A hauntingly mysterious flashback, flash forward tale of two sisters entangled by an island with a dark essence all its own.

I really wanted to like this book, but I’m stuck deciding between 2.75/3⭐️ for this read. It had several things I typically love in a read - multiple timelines, mercurial sisters, dark community histories, the hint of (or not so hinted) monsters or something more sinister - but it just didn’t come together for me as strongly as I hoped.

I found that the first half of this book was quite the slow burn, allowing you to get to know the different characters from their own POVs. But then the last bit of the story happened so quickly. Now don’t get me wrong - I love a story with a slow start with an action packed finish, but for me, there wasn’t enough buildup between the two ends of the spectrum so it felt disjointed.

At the end of this read I was really left wanting more of the mysterious house and POVs from the original Volt sisters to help tie in the history of the island and what was occurring on it more strongly. Though, overall I enjoyed myself while listening to this read.

Thanks NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux from the ARC of this book.

This is a story about sisters and inherited family trauma, and boy does this family have some baggage. We get a few different points of view and a couple different time lines which at first made this slower paced book feel faster. However as the story unfolded, the constant jumping around left me unable to attach to any one character. It was a bummer because this story was really banking on heart but I didn't feel invested enough to get mine aching.
The concept of the island was so very cool, and some of the imagery was downright chilling! I'm excited to read more from this author just for the creepy scenes we got. Though I was definitely not a fan of the forced side romances because again, there wasn't enough depth to them for me to care too much.
I will say that BB's character was the best written, mostly because she was such a piece of work!

I had a hard time getting through this book, mainly because of the fact that I expected it to be a bit more spooky. The horror was a slow burn and it was mostly about generational trauma than anything. I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the story. But I could see some lit fic fans liking it a lot.

Thank you NetGalley & FSG for the e arc! All opinions are my own.

A confusing mess of a novel from an author whose debut I loved! Had a hard time getting into and sticking with this one even though the beginning grabbed me.

3/5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley, the publishers, and Rachel Eve Moulton for allowing me to read and review this book.

This is a gothic story about sisters, family loyalty, and curses. This is a multiple POV story taking place over roughly two time periods. The sisters' early childhood and the year 2000.

A lot drew me into this book, but sadly it was not a favorite for me. It was slow paced and a lot was happening while we knew absolutely nothing. This worked out fine because we figured things out alongside one of the main characters.

This story is told through the POV of four different women during the 1970/80s and 2000. We figure out why two of the characters left the island, one hoping to never return and one not fully understanding why they left to begin with. We also find out why two of the characters were never able to leave the island in the first place.

I loved the concept of this story, and the writing was beautiful. The characters were complex and amazingly written. Sadly, this was just not the book for me. It was slow paced, and I just kept expecting the action and suspense to turn up, but it never fully did.

However, if you like slower paced gothic horror books with strong female characters, you will love this book.

Trigger Warning:
Animal death/dog death/pet death: Near the end of the book. It is not graphic, just a small piece and then it is not mentioned again.

The premise of this one was so intriguing.

Alas, it did not hold my attention for very long. Which was disappointing. I had to DNF but I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to pick this one up again in the near future.

A bit of a slow burn, but in the footsteps of Shirley Jackson. A great addition to a call reading list.

I loved that the horror was built in a literary sense, and blended with questions of family, identity, and legacy. Mouton had a distinctive voice in horror — one that balances more obvious horrors with the subtle ones.

A solid summer horror novel full of water terror (as all summer horrors should be). There are moments where the novel feels just a bit slow, but as a whole the book still holds up and terrifies you but keeps you strapped in for the ride.

The Insatiable Volt Sisters was a great, Gothic story, about sisterly love, family loyalty, and monsters! I throughly enjoyed this novel. It did drag for a bit but the ending was great.

I really enjoyed Rachel Eve Moulton's debut novel so I was expecting to like this too and I did! The begining threw me off guard because I went into it knowing it was horror but it didn't start right away. The parts of the horror that I really enjoyed would be spoilers, but I will say that this has one of my favorite horror tropes of all time. Despite it starting off slow, once things started happening.... THEY STARTED HAPPENING. The slowness in the beginning is the only reason this is getting a 4 instead of a 5. Rachel's writing just works for me and I would absolutely pick up whatever she writes.

