A slow book that barely goes anywhere. The pace is too slow with too much paranoia and repetitiveness. Would have liked the story/events from another character's perspective.

Thank you to the author for gifting me an ebook!
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If you’re looking for a horror book that gives you constant dread and foreboding at the turn of every page, then let me introduce you to Downpour. Although the book is only 246 pages, the feeling of impending doom as a father tries to save his family from rain that turns people into something evil, will have you forgetting time altogether.

The book explores a lot of things amidst the threatening weather, including a dividing spousal relationship, family dynamics, past trauma and an overall sense of hopelessness over life choices, and I’m sure there are parts that every one of us can resonate with. However as a reader, I felt there was a lot to unpack while the main characters are also navigating through an unprecedented, monstrous rain situation during one evening. Also, some parts felt repetitive though it did not deter my interest from reading.

I definitely did not see that ending coming which makes for a very interesting discussion as readers are sure to experience different feelings about it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Christopher Hawkins for the digital ARC.

This was definitely not a feel-good novel. I'd check any applicable trigger warnings before diving in. That said, I didn't have any trouble with the subject matter.

This book was fast paced and well-written. It was a quick read and held my attention the entire time.

I could see this book adapted as a movie. It was reminiscent of early Stephan King and had "Bird Box" vibes.

I've never read anything by Christopher Hawkins before, but I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.

An apocalyptic rain begins to fall on an old rural farmhouse. Inside, Scott and Dana’s marriage is falling apart, and the children are starting to notice. As Scott contemplates forgiveness, fatherhood, and his own dark childhood, the rain falls harder.

Relentless and destructive, this downpour is no ordinary summer shower. And Scott soon realizes he has much bigger problems than his marriage - especially after he witnesses the horrors this rain is capable of.

Suspenseful and action-packed, this eco-thriller will appear to fans of Bird Box and Annihilation - landing somewhere between science fiction and horror (a few scenes are especially graphic and horrific). I’ve seen comparisons to Stephen King’s The Mist too.

I was expecting a survivalist thriller, but that’s not exactly what is happening here. Atmospheric and full of gloom and dread, I really enjoyed this cinematic, speculative novel. And I always appreciate a good surprise ending!
Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the arc!

Downpour was so creepy! Christop Hawkins did a really good job on setting the scene and drawing me in to atmosphere he created. I was able to finish this book in a day because I wanted to see what happened next. No spoilers from me but I think if you enjoy horror, you’re gonna enjoy this one.

I would recommend reading this one on a gloomy and rainy day.

Christopher Hawkins' debut novel is an incredible blend of psychological and cosmic horror, with a dash of family and domestic terror. It feels like Max Booth's 'We Have to Do Something' meets Jeff VanderMeer's 'Annihilation': the claustrophobic atmosphere combines with deep psychological insight into stressed family relationships, producing an original story brimming with tension and genuine anxiety and worry about the fate of the characters as the world around them collapses and transforms into something entirely different.

People, places, events, all follow a downward spiral along with the weather: strange cloud formations appear over continental US, one of which over the house of an already stressed family. The focus is on the father, who inherited the house from his own father, with whom he did not have the best of relations. Bit by bit, through subtly placed memories within the narrative (not flashbacks), a family history of psychological abuse and trauma is revealed, giving the father's plight throughout the book a special overtone, as he tries to do his best not to repeat his own father's mistakes. This proves very hard, as the cloud brings torrents of corrosive rain, "corrosive" both in the material and the metaphorical sense: the toxicity of the father's memories translate into a toxic environment both internally and externally, mentally and in the real world, The father takes it upon himself to single-handedly save his family: he has to deal with the family pet, a sweet dog transformed by the rain into a monster, with his volatile wife, who gets infected by the rain, with his children, a teenage boy and a four-year-old girl, who sometimes undermine his confidence, if not his authority. Hawkins' take on the masculine mentality feels very real and astute; in fact, it drives the story and brings it to its explosive ending.

The ending! Well, without spoiling anything, I confess that this is the best ending I've seen in ages. Perhaps terrifying, perhaps not, certainly unsettling either way.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the author for the chance to read an ARC of this book.

Thank you @christopherhawkins and @netgalley for the #gifted copy of this book!

Rain rain go away, come again another day! (OR NOT) I live in IL so I am hoping this really doesn’t happen in this wonderful state. 😅

Set in a small town in IL there is a family of four and dog living on a farm. The parents aren’t in the best spot with each other and quite frankly themselves. One day, out of no where a rain cloud forms however it’s not just any rain cloud..it is a rain cloud that causes the poor dog to stop acting like Lassie and more like Cujo. Eek! As soon as the father notices something is up things literally start to crumble around them. The rain is turning any living thing into monsters. Just who will make it out alive?

