I didn't get into this as much as I had hoped but I enjoyed it at parts and I would try more by the author in the future.

3 stars

This felt very meh. It could have been more of a novella. It seemed like an almost juvenile mystery suspense more than a horror type of novel. I enjoyed it as much as I could, but I didn’t find anything standout about it. It felt all too familiar and not very original.

The writing itself was good, it was just not a great story.

This was a very interesting read. A pledge to become a sorority sister leaves 8 girls with a secret they can tell no one. Not even the rest of the sisters. They must carry it with them for the rest of their life. Years later as one of the sisters is now a professor at the very college where it all began, she has a student go missing. She begins to dig into what happened and quickly the threats become clear stop digging or your secret will be unburied too! This was a page turner and I finished it in one sitting. I would definitely recommend this book. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to access it.

I received a free ARC, and this review is voluntary.

Marissa Owens has had a tough one lately. After her marriage dissolved, and being replaced in her position at Sainsbury, she agrees to a one year contract as a visiting professor at her undergraduate alma mater, Blackthorn. With the encouragement of a professor from that time period, Candace, whom is now department chair and helping Dr. Owens settle back in, Marissa finds new and old comforts with this direction in her life. A student in one class captures her attention, for they share a similar personality. As each course taught moves the needle of time forward, this student goes missing. As the police conduct their investigation into this disappearance, Marissa becomes entangled. Long-forgotten memories resurface of her time at Blackthorn, and how her past may be connected to this case.

I enjoyed it, and I appreciate what the author has done here by not only paying homage to Poe, but also crafting a story that I think he would respect, and find admiration for.

(Advance Review Copy from NetGalley)
I’ve actually been trying to avoid negative reviews the past few years, either DNF a book or being more selective in what I read – I realize now this is a potential drawback of getting addicted to NetGalley!
Darkness There, But Something More – absolutely intrigued me with the title and drew me either further into it with the promise of Poe and an absolutely badass Book Cover!

But I was ultimately disappointed by this book. I reread the blurb and discovered that really the blurb almost tells you everything that happens in the book, I honestly believe that this piece could have been a short story or novelette length and probably retained all the dramatic points and skipped a lot of info-dumping.

The main problem with the work is an abundance of ‘tell’. Almost everything that occurs is relayed in relatively dry and factual prose, when I started into the book I thought that perhaps I was just getting the backstory setup as the MC described the events that led her to the current situation, but no, almost the whole book is presented this way. Aside from the beyond awkward sex scene there is little sensory information, everyone’s dialogue sounds the same, dry as a bone. Much of the book is padded with info dumping about the MC’s experiences as a lecturer, but not the interesting ones, just random ruminations about mundane student complaints and so forth.

As mentioned the plot is largely explained in the blurb but had a lot of tonal whiplash, its hard to explain without spoilers, an example: the MC after being well established as a relatively upstanding, even naïve and innocent, character (other than the ‘dark secret’ which even isn’t the worse fictional dark secret) – almost inexplicably takes a SWITCHBLADE to a meetup with another character. There’s no indication of how a university lecturer procured such a blade or a smoothing of the jarring character decision (not to mention the blade never gets a mention again so it wasn’t some sort of Chekov thing).

Lastly, there really wasn’t much Edgar Ellen Poe to this story. There were some clever references and I guess the story could be mirrored in Poe’s tales. But, overall at times I wondered if he’d just been forgotten, the style of the book certainly doesn’t fit and for a character who lectures in the subject (and tells us their thoughts every page) there is a remarkable lack of Poe.

I hate to leave a poor review, but also need to be honest. Darkness There reads more like a cozy mystery novella, rather than “Dark Suspense.” Overall it feels like it needed a major developmental edit to remove some basic writing faux pas. The author seems like a talented and experienced writer so I’m not sure if this work was a side project or foray into a different genre, but this book isn’t a hit.

Marissa Owens, an English professor specializing in Edgar Allan Poe loses her newborn daughter and divorces her husband. She then leaves her tenured professorship and takes a one year position at her alma mater, Blackthorn University. Almost as soon as she starts one of her students, Hadley Parker, is murdered. Marissa decides she needs to crack the case which causes her to revisit her days as a student.

I had two major problems with this book which were dealbreakers for me. I generally enjoy books set in academia, especially those involving Greek life, but this was so virulently anti-sorority that I, a former sorority member myself, couldn’t help but take it a bit personally. We aren’t all horrible people. And the West Virginia incest joke was a cheap shot and not the least bit funny. Docked you an extra star for that one, which took you down to the dreaded one star. Skip this.

Professor Marissa Owen’s gets caught up in the investigation of the death of one of her students, and secrets from her own past come back to haunt her. I found the beginning of the book to include too much unnecessary info, e.g., pages of how Marissa organized her class, but once the story really gets started I had a hard time putting the book down. I plan to recommend the book at publication time and will definitely read other books by this author. Thanks for the opportunity to read!