In the idyllic Connecticut town of Henley’s Edge, elderly people are disappearing. All 5 missing are in their 60s to 70s. From there, the story splits in half. First we have Malik, who is investigating the missing people. He is having his own problems. Apparently the neighbors aren't pleased with the homosexual couple that moved in. And then there is Ghost (his real name) still mourning his wife's death after 3 years, overcome with guilt at her death and the death of their child.

I thought this book was going to be great. I mean, the first scene includes an archaeological dig. Anyone else thinking about The Exorcist?

However the stories of Ghost and Malik while running parallel, do not intersect until the very end. I kept wondering how they were going to wrap up as there wasn't really any overlap. It seemed like a lot was going on but nothing really happening, if that makes sense. I felt for Ghost; his grief was so visceral. But Malik...he was not my favorite character. He and his partner are victims of a hate crime, and when his boss tells him he needs to "tone things down" while out in public, he just takes it.

Even when the viciousness of the crime rises exponentially - Malik's husband is brutally attacked in their home - all Malik can think is: "I thought I would be able to feel if something bad happened to Brett." Then at the hospital he wonders why he isn't angry.

This is my first book by the author, although I have Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke signed and on my shelf. I was rather disappointed in this. I liked Ghost's part of the book, but Malik really took me out of it. Perhaps if the stories were more intertwined, but I was just taken out of Malik's part of the book, although it probably didn't help that certain parts of his story were rather brutal. Unfortunately, this one just didn't do it for me. But I'm optimistic about the author and I'll read more of him. Eventually. When the pile goes down...

Rating: 3.15 leaves out of 5
-Characters: 3/5
-Cover: 2.75/5
-Story: 3.5/5
-Writing: 5/5
-Horror: 1.5
Genre: Horror/LGTB/Fantasy
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Yeah

Want to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to listen to this book.

Oh goodness where do I even start this review at? So the book in a whole was okay. It gave me Lovecraftian vibes but throw in a random gay couple that won't make sense till the end. The story wasn't bad but I think it fell a little flat. I believe if it was fluffed out a bit more it would have been better and if it was a series because I want more Ghost.

Horror wise it was there but like a hint of it. Kind of like lemon water. I believe I was more angry than scared with this book.

There were things that I enjoyed about this book and things that I did not. Since I received the audiobook I'll start by saying that the narrator did a great job with his reading. His voice was quite nice to listen to and the reading was very clear. He did a great job of switching between characters - adding some ruggedness to the older man voice and inflecting a bit for the female characters and the "little spirit" as well. He was easy to understand as well.

I had high hopes for this book as it's Eric LaRocca, someone who has been on my TBR for a long time, and premise promised a darkness with occult elements. The prologue started out very promising! And while there were sprinkles of magic in Ghost's storyline, it never really felt like it reached it's true potential. It was Malik's story that stuck with me most and that's not a good thing. Malik's story is full of homophobia and graphic violence. I am glad that their storylines finally converged, but it wasn't until the very end. I did enjoy Eric's writing style so I will check out something else by him in the future.

Look up trigger warnings for this one. They include homophobia, torture, rape, kidnapping, etc.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for a review copy.

This one was super weird but I am a sucker for a happy ending and I did get that in the end. But overall I am not sure how I feel about the book...but it wasn't a total waste of time. I will say that horror isn't usually my fave genre so perhaps that's my issue.

#EverythingTheDarknessEats
#NetGalley

{3.5 stars}

Whooo baby, this is a dark and violent story. I'm sure that this has a very distinct audience and will not have mass appeal. I'm not going to try to summarize as I'd be afraid to be too spoilery. What I will say is that I was immediately hooked from the first few minutes of the audiobook and basically listened straight through. Ghost was a completely unique and utterly compelling character and while I had no clue where this one was going, I enjoyed the ride. There is a ton of overt violence, including sexual and while the main characters are queer, there is a lot of negativity toward them. So be aware of that before you go in. So if you can handle gratuitous violence in your horror, I'd say this one is worth a go as it does come together in a unique way and there is a glimmer of hope even if it comes at the very last second.

Thanks to Dreamscape Media for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions above are my own.

The narrator was great. Really loved listening to him. The book itself was alright it was easy to follow. I would not classify this as a horror though. It wasn’t the edge of my seat scary like I was hoping. It was weird and gory and unsettling more than anything which, I can’t complain. I really love Eric LaRocca and all the other books that he has written that I have read. This was not horrible I guess just was hoping for more.

Disappointing and needlessly graphic. Like snuff film graphic, not even for the sake of horror. The writing is good enough to draw the reader in, but the story includes a lot of strange, almost hypersexual inner dialogue.

I did not enjoy this book. I didn't outwardly hate it, but I just found it boring. The plot seemed to drag me around in circles, ultimately feeling like I got nowhere. The characters were bland and offered little to no growth throughout the story.