Thoughts: This short horror book totally reminded me of a movie that I would have watched as a kid to scare the pants off of myself. 😂 I feel the author did an amazing job creating fear and vivid imagery of the world that was literally changing by the minute. I liked that the timeline was just a day which kept me stressed and flipping pages fast. There were some terrifying moments and I honestly felt for the poor dad trying to keep his kids calm and alive! If you don’t like rain, don’t read this book! 😂 it will make you like it less. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting the ending to end the way it did. Definitely was a surprise which I always love! I can’t wait to see what Christopher writes next!!

I really liked the writing and the concept. The writing reminded me a little bit of Stephen King. I highly recommend this book to horror or thriller fans.

Thank you to NetGalley for a review copy.

I found this book to be a little bit too repetitive in it's descriptions of the characters and especially of how the main characters thought that they must be feeling. If this book had been longer, I might have not noticed it, but for how short this story is, a lot of it is repetitive.
Furthermore, I feel like the story fails to commit to a plot. I usually don't mind if horror stories end without much of an explanation, but in this case I really needed more to the atory. A lot of it feels like an outline to a book that could have been really interesting, as the concept of the story in itself is super unique. To me, both the entity (?) in the rain and specifically, the main characters childhood should have been explained more. This is also were my issue with the repetition comes back into play, as the desciptions of anything belongin to what's happening with the rain, but one again specifically with the childhood, is constantly repeated, and we only get new information right at the very end.
The end, however, was good. For me, parts of the middle could have been condensed, and instead, there could have been another 50-100 pages after the end that we got, commiting a bit more to the alien (?) horror vs. the childhood trauma, and a little glimpse into what could happen in the future.

Downpour by Christopher Hawkins is definitely a page-turner. I wish it were longer with more revelations about the source of the rain.

This book was a ride from the beginning to the end! It was thoughtful and well written, and terrifying. The whole concept of an unknown horror that you can’t control is always scary, and the the final realization that there is nothing you can do about it shook me.
I really love the characters in the book, especially the brother. My only downfall at the end of the book, and this is a me problem, as I hate these endings, is that no one survived. I know that other people love that though. I recently recommended the book on a Reddit thread, where someone inquired about books that do not have a happy ending.
I would love to read other books by this author!

A sudden storm appears above an isolated farmhouse in rural Illinois, bringing with it a relentless and unnatural rain. A rain that eats away at everything it touches. A rain that turns people into monsters.
Trapped inside his crumbling home, a father must do everything he can to keep his family from falling apart. But the rain calls to them, and not everyone wants to stay inside.
Haunted by memories of loss, he must put aside his painful past and find a way to keep them all safe. But the rain shows no signs of stopping, and time is running out.


a classic psychological horror that was very engaging and that kept me running back for more.

3.75 stars rounded up t0 4

There are some good, scary ideas in this book. Rain that’s actually dangerous is an unsettling concept, and simply staying inside to wait it out sounds like a solid plan but the author thought of ways around that. I live in an area that’s been relentlessly hounded with storms this Summer and I’m so sick of it. While reading this, I didn’t have any trouble at all picturing the endless torrents of water threatening the family. I think this story had strong Stephen King influences and a cool premise, but could benefit from editing.

I noticed a few different reviewers said that the novel is repetitive and I have to agree. There are a lot of sentences in the narration that essentially say the same thing that was just stated a second before, only slightly reworded. Sometimes full paragraphs could be tightened up because the point was already made. The protagonist Scott also tends to go back and worry about the same things over and over. This is a realistic and human thing to do, but it becomes tiresome to read about and breaks the tension. A lot of the story’s action in general is repetitive as well.

I think this narrative had the same problem that a lot of these family-centric horror stories do: if the characters would just communicate with each other then things would go a bit more smoothly. It’s frustrating having the teenage son repeatedly ask the dad “What’s happening?” just for him to respond with “I don’t know.” You could at least tell him what your theories are so that you’re on the same page with each other, and maybe that would make him more cooperative.

Some of the young daughter’s behavior later on didn’t make sense to me, given what had happened. I know she was only Four, but I felt like she should’ve been more frightened by certain things. The wife Dana was very irritating, but that might have been done on purpose. At one point in the story Scott’s inner voice is struggling with negative and angry thoughts about his own family and we as the reader are supposed to feel his turmoil as he hears his abusive father’s voice in his own head. But the problem was, Scott’s family’s actions were pissing ME off, too. So was I also being a jerk, or were his kids being incredibly difficult and frustrating? I still don’t know.

