. Full disclosure that I do like (maybe that's an odd word choice?) trauma in my horror - it's a safe way to process horrible things.

As with many of LaRocca's stories, I think this will be a divisive one. Best suited for those who like their horror very queer, bizarre, traumatic, and beautiful.

"Everything the Darkness Eats" just further proves that Eric LaRocca is one of the most promising new horror writers. It's a dark story of magic, horror and then human condition. The characters are messy and realistic, while the whole thing still feels like some kind of dark fantasy world. Honestly, a little less disturbing than I was expecting from LaRocca.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and CLASH Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca is a well-crafted and engrossing novel that skillfully explores the themes of darkness, light, and connection. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this book, there were certain aspects that left me wanting more.

The only aspect I felt was lacking was the book's length. With its tight writing and well-paced narrative, I couldn't help but wish for an additional 100 pages to allow for further exploration of the intriguing elements within the story.

Ghost and his Wraith were standout characters in this dark tale. LaRocca's masterful character development breathed life into these individuals, making them compelling and relatable. Their journey was filled with suspense and emotional depth, leaving a lasting impact.

The religious undertones in Everything the Darkness Eats added an enjoyable and sinister layer to the narrative. LaRocca expertly weaved these elements into the story, enhancing its intrigue and complexity. The balance between darkness and moments of light and connection was skillfully executed, enriching the overall reading experience.

While the book does contain violent scenes, the author tastefully handles them, not delving too deeply into explicit details. This approach ensures that the story remains readable without becoming excessively graphic.

I strongly advise potential readers to check the trigger warnings before diving into this dark and gripping novel. Overall, Everything the Darkness Eats is a thought-provoking and well-executed book that will leave you wanting more while keeping you on the edge of your seat.

I finished this and immediately thought “what was the point of this?”. Idk, this wasn’t for me. The story feels inconsistent and what starts off really promising in the first few pages, never takes off or goes anywhere.

This story is told from multiple POV’s that are meant to intersect to bring things full circle but with no real purpose? The primary POV, towns missing people, gets almost no real explanation on WHY and nothing happens until the last few pages with this one. The second POV, a gay couple in a small town with one of them being a cop working on the first pov, feels misplaced? The cop storyline never goes anywhere, there’s ZERO detective work and the author writes their POV in a way that just feels like we’re forced to read through various scenes of homophobic, gay bashing/ slurs, assault/rape for no absolutely reason or purpose as it’s squeezed into the majority of the last few chapters.

Personally, I’m disappointed with this one and feel like I couldn’t actually tell you what I read if I was trying to recommend it to someone because this story made no sense and didn’t ever go anywhere.

Horrific darkness can exist in many forms. Human, monster. Greed, anger, hate, grief. And it's always hungry. In the small town of Henley's Edge, people are disappearing, and two men, set on different paths, find themselves battling the darkness and struggling not to be consumed.

Rating and reviewing this book was not easy. And it's difficult to sort through my feelings about it without giving too much away. Having heard such good things about this author's short stories, I had high hopes and was super excited to receive a copy.

I loved the two main characters, except when they were doing incredibly stupid things. I loved the beautiful and heartbreaking way the story was written, except when I was being bombarded by similes on every page. There were parts I wish we had delved deeper into, and there were parts I wish had been left out. I loved how LaRocca explored the themes of grief and religion. The supernatural parts were my favorite. I still look forward to reading the author's other work.

⚠️ Graphic sexual assault

Thank you Clash Books for a copy of this book to read and review.

Sometimes owning something doesn't mean it's yours.

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca
Release Date 06/13/2023

Quick Summary
There has been a number of unexplained disappearances in a small town in Connecticut, the culprit is someone no one would take a second glance at.

Final Thoughts
Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I was excited for this one as I enjoyed their other books. , I have to admit that I didn't love it as much as I had hoped. Throughout the read, I found myself wondering about the direction of the story and how it would ultimately conclude. While the ending itself wasn't bad, the journey to get there didn't always captivate me. It felt rushed at times, leaving me wanting more depth and development, but other times, it seemed to drag on. Overall, I had mixed feelings about the pacing and the overall enjoyment of the book.

LaRocca never disappoints - always great horror.

Small town, occult, bigotry, dark and graphic. Loved the characters, the wraith, the metaphoric undertones.


TW heavy - check as needed.

Dark, deceptive bloody and brutal. There are some repetitive parts, mostly in terms of language - possibly because if you tend to write short stories or novellas, writing a longer piece of work can get drawn out a lot. But this was really good, strong characters!

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this title. I was 25% in and I wasn’t interest in the characters or the story whatsoever. Picking it up started to feel like a chore and I can’t do that to my mental health. I will not be posting any type of negative review on any social media accounts except for adding it to my “DNF” list on my Goodreads account that I will not promote. I wholeheartedly believe this author will be a major horror author one day, so I will absolutely be picking up more from them, but this one was a “miss” for me at this time.