This book was different. It is the story of two sisters who grow up on a dreary island seeped in lore and dread really had me intrigued.

The characters were well developed and their flaws were front and center. I also found the mystery of the island very well written. Henrietta and Beatrice are half-sisters growing up on an island off of Lake Erie that has a history of missing women. As adults,after the death of their father, they reunite on the island to piece together their family’s history and legacy. Now add monsters and the book is complete.

I requested this book largely due to the title. I am so glad I did. I enjoyed the sisters’ dynamic the seclusion of the setting and the spooky themes of the monsters. Mostly, I appreciated the representation in the book in this book and the perfect spooky vibe.

Big ty to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and props to Rachel Eve Moulton for a dread-inducing book.

DNF @ 38%

I was hoping it would be spookier, but honestly the Volt sisters are just young women with repressed childhood trauma who need therapy and vent their maladjusted emotions in unhealthy ways. BB is annoying - egotistical and sharp-edged and manipulative - and Henrie is limp lettuce (and so is her mother Carrie). The only POV character who remotely held my interest was Sonia.

The worst thing though is just the very very slow introduction of the creepy stuff. The flashbacks don't feel like they add much (at least not by the point I gave up). We barely saw the creepy house. We haven't been in the abandoned "Fun Park". We ran out of the funeral after a weird hallucination. We've talked to maybe 2 people that don't have a POV. It just feels like a whole lot of talking "around" what's happening rather than actually having something happen. Boring.

I'm so thankful to have received digital access to The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton, leading up to its publication date of April 4, 2023. I thought this horror/literary fiction novel was so well done and I can't wait to run to my feed to see what my fellow readers think of this work of art. I am so thankful to NetGalley and MCD x FSG additionally for the bookish love.

This story completely engulfed me, I was so interested to see where it was going. The story of these sisters who grow up on a dreary island seeped in lore and dread really had me intrigued.

I liked all the characters (as unlikable and flawed as some of them were) and found the mystery of the island impeccable. Henrietta and Beatrice are half-sisters growing up on an island off of Lake Erie that has a history of missing women. As adults, they reunite on the island to piece together their family’s history and legacy.

I did feel that the ending didn’t really cinch things up the way I wanted it to and it took a long time to get to the ending. There were also some things that seemed on the verge of silly in the final act. It took me out of the grim atmosphere that had been well-cultivated until then.

Read this if you like:
- Coming of age stories with a twist
- Family curses
- Haunted houses situated very precariously on a cliff

Published by MCD x FSG Originals on April 4, 2023

The Insatiable Volt Sisters is a literary horror story. Unless the author is Mary Shelley, I’m not sure that “literary” and “horror” belong in the same sentence. Stephen King (to whom Rachel Eve Moulton seems to pay homage by naming a character Carrie) once argued that writers either create genre fiction or literature but not both. In later years, after sharpening his writing talent, King backed away from that position, but there is some truth to the suggestion that plot-focused genre fiction isn’t easily blended with literary fiction’s focus on character and setting and deep themes. Some writers perform that trick, but Moulton sacrifices the storytelling that horror fiction demands by focusing on her literary aspirations. In the end, Moulton uses the trappings of horror fiction to dress up a domestic drama that explores feminist themes. She never manages to create the buildup of dread that is essential to a good horror story.

The plot cycles between 2000 and 1989, although the reader learns much (maybe too much) about the early history of Fowler Island in Lake Erie. We are told at least twice that Eileen and Elizabeth Fowler, sisters who developed the power to communicate with each other without speaking, built the island’s downtown and roads, as well as the Island Museum. Elizabeth married Seth Volt, who dug a quarry and built a Victorian house that islanders call Quarry Hollow. Legend has it that Seth imprisoned Elizabeth in the house, separating her from her sister. They learned to communicate by telepathy to overcome their separation.

The half-sisters Henrietta (Henri) and Beatrice (B.B.) are descendants of Seth Volt. They were born two years apart to different mothers but were often mistaken for twins, perhaps because their mothers looked so much alike. Their father James, a reclusive poet who somehow made a living, apparently had a type. After Olivia Rose vanished, James knocked up Carrie and brought her to the island as his new wife. The sisters grew up in Quarry Hollow and know it to be haunted, perhaps by Oliva Rose, but not by her alone.