What I think the author did do effectively here were creepy things happening via technology, like news footage or the part where Scott reviews a vlogger’s footage of the storm, then revisits the live feed later. There are some good, frightening moments during these scenes. I also liked the use of green lightning to mix things up with a cool, eerie visual, and the little insights into what Scott and Dana’s relationship USED to be like. Small, vivid moments like that were really nice and well done. There was a super gross scare towards the end of the story that I wasn’t expecting, also.

Another thing I was a fan of: the unconventional ending. I’m not going to spoil anything, but it sounds like some reviewers are divided when it comes to this. Personally, it worked for me.

Trigger Warnings: Animal harm/death

I think I stumbled across Christopher Hawkins on social media initially. He seemed such a lovely and committed writer that I was drawn to request and review Downpour the moment I saw it on Netgalley- and of course an apocalyptic style horror set in the middle of nowhere America will forever catch my eye.

Downpour features all my favourites; a desolate ramshackle house, unexplainable freak nature, home invasion, a decent helping of body horror and tension drawn so tight your shoulders will meet your ear lobes.

I have only two drawbacks, both likely key to my personal preferences. Firstly, I'm impatient so I despise repetition and on a few occasions detailed descriptions or inner monologues were almost word for word recounted. Secondly, did I mention I'm impatient? Which doesn't lend itself to being the most child friendly and I found the young daughter to be extremely irritating albeit completely believable in her behaviour.

Told in first from the perspective of down-on-his-luck husband and father Scott, Hawkins gives us just enough time to invest in the small family of four, drawing sympathy for their plight before the storm literally and figuratively rolls in.

Although slow at times (see repetition!) the pacing is generally decent, gaining traction as Scott's house, wife and even pet dog turn against him, his entire world slowly crumbling whilst he desperately fights to protect his children.
Downpour is heavy on the allegory, so much so at times I began to question whether there even was a storm or perhaps an unreliable narrator. Had he been insane all along?

Hawkins sets the scene clearly and without unnecessary verbiage, allowing the reader to visualise every moment with ease.

Downpour is bleak and you'll find no happy endings here, instead a tidy little plot surprise awaits tucked subtley amongst the rapidly increasing horror of uncontrollable devastation.

I ripped through this book in two 'sittings,' one of which involved walking my dog in the rain, which turned out to be a poor choice with this book, for reasons that will become clear when you read it.

The slow burn horror of this story is so stressful, and I loved how Hawkins explores the main character's slow decline. The world of this story is terrifying, but Scott's slow decline into toxic, patriarchal thinking is a journey in its own right.

The best horror is really about something larger than the frightening events it describes, and DOWNPOUR walks the line of exploring real-world trauma without being hamfisted about it. Scott's trying to escape a cycle of family violence, but he's also clinging to it in ways that mean he can never truly break free from it. This story takes place over a 24-hour period, maybe even less, and the way that the pressure of disaster drive Scott back into his father's way of thinking is hard to read because it's so on point. The descriptions are horrifying, the character... development? decline?... is gradual but inevitable, and Scott's POV got under my skin. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for allowing me to read this book as an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Although it is supposed to be summer here in August in the UK, it has not stopped raining for about a month. I’ve spent a lot of time reading whilst listening to the sound of rain beating against the roof. Therefore, I was a little apprehensive to start Downpour, a horror about corrosive rain which turns people into monsters.

Scott lives in his childhood farmhouse in isolated Illinois with his wife and two children. He has his flaws - he is lazy and can be quick to temper, having recently discovered that his wife is having an affair and the money is quickly running out. When a strange raincloud comes in, Scott is certain something is wrong as the rain seems to change everyone it touches. As he battens down the hatches, it’s a race to stop the water from finding its way into the house in any way that it can.

The story is told through the perspective of Scott as he tries to do all he can to save his family. He is not the immediate hero - he makes some silly decisions and snaps at his wife and his kids. However, as a reader we do warm to him to a certain extent as we know his heart is in the right place. The two children are also key characters, with four-year-old Tallie not understanding the danger, which made for a lot of tension in the later half of the book.

The story is dark and melancholic and there is a trigger warning for violence towards animals and children being in danger. The scenes are painted in an atmospheric way that really helps you to picture what was happening. This adds to the horror element, along with the fact that the enemy here is water which can easily find its way onto and into everything in the house. The feeling of claustrophobia is strong, and it also heightens the domestic drama as well.

