Downpour
Christopher Hawkins
Horror | Sci-Fi

🏡 Generational Trauma
🌎 End of the World
🌾 Small Town/Rural
🛸 Out of This World Creatures

Ratings:
Overall | 🥀 🥀 🥀 🥀 🥀 
Gore | 🩸🩸🩸
Scare Factor | 👻👻👻👻
Darkness Level | 🖤🖤🖤.5

Review:
*Read as an ARC in paperback and on my Kindle.*

This novel has left me shook in the best ways and easily one of my favorite October reads. Atmospheric and haunting. There were times while I was reading that I really felt I couldn’t go outside because it was raining. The blend of real life terror and supernatural events was well done. It felt like one of King’s earlier novels where the things we fear in every day life is woven into the terror of the plot.

Pacing was perfect. I found myself unable to put the book down once I started. I was kept guessing with every turn of the page and Hawkins did not disappoint. The monsters were eerie without being cheesy. Backstory was presented in small doses without taking away from the present. If you’re looking for something chilling to curl up with on a stormy day, this is a must read.

I wasn’t prepared for that ending either. It took me awhile after I was done reading to really process it. The ending was a surprise, but very fitting to the storyline and mood of the book.

*Possible Spoiler Warning Ahead: Don’t keep reading if you don’t want any plot points to be possibly spoiled.* This novel does contain children and animals. I won’t say what happens, but if you have triggers around either go cautiously.

Mood Board:
https://www.pinterest.com/readashredd/downpour-christopher-hawkins/

Affiliate Links:
Amazon | https://amzn.to/3rLsm8a
Bookshop | https://bookshop.org/a/96234/9781937346140

How I Rate:
https://readashredd.square.site/s/stories/how-i-review

My thanks to Christopher Hawkins and Netgalley.
This story was almost like a fading memory. Like a dream that you've awoken from, yet have a hazy, foggy memory of.
This was by no means a badly written story. Matter of fact, I was damned near glued to the pages.
Mr. Hawkins can freaking tell a story. That's what I think.
Thing is that almost from the beginning I got a feel for how this story would go. It was dark. With a capital D.
I knew how it would end because it was just one of those stories that impress upon you the inevitability of this world.
Depressing. Terrible. Nightmarish. Utterly fantastic!
Best depressing, may as well just get it over with now, story that I've read in awhile.
Honestly? I'd recommend it, but only if you can handle despair?
My first from this author, and while I'm not looking for anything this depressing again, I'd certainly read one or two more books from Mr. Hawkins.

I really enjoyed this story. It started off a little slow, then blossomed into a tense, fast paced thrill ride. Once I got about 30% in, I became full immersed into the story. Hawkins created such an eerie, thick atmosphere that almost made the air I was actually breathing, feel thicker. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a creepy, immersive read.

nice idea and ending, but too dragged out and with too many slow moments. Stephen King vibes but without the captivating aspect

A rather strange and ominous cloud appears on the horizon and Scott just knows it's more than just a storm coming and as it approaches, the feelings of dread grow and when the rain arrives, the horror begins. Scott is determined to keep his wife and children safe but all does not go to plan and Scott finds himself in an impossible situation.

Written with a growing sense of unease and impending doom and with a small cast of characters, Downpour is a pretty successful debut for this author. I did find it a little repetitive however, it kept my interest until the end ... which I am still trying to process and haven't decided yet whether it was fitting or not!

Overall, a pretty good debut and my thanks go to the author and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of Downpour.

Downpour by Christopher Hawkins takes place on a remote farm populated by a small family. Scott and Dana are going through a rough patch in their marriage and they are struggling to come together to raise their two children. It is just a regular day on the farm when Scott notices a strange cloud moving in overhead. The cloud continues to grow and has green lightning flashing through it. It is ominous and as the rain starts to fall, Scott can feel that something isn’t right with this storm. This rain changes everything it touches, eats away at objects, and creates monsters. Trapped inside their crumbling home, this family has to figure out how to survive this storm. Or if they even can survive it. This book is a depressing, hopeless story. It absolutely has horror elements and is an interesting take on character development. For me, it has strong War of the World and the The Mist vibes. Like a even more hopeless combination of the two. I didn’t enjoy a twist that was revealed at the end. It seemed out of place and unnecessary to the story. I found it hard to focus on this read. Pretty early on I felt like there was no chance for this family and it made it hard for me to be invested. I like to feel as if there is some reason for characters to keep fighting, even if it ends badly. This is a 2/5 star read for me. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me access to an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Publication date October 3rd, 2023. This review will be found on Instagram and Goodreads indefinitely.
Instagram book reviews @CandaceOnline

What words could I use for this book other than fantastic. The thesaurus says great and impressive, And those are good words too. Creepy as can be.