Fowler Island is where depressed women go to die. “The island feasts on female sadness. It licks it up like ice cream.” Women visit the island and disappear, perhaps by jumping (voluntarily or otherwise) into the quarry, which is now filled with water. The quarry is known to the Volt sisters as the Killing Pond. Nobody seems to care about the missing women. Their bodies are never recovered so they are quickly forgotten. Moulton seems to be making a heavy-handed argument that society in general doesn’t care about women, although in most places, when someone comes across a female foot that has been detached from its body, the police at least investigate. Not on Fowler Island.

The island devil, a “great big and dripping thing with leathery fins,” lives in the Killing Pond. Perhaps bodies never surface because they are consumed by the monster, apart from the stray foot. When, on occasion, “the essential part” of the monster walks on land, it can change its shape to suit its whims. The monster’s true identity is a barely concealed secret until Moulton decides to state the obvious.

The other key character is Sonia, the curator of the island museum who helps mop up the blood and feet when women disappear. Sonia helped James raise B.B. after Olivia Rose disappeared.

For reasons that are revealed near the novel’s end, Carrie separated from James without warning, leaving the girls to fear that she had disappeared like Olivia Rose. After she returned, the girls sensed that Carrie would leave James and made drama because they feared she would only take her biological daughter with her. Their scheme to remain inseparable ends with a transformative experience for Henri. The island is indifferent to the scheme because it has plans for the Volt sisters.

Early in the novel, in a chapter that takes place in 2000, B.B. finds her father’s body, minus a part he seems to have shed. B.B. calls Henri to deliver the news. When Henri tells her mother that she will return for the funeral because B.B. needs her, Carrie reminds Henri that the island is “a magnet for trouble” and a “lighthouse for disaster.” Carrie eventually agrees to join Henri although she vows not to enter Quarry Hollow. Really, she should have known better. In any event, the Volt sisters are together once more.

The plot is all over the place. It combines a haunted house story with one of demonic possession while exploring sisterly relationships under extreme circumstances, failed marriages under extreme circumstances, and the disappearances of women who fled extreme circumstances. Themes of female despair and empowerment drive the novel. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to note that the ghosts who haunt the house are the residue of the women who died on the island. In death as in life, they are enslaved by toxic masculinity. Exactly why that is true is never addressed. It seems to be assumed that male demons feed on women because that's what men do.

The eventual show of strength displayed by the Volt sisters is a stretch, if only because their acquisition of girl power is unconvincing, even in a horror novel that demands suspension of disbelief. A late scene in which Carrie and Sonia overcome adversity by battling a devil while they’re underwater is just silly. So is the thought that ghosts of dead women urge a living woman who allies with them to “be strong” and “not to quit” until they transform the woman into “a lightning bolt of a girl.” You go, sisters! This is the kind of plot I might expect from a comic book. I just couldn’t take it seriously.

Because the novel is literary, Moulton devotes great attention to character development. Carrie and Sonia are collateral characters but they relate their thoughts in detail — Carrie’s thoughts of how it feels to be a disappearing mother, her changing feelings about James and the plan she made to escape from the island, her fear of the house and of James’ potential responsibility for the vanishing women; Sonia’s thoughts of being a maternal stand-in and the custodian of island lore. The detail slows the pace, inhibiting the fear that the novel never conjures.

Descriptions of the island monster crawling out of the goop are a bit chilling, until we realize that it’s a standard lizard monster with changeling powers. Moulton’s failure to enliven a horror story with original ideas leaves a shell that she fills with striking sentences and an ode to sisterhood that, while well-intentioned, falls short of being compelling.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

When I request an ARC there is quite a lag in time between that time (when I first read the summary and it interests me enough to ask for the galley) and when I go to read the book. Sometimes it’s six months or more. So when I went to read The Insatiable Volt Sisters, I didn’t remember much about this book’s summary other than it involved two sisters, a big house, and it was something involving paranormal and weird stuff.