Eric LaRocca's Everything the Darkness Eats tells two concurrent stories set in Henley's Edge, Connecticut. Ghost (really) spends his day to day life moping over the death of his wife and their unborn child when he gets pulled into the orbit of Crowley, a practitioner of eldritch rituals. Malik works for the local police department and is investigating a series of disappearances, while also dealing with bigotry, harassment and hate crimes for daring to be married to Brett.

Chapters alternate between these two characters, though we get something of a cold open with several people dying in a separate location, and then the first scene in Henley's Edge details Crowley picking up a new victim, completely negating any chance to have a mystery.

While these two narratives are linked in location and involve the same series of disappearances, they both go their separate ways. What they have in common are individuals following their paths doing what they feel they must for their safety or recovery of their loved ones, damn the costs. Both the narrators are fueled by hatred. Ghost his self hatred and Malik the anger to counter the hatred he and Brett face.

Malik's story arc in particular goes to some terrible, predictable places. What starts as a campaign of terror (a brick through a window) rapidly escalates to home invasion, beatings and gang rape. Keep in mind, Malik works for the police, but his boss makes it clear they are going to do nothing about anything that happens.

There are a lot of very poor choices, that run counter to common sense. For Ghost, Who kidnaps a blind child from a supermarket? And then goes back there to drop the child off outside? IN A TAXI?
For Malik, as a police officer, why would you go alone to take on a group of toughs the next town over? What about your job investigating all those disappearances? Why make the lead rapist have a backstory that explains his hatred by childhood trauma?

Maybe these people denied years of their routines because of the evil that is "new" in town?

In short, people make predictable, terrible decisions with a complete lack of suspense. Bookriot! , you lead me astray.

I disliked this novel so much I feel bad writing a review. I'm sure the author has a big fanbase for a reason that I just don't see. If there was any depth to the themes I just have missed it, I was waiting for it to be connected or intertwined or vaguely thematically coherent and then it ended.
Narrator did a decent job.

I was given this audiobook by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The narrator was very good.

The story...I have to say first that I'm a fan of this author's work, mostly all of it being short stories. This book, being an attempt at one longer story actually ended up feeling like 2 or 3 short stories/narratives smashed into one. The stories had little, if at all, to do with one another and were confusing, frustrating and, at times, made little sense.

A common theme throughout was sexual orientation, sexual bigotry and extreme sexual abuse. The extreme sexual abuse was, in my opinion, unnecessary for advancing the story and didn't need to be included, especially in such a gratuitous manner.

One thing that irritated me while listening to the audiobook, was that the older man kept repeating a phrase that made the character and story even less engaging. If I ever hear, "my dear boy" again it'll be too soon.

Regardless of my feelings on this book, I remain an Eric LaRocca fan and will continue to read this author's work! This one just didn't work for me as well as the others. 3⭐️

I am grateful to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to have an advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

If you're familiar with Eric LaRocca's work, you already know that sensitive readers need not apply, but Everything the Darkness Eats deserves a content warning for the following: violent sexual assault that occurs on-page, homophobia, hate crimes.

At this point I've read a lot of LaRocca's work, and most of it has really worked for me. Everything the Darkness Eats, though, mostly did not work for me. In a story that can only be described as Needful Things meets Something Wicked This Way Comes with a dash of Stranger Things, it centers on the disappearances of several people in a small Connecticut town and the sinister secrets lurking within the basement of a prominent resident's dilapidated Victorian mansion.

There are interesting themes and ideas at work in this novel, but most of them feel half-formed, and several plot threads are left unresolved. LaRocca clearly has a lot to say about life as an LGBTQIA+ person, and those points are important and valid, but he doesn't do service to them here, rushing through them and failing to integrate them effectively into the plot. There is an on-page rape that feels completely unnecessary. I'm used to LaRocca's writing making me feel unsettled; and I love that, it's one of the reasons I continue to seek out his work. But in Everything the Darkness Eats, the shock and the violence felt too effortful and forced.

One thing I found interesting, and would have liked to see explored further, is the idea of little spirits riding on people's shoulders, whispering in their ears. I have a feeling LaRocca could have written a kick-ass short story featuring this intriguing, fantastical element, but in Everything the Darkness Eats, it's just one in a disjointed series of ideas presented in the narrative. I hope LaRocca continues writing short fiction, because that's where he seems to really excel.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for an early audio copy; André Santana did an incredible job narrating this book, imbuing LaRocca's writing and characters with a lot of emotion.

Thank you Net Galley for the audio ARC!

I will be giving this a 3 star. I am still fairly new to the horror genre, so take that with a grain of salt, but I enjoyed the book overall, but some parts were a bit much for me. I would consider a reread once I am more established with the genre, but there did seem to be a bit of a plot hole & the over all narration was great

This one just wasn't for me. Usually violence doesn't bother me, but it felt gratuitous here, especially in the context of homophobia. I also didn't really understand what the book was trying to do. It felt like a draft of something that could have been great.

I don't read as many horror books as I'd like to, and when I saw Everything the Darkness Eats on Netgalley, I was excited. And not only was it a horror novel, it was queer, too!

While there are undeniably books that are going to be about the downsides of queerness (social ostracization, oppression, et cetera), I didn't expect straight-up queer torture porn in this book and that knocked down my rating significantly. I will address it, but I want to talk about the upsides first.