I did enjoy this creepy book until I went to bed and the storm started. I'm not sure if it was the wind, the pounding rain or thinking about the story that kept me awake, I suspect all of the above. The story is genuinely unsettling from the beginning and builds up with each page. I appreciate that it is a well written book but will not read anything else like this for a while - I need my sleep.

Thank you to NetGalley and Christopher Hawkins for my arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Christopher Hawkins' "Downpour" follows a family in Illinois that becomes trapped in their ramshackle family home while a toxic rain falls just outside. They soon discover that this is happening all over the world and that anyone caught in the toxic downpour (see what I did there) becomes deranged.

I uh. I do not know how I felt about this one. It's short but the way it was written made it seem much longer. I thought it was just a slow-burn but it wasn't even that. It was incredibly slow. Like watching paint dry slow. I didn't find this particularly interesting, scary, or thrilling. I was just bored by it. And then the damn family drama. My god. The main character was so hard for me to buy into; he complained and just whined about his failing marriage like every other paragraph and it was just so boring. I usually find that stuff compelling and emotional but in this book, it just came across as childish and pointless. It doesn't help that the author seemed stuck on particular phrases that he reused MULTIPLE times throughout the book, sometimes on the same page in the same paragraph! I mean, I am genuinely baffled by all of the 4/5 star reviews. Did we even read the same book? It's pretty suspect if I'm being honest...I might also just have standards for what I'm spending my time reading.

Overall, this was a massively disappointing and severely underwhelming read. I'm upset that I spent my limited free time reading this.

Scott and his family live in the country in an old farm house passed down to him from his deceased father. After his wife recently had an affair he struggles to reckon what his future will look like. They have two children Jacob, a teen, and Tillie, a toddler.

One day they notice an incredibly strange looking rain cloud creeping towards their town which looks cause for concern. Once it begins raining it’s obvious that this storm will cause severe damage, but not from high winds.

This story felt like it went on a bit too long, that it probably would have been better as a novella. I think the story was interesting but it felt a little repetitive. I got a bit bored from it. But who knows, what’s not my cup of tea could be yours!

Title: Downpour
Author: Christopher Hawkins
Genre: Horror

"𝔹𝕦𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕣𝕒𝕚𝕟, 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕖𝕥, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕜𝕪 𝕙𝕒𝕕 𝕞𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕖 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕝𝕕 𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕜 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕪."

A single dark cloud appears over a remote farmhouse in rural Illinois, like an entity with a mind of its own, roiling and swirling and bringing in a fierce and implacable rain.

Everything it touches starts to change. Metal turns to rust, people become violent. As the rain seeps into the cracks of his childhood home and leaks begin to form, a father must race against time to protect his family.

'Downpour' is a horror that takes its time, building a sense of unease and dread slowly and deliberately, like steady drops of rain. As the threat of danger moves closer and the family home begins to crumble, the already isolated setting grows smaller and smaller.

One thing I consistently love about Christopher Hawkins' writing is that it feels like CLASSIC horror. Foreboding, dismal, tragic... but real. Much like the short stories featured in his anthology 'Suburban Monsters' (which I absolutely loved), 'Downpour' is set in a rural town and sheds light on the horrors lurking within suburbia. The last half had me in so much suspense and I was STRESSED! The ending... just wow. My heart. If 'suburban horror' is a sub-genre, Hawkins is the king.

I'm so thankful to Coronis Publishing and Netgalley for the e-ARC and to Christopher Hawkins for sending me a physical copy. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read this debut novel and absolutely loved it! I definitely recommend reading this on a rainy night or with some rain sound effects going.

Some of my favorite horror movies and novels begin in a similar fashion to Downpour; the characters going about their daily routines and then something quite innocuous becomes horrific and ultimately threatening.

Scott, his wife Dana, their children Jacob and Tallie and their dog Wilbur live in a dilapidated farmhouse in Illinois. Inherited from Scott’s father-along with the incredible amount of personal trauma he inflicted upon his son-their home and a few small remaining acres of land are all that remain of a once larger property.

Scott and Dana are struggling both with themselves and with each other, as her recent marital infidelity has upturned their relationship and only added to Scott’s feelings of failure and anger.

But on a seemingly normal day, all their lives are changed with the appearance of an unusual cloud that makes Scott uneasy. Once the rain begins and things start to change, he realizes the precarious situation his family is in and does the best that he can to protect them. But with rain falling all around them, mutating animals and humans alike and swiftly destroying their home, is a safe location even a real possibility?

