Beyond the gate is a sci-fi/thriller by Mary SanGiovanni. The story follows Kathy Ryan, an occult investigator, hired by Paragon Corp, a theoretical research facility, to lead a team into an alternate dimension to locate lost researchers and bring them back to our world. I received this as an ARC from Netgalley not realizing it was the latest in a series. Luckily it read well as a stand alone. The build up to the teams departure to begin their rescue mission seemed slow but once they were through the gate the pace really picked up and I had trouble putting it down. I found Kathy's levelheadedness admirable considering all the weird shit that she encountered. Not many women would be able to maintain their professionalism and decorum while wearing a DIY loin cloth bikini. Mary SanGiovanni did a great job detailing this alternate world within such a short book. I was picking up on some Ghostbuster/Alien vibes throughout the book especially towards the climax. I couldn't help but picture Sigourney Weaver as Kathy once I had that in my head. I enjoyed this book and while I would want to read the others before recommending the series as a whole I would definitely recommend this installment to anyone looking for a thrilling sci-fi with a retro feel to it.

Oh, the Kathy Ryan series has gotten epic!

Now, if you haven’t read any of the books in this series, please do. This is an awesome horror series that deserves more readers. Technically, you can start anywhere – each book works well as a standalone. But (but!) if you read all of them, you’ll truly appreciate the world – or otherworld – that SanGiovanni has built here!

Kathy is wonderful as always, but SanGiovanni reminds us how well she brings characters to life with a group of new characters. Unfortunately, some of them won’t make to the next book (but you knew that). As usual, her characters are complex and they are thrown into a world that starts out creepy and ends in a horrifying hellscape that I never want to visit.

This is a fast read – primarily because I just didn’t want to put it down until I was done.

Five well deserved stars and looking forward to Kathy Ryan’s next adventure!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley

-- Beyond the Gate by Mary SanGiovanni is the fourth novel in her Kathy Ryan, occult investigator series. This was my first time reading a book by SanGiovanni and as such I was wondering if jumping into the fourth novel of a series would be too intimidating and loaded with backstory to follow. Fortunately SanGiovanni gives just enough descriptive backstory that a first time reader will not be lost but will be compelled to want to seek out her earlier works. What I also liked was that Beyond the Gate was a standalone story that had enough threads from earlier books that also made me want to read what came before.
-- Building on foundations laid by August Derleth, Robert E. Howard and, most notably, H. P. Lovecraft -- Mary SanGiovanni creates her own spin on the cosmic horror mythos. I found while reading this a much more fluid writing style than that of Lovecraft, perhaps more akin to Howard. To some extent, it also made me think of Ramsey Campbell's Lovecraftian work, particularly his collection Cold Print. Like so much of Lovecraft's work, her descriptive prose can be mind blowing and overwhelming. Many times I had to stop and re-read passages to get a proper sense of what was either going on or what was being described. At no time was this the fault of the author. It was just me trying to take in what she was delivering. And for me the awe and wonder left me wanting more.
-- In a world of Lovecraftian influenced TV shows like Stranger Things, Mary SanGiovanni's Kathy Ryan deserves her own TV series. If Beyond the Gate is an example to judge I look forward to spending more time with Kathy Ryan and delving further into Mary SanGiovanni's work.
-- I want to thank NetGalley and Kensington Press for providing the ARC for an honest review of this work.

While I enjoyed the premise of this story, it didn't manage to draw me into the terrifying, silent world the characters were in. The plot was great but I felt like a reader, not a participant. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Mary Sangiovanni is a past master at subtly unveiling the terrors of Cosmic Horror, of the Knowledge that Lovecraft cautioned us to avoid. In this third book of her Kathy Ryan serirs, occult consultant and troubleshooter Kathy is called in by a secretive corporation which has opened a portal to an alternate universe; a portal which unfortunately is permeable to infection from that other universe. Soon Kathy and three companions are beyond the gate, hunting the lost explorer-scientists, and struggling to avoid an eternity of unending suffering.