There were interesting parts of this book! At first, I was unsure about how I felt about the three point-of-views split, but in the end, I liked how it came together. It's rare we get different points of view in third-person stories, and I think LaRocca utilized that well. I also think that the characters were interesting and the figurative language was top-notch. The author does a really good job of painting the scenes. I think someone else called it pretentious, but I liked it.

While there were good things, there were more things I didn't like. Regarding the structure of the book: the head-hopping. There were a few instances where I noticed it especially and it was distracting in the story. As for the content...I don't know why it was necessary to include so much torture of the queer characters. Rape, hate crimes, all in a modern (?) New England town? It seems unrealistic and I don't think there was any reason for the author to go into such explicit details ESPECIALLY without some form of indication. If the author weren't queer themself, I would honestly wonder if the author held blatant homophobic beliefs. I'm usually the happy queer book reader, so I didn't like watching the strictly gay characters get raped and abused on almost every single page.

With how the world is becoming more and more oppressive toward the LGBT community, there is a lot of anxiety and this book is incredibly jarring to read. The fact that it's coming out during pride month and will also surely be marketed as queer horror seems almost bad faith. Maybe it is some people's gist, but I STRONGLY urge for there to be some sort of list of what happens in the book at the beginning, just so people know what they're getting into during this time of heightened anxiety.

I don't fully fault the author, and maybe it's his way of getting out the trauma that they've seen/been affected by, but I implore them to really consider the recommendations I listed.

After several disappearances in a small New England town, a man grieving his spouse is drawn into the world of the occult by a mysterious older man, Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a law enforcement officer is investigating the disappearances and comes to learn of the hatred simmering in this idyllic small town.

This is my first Eric LaRocca book. It was definitely more gruesome and gory than I expected, but it was gripping, and I finished it in one sitting. I love horror books that are set in seemingly idyllic small towns and explore the more insidious nature of small communities that can lurk beneath the facade. I particularly liked the way the novel critiqued homophobia through horror.

Thank you to NetGalley, Clash books, and Dreamscape Media for giving me a copy in exchange for my review.

This, unfortunately was a big miss for me. I’ve heard such good things about this author but this book felt far from horror. There were a few graphic seems but other than that it was very bland.

Everything the Darkness Eats did not hit the mark for me. I found this storyline to be really disjointed, and I can not find a reason or a place for the extremely homophobic and hate crime centred material. This novella is marketed as a supernatural thriller but I don’t think I would consider it as such, the supernatural elements were barely there.

I really disliked the backstory given for the character committing rape, it seemed very sympathetic to that character and was very out of place. I also started to roll my eyes at every single simile in this novella- for which there are hundreds.

I wouldn’t recommend this book, it’s not that I can’t handle the material (I am a big fan and reader of extreme horror), I just feel it’s so discombobulated and it did not leave me with an impression that it was well planned out or well edited.

2.5 stars

This book is just plain weird, & several parts of it don’t make sense. There is also a lot of trauma, torture, sexual abuse in the story, most of it motivated by homophobia.

[What I liked:]

•Ghost is a decent MC; he’s definitely interesting & I wish more of his birth story & about his neck-ghost were explained. It’s also interesting how his “lack of faith” ends up protecting him from being mind controlled by the thing in the cellar (although shouldn’t that have also protected him from being mind controlled by Crowley?)


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•The torture & gang rape that Malik is subjected to was extreme, & I’m not sure how any of that served the plot or the story’s meaning. It was just very upsetting & cruel. But also, would a HOA really hire a hit man because they didn’t want to leave next to a gay couple?

•Why did Ghost just believe everything Crowley told him & go back to the house from the grocery store? The way Crowley treated him bordered on sexual assault & eventually turned into torture as well.

•Why did Ghost’s neck-ghost save him? Why did it eat what it did at the end, & how was it able to do it, & why didn’t it do it sooner?

CW: murder, terminal illness, kidnapping, racism, sexism, homophobia/gay bashing, torture, sexual assault

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

A rural village in New England is facing a looming threat of destruction as dark forces are summoned and prejudice is allowed to thrive unchecked. In the aftermath of a series of unexplained disappearances in a small town in Connecticut, a man grieving the loss of his wife is lured into a perilous ritual involving black magic, orchestrated by a powerful and enigmatic figure known as Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of the local law enforcement tasked with solving the mystery of the bizarre disappearances begins to uncover a deep-seated hatred simmering beneath the veneer of the town's peaceful community, which, once unleashed, will change the lives of the villagers forever.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an audiobook as it was greatly narrated. Now I've enjoyed my fair share of Eric Larocca so far, but unfortunately this one is an exception. I didn't connected to the story at all, the way God was talked about and used to drive the plot did not sit well with me personally. Plot was mostly going nowhere and at the end I seriously didn't understand what was even a point, I felt like it was trying too hard to emphasize certain things and I was bored for majority of it and I missed horror aspects. On the positive side tho, writing was excellent, as per usual!