This book is sneaky. At first, it has this feel of being magical realism literary fiction written in some of the (simultaneously) loveliest and most visceral prose I’ve read in some time with a whisper of gothic ghost story woven gently in. Don’t be fooled. This book quickly takes a turn for the paranormal and horrific, while still managing to have that visceral, sometimes violent, often vividly descriptive, and somehow always beautiful prose.

Honestly, I don’t know how Moulton wrote this book without summoning demons and muses at the same time, because writing a book that manages to be both heartbreaking and emotionally moving but angry and terrifying is some kind of genius writing magic. Her sentence composition and structure is the definition of perfection for this type of novel, and her copious use of the five senses adds to the surreal experience of spending time with Quarry Hollow (the Volt family home) Fowler Island (on which Quarry Hollow sits) and the quarry itself (one of the main characters in the story, even if it is a location and not a person).

Honestly, I don’t want to talk about the plot, because I feel like doing so will not only spoil the book, but it’ll spoil the experience of reading the book for anyone who wishes to read it. I kind of think this book is best enjoyed blind (though I will TW for an animal death late in the book, though it isn’t violent, in my opinion). There are a great many other topics in this book that another reviewer might give TW or CWs for, but I don’t give TW or CWs save for animal deaths, so you might want to look at some other reviews and see if another reviewer has listed comprehensive TWs or CWs. As always, be aware of your own mental thresholds while reading and don’t be afraid to stop if you need to stop. Your mental health is always more important than completing a book.

Honestly, this book has sent me reeling, and it’s resonating in my brain. I haven’t yet managed to tease out all the themes, to set them apart and figure out how Moulton managed to braid the strands together into this paranormal symphony. I’m still in the book with the characters, thinking about all of them, their roles in the story, and how they all fit in. I don’t know how long it’s going to take for this story to leave my brain, but I hope it takes a while. The best stories stick with you.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All ideas, thoughts, views, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Ghost Story/Literary Fiction/Paranormal Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Dark Fantasy/Folk Horror/5 Star Read/Gothic

I really liked the first half of this book but hated the second. The Insatiable Volt Sisters, BB and Henrie were born into a family or secrets, lore , and monsters. They thought the island off of Lake Erie was their playground but didn’t know the danger it possessed.
I was really sucked into the mystery and suspense of the first half of the novel but as it progressed, I liked the characters less and less. The build up to the climax was good but the overall ending was very disappointing.
Thank for NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy and give my honest opinion.

DNF - I had such high hopes for what this story could have been. The writing superbly set an atmosphere of unease that was intriguing to behold. Unfortunately, the story itself was bland. Chapter after chapter, nothing happened. The chapters felt so long & almost never-ending only to conclude with a shadow of a doubt that was not enough to make me want to continue. I made it to the 50% mark & upon reading another chapter wherein Beatrice is a menace for no reason, Henrietta is babbling like a newborn baby at the age of 14, & Carrie is an inconsolable idiot, I dropped out. There was the potential to cultivate actual terror in this story but there is too much of nothing splintered into the story to foster long bouts of tension. I did not care what Henrie thought of the ice-cream flavour; people were losing their life on this random island, steady the course so we can get to the point.

I appreciate Horror because it is slow, as in real life, terror is a collection of minute observances that lead a person to feel dread - fear. This story sliced its own heels making it unable to run forward. We wade in the same water over & over again with dream sequences of a monster with teeth waiting for a lonely lady to devour. Near the middle of the book, I was tired of this repetition.

There is certainly an audience who will not mind that every character is unlikeable & quite dull; who will pleasantly read enumerable chapters waiting until the final 50 pages to have something revealed. I am no such reader. I hope this book finds its way to those who will enjoy it.

This book does not fit into one genre. It's a mix, a blending of story elements that will hypnotize a reader and keep them reading, following Rachel Moulton's clues to a place you'd never have thought the story could go. Sisters. Each generation in Volt family history has revolved around sisters, their sameness, their difference, their loyalty to each other and the family. The current generation's sisters are Henrie and BB. Their shared history surprises even them.

Rachel Eve Moulton has woven the characters, the island and the history so tightly together that you will feel the tension and the emotions through the page. These two sisters ARE holding the island's history together. BUT it is time the history is changed, broken challenges wiped clear. Sounds mysterious? Just wait until you read it.......