I did not mesh with this at all. The writing fell flat and metaphors were overdone and did not land the way they were intended to.

Eric LaRocca's debut full length novel is an absolute stunner. While a huge fan of their novellas, it was so exciting getting to explore their work in a full sized novel.
We follow a handful of characters in the small town of Henley's Edge and learn how all of their stories connect. We follow: Ghost a gentleman with a spirit haunting him, Malik, a local police officer who has moved to this small town, with his husband, that is wrought with people going missing. We also meet Heart Crowley who helps connect all of these stories.
You could feel the small town New England vibes, but Eric LaRocca does such a good job at building out not just the town but the greater cosmic horror in this novel. This book is emotional, it features LaRocca's purple writing, and is such a quick read. It was everything I could have expected or wanted from their debut novel. I absolutely loved it. It's a dark story that has heart and tugs at all the right notes for me as a reader of horror. It explores so many different emotional topics but also features LaRocca's key disturbing horror.
This is a must pick up for fans of LaRocca's work, but also if you like beautiful writing and cosmic horror.
Thank you to the publisher, CLASH Books for providing me with an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Everything the Darkness Eats is, as the title suggests, dark. Eric LaRocca is such a talented author and I never hesitate to pick up his work. I really enjoyed this one, more so than the last few short story collections, this one might even be my favorite. As with his norm there’s tons of triggers but that’s never deterred me, in fact I prefer it. Also, he always has the coolest titles, in my opinion.

At the beginning of the book, we have what set the story into motion. It’s just a little bit of foreshadowing so I was still left with questions. With multiple viewpoints going on, I was wondering how they all tied in together, but they do so, so hang in there. I read this is one sitting, because I simply just couldn’t put it down. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending yet, I’m going to be left thinking about it for a while. Thanks to the author and publisher for my eARC. Everything the Darkness Eats will be published next month.

I had previously read a few novellas by Larocca, and loved them all. I held high hopes for this novel and it did not let me down. It is beautifully written and I would definitely recommend this one!

"Everything the Darkness Eats" is black, black, black, like the cover of the book, like the contents of the book. For a long minute there I completely considered that there didn't seem to be a single speck of lightness in this book, that it was populated with people swimming in dark currents, victims of circumstance or chance, or worse, the evil, malicious characters who also peopled this book.

But then, a single, solitary wisp of a character made its single, solitary play, and I felt that all was right in the world.

This book was amazingly good. Bleak, but amazingly good.

My thanks to Netgalley for allowing me a sneak peek read for the amazingly talented Eric LaRocca. My opinions expressed here are solely my own.

4.5/5 I’m glad I gave LaRocca another chance after not being overly impressed with ‘You’ve lost A lot of Blood’. EVERYTHING THE DARKNESS EATS was exquisitely written. I was completely and utterly engulfed in the story from chapter one. Hauntingly beautiful, a reflective horror read the whole way through.

The characters were amazingly written, I found myself caring deeply for the two MCs hoping for them to find peace at the end of their suffering. I loved LaRocca’s interpretation of God and found the premise of this novel incredibly imaginative. Lost a half-point only because I don’t love a happy ending in horror and I felt the end tied a little too nicely together at the end, but again this is only my personal preference. I suspect this will be a very popular read upon its release.

Henley’s Edge is a quiet peaceful town rapidly being consumed by the darkness that lives within the very people that populate it.

I think the writing style above all else is what kept me engaged with this book. There are a couple of stories running parallel to each other and the plot lines connect at the end, but in my opinion they are not woven together in a way that fully explains the “why” for anything. It somehow all felt incomplete.

What stood out to me the most was the topic of the elderly being a forgotten and vulnerable population, I think there is potential to explore a lot of horrific aspects of being an older adult in our society and I love that the author touches on that.

To those who need trigger warnings: Some of the characters go through very traumatic events that could be triggering to other readers such as SA, loss of a loved one and homophobia.

Overall, I would recommend this book to someone who loves prose, magic, social commentary and is maybe just getting into extreme horror.

Thank you to NetGalley and CLASH books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Eric Larocca does it again. Another incredible story. A man meets a woman, who is abducted by a mysterious man. Things then proceed to get progressively more horrible, especially once religion enters the picture. This one feels so much like Clive Barker’s work. There’s great characters, a strong plot and pace, and so much darkness. This book felt twisted and depraved and made me feel the same. Like all his books, this one made me hunger for more of his work.

Another strong work from LaRocca- definitely on my auto buy list going forward. I find he’s always quite good at writing dark without it feeling too heavy.

This book takes a knife and plunges it into your soul.

The different POV’s were interesting and I loved discovering how they would all end up intertwining together. It was so strange and unusual and lovely all at the same time. It made me sad, shocked and pissed off. The things that happen to some of the characters were shocking and hard to read at times but Eric writes with such heart that it makes it worth it in the end. Not for the light of heart, but I say READ IT.