The unease and tension created by Downpour is gripping and uncomfortable. From details relating to the plot and the increasing danger that comes from the rain to the characters reacting to their situation and their personal fears and uncertainties, the feeling of dread throughout the novel is almost constant.

Scott tries to do what he can, but he is ill-equipped to deal with an already outlandish situation and his frustration and despair as things become more and more insurmountable are relatable. Once the book hit its conclusion, I felt as though I had been hit by a ton of bricks. The ending was not wholly unexpected, yet I still was-perhaps foolishly-hoping for a different resolution.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and Christopher Hawkins for allowing me to read this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Have you ever gotten a splinter from a rotten old bench or fence post? That's what this book is like, in the best possible way. Downpour tells the story of Scott, a man who was trapped in a rotting farmhouse with his family even before the rain started eating away at the shingles and boards or changing the living things unlucky enough to be caught outside in it. I read this one straight though. It's a relentless slow burn that I didn't want to put down.

The concept of this book kind of made me think of an A24 film and so I was incredibly excited. The execution wasn't bad, but I felt as if quite a few things were repeated and some moments and characters fell flat for me.

This started quite boring, progressed boring, and ended boring tbh. The premise was nice, and while I was waiting for something eyciting to happen.. it was very meh in my opinion.

DNF @ 50%
I was really looking forward to reading this book, the premise sounded very intresting. and seemed like something I would end up enjoying. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

The story started off good within the first 20% or so, but I quickly got very bored. It was really slow moving and wasn't progressing much at all. at the 50% mark the story felt like it was still in its beginning stage. Nothing had happened that made me want to keep reading, I wasn't invested in the story. This just wasn't it for me personally.

This was my first book from this author, the writing itself was good so I'm intresting to read something else from this author in the future.

Thanks to netgalley for sharing a digital copy for me to read and review, as always, opinions are my own 🤘🏻💀🤘🏻

This was a short, dark, and well done piece of horror. Set during an insidious storm, we get a snapshot of one imperfect family battling their demons, one another, and a toxic weather event.

I despised the wife, hoped bad things would happen to her, but she certainly wasn't written to be a sympathetic character. So, that's not a criticism.

While dark, the book doesn't entirely extinguish hope, but it takes you to mostly bleak places. TW: Animal Harm.

i'm so, so sorry. i really wanted to love this one. read an anthology by hawkins and really enjoyed it, was great, fresh, and the author had his own voice and a great capability to twist the plot and surprise you.

here... i found none of that. this is a short story that got stretched not by adding snything new but by repeating itself countless times, senteces, paragraphs repetead that did nothing to the pacing of the story. instead it reveleaded the authors incapacity to tell something.
read every singleplot point in king's book (the mist, cujo, cell), and i can forgive that but there are things that are just a copy (the cut paragraphs with a single word that is a thought, for example: that's a KING thing. he does that in every novel. why would you do the exact same? in the same manner and grammar and everything?).

i could have been a good short story. nothing new, but nothing bad. now it's just a copy, stretched, and with some serious need of editing. sorry. SORRY I REALLY WANTED TO LOVE THIS ONE.

Thank you to NetGalley and Christopher Hawkins for this ARC!

4 out of 5 Stars.

I'm only taking a star off because for about 30 minutes I was just as confused as everyone else in the book.

This was a proper slow burn horror, though it did start off with some coy horror moments there at the beginning, it still was pretty slow to get into things. I found myself too focused on why the main couple were fighting and what she'd done to deserve to be treated like he was treating her.

I almost forgot what I was reading. Almost.

Downpour kept me so rivetted that I forgot I was supposed to cook dinner.

I read this from cover to end in a single sitting, yes, dinner waited.

I've always loved a good biological horror, chemicals and toxic substances the rain always makes for a good realistic horror story, especially with Global Warming and Earth's ecology in a constant statis of change. How can we not be afraid for possible polutants to change our once habitable planet into something inhabitable for us.

This came off as those clouds being some sort for extra terrestrial planet maker, aka a machine to change our planet into something better for alien life. We talk about Terraforming as if it's something that won;t happen. Maybe we won't create it, but there's someone out there that will.

I highly recommend this, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

The book itself is easy to read and I didn't find any noticable plotholes which is lovely.

Worth the read.

This book is so eerie. Storylines like this tend to make me uneasy and I love it. I pretty much finished the book in a day.

My only hangups were that I wish the characters had more depth and their interactions (particularly the married couple) hadn't been so redundant.

Other than that, this is a solid read that kept me hooked from start to finish.

3.5/5 stars