There are a few stock phrases that are overused which perhaps need an edit before final publication (eg: ‘might as well have been on the moon’ is used at least 3 or 4 times which stuck out to me). However, the story is well paced and there are a few great twists before the conclusion. The ending might divide some readers, but I quite enjoyed how Hawkins chose to wrap the story up. There isn’t much in the way of a resolution and the phenomenon is never really explained, but it was a good story which really stuck in your mind after reading it.

Overall, Downpour is a creepy horror which will certainly make me think twice before heading outside in a downpour after reading! Thank you to NetGalley & Christopher Hawkins for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I already posted this on GoodReads, but I'm adding it here before I forget.

'The rain was part of the air now. He could feel it on his skin. He could taste it as he breathed. Soon enough, it would be inside them all, no matter how careful he was, no matter how much he tried to stop it.'

****3.75/5 Stars ****

Firstly, a big thanks to Christopher Hawkins and NetGalley for gifting me an ARC copy of this book. This is the first book I've had the pleasure of doing an ARC read for. I finished the story in about 2 days and it was a fun read.

Now, into the nitty gritty. I think this book has a great premise and it was a fun read. I think it's perfect to read on a rainy day. Especially in the fall. I feel like if you like Pet Semetary by Stephen King then this will be right up your alley. The premise is unique and straight-forward, which I can really appreciate.

There were a lot of really great moments and the visuals were well done. I will admit, there were multiple typos that pulled me out of the story, but that's more of a nitpick on my end. Books are all doomed to have typos no matter how you try. I also really enjoyed the ending. It was a chronicle as to how sometimes the tighter you hold onto something the more you strangle it to death.

Where this is coming out in early October I definitely suggest it for a spooky season read.

I feel bad saying this, but I absolutely do not understand all the 4 and 5 stars on here. It makes me feel like I was given an earlier version of the book?

I was incredibly intrigued by its concept, but it unfortunately fell completely flat in the execution. I'm not kidding... almost every SINGLE page had the phrases 1) "It felt like a fist closing around his heart“ and 2) “and in that moment...” I became so frustrated that I just started reading one sentence per paragraph when there wasn’t actual plot going on (which was often because the main character repetitively reflects on his failed marriage using the same phrases over and over).

Even with all the negative, I didn’t want to put it down because I honestly was interested in seeing where it was going. Unfortunately, the good bit that I was waiting for was only in the last three pages.

This one had SO much potential, but the repetitiveness took everything out of it. Just a few more workshops to focus the message and cut away the WAY over-used phrases would have made it a completely different beast.

A sudden storm appears above an isolated farmhouse in rural Illinois, bringing with it a relentless and unnatural rain. A rain that eats away at everything it touches. A rain that turns people into monsters.
Trapped inside his crumbling home, a father must do everything he can to keep his family from falling apart. But the rain calls to them, and not everyone wants to stay inside.
Haunted by memories of loss, he must put aside his painful past and find a way to keep them all safe. But the rain shows no signs of stopping, and time is running out.

What a pleasant and enjoyable wee find. I was not expecting this book to be as good as it turned out to be and I really have to say that I loved it in general. Great characterisation with a fantastic protagonist and the perfect building of suspense and tension.

I guess my only issue was that I wanted more; I wanted to know what happened next and what the ‘downpour’ was!

Scott lives in a farm in Texas where his father and grandfather also lived but unlike them he soul the fields where they grew their crops and he worksCom cable on this day he’s at home with the family his wife Dana daughter Tally and son Jacob Scott is walking around his yard looking at all the things he’s been putting off and thinking about his abusive father his mom who left and what he recently found out about his wife and her loyalty. When the neighbor comes over to make another offer all the land where him and his family lives Scott notices a dark cloud in the distance and there’s just something strange about it. They needed rain for a while but he feels this isn’t the godsend that his neighbor does he will learn his suspicions all right but it will be way too late for some of them. Everything the rain touches it changes and everything it changes becomes dangerous. This was such a good book and it will totally change your mind about what a happy ending is. Scott becomes a hero but if he is a hero at the end is left up to the reader. I loved this book he is haunted by the voice of his father and his missing mother he loves his wife and wants to make up with her but that will be the least of his problems I just absolutely loved the spot. Are usually wait until right before the due date to read arcs but this book sounded so good I couldn’t continue waiting and I am so glad I did it this book was so freaking good! if you love horror the way I do you will love this book this is truly classic whore at its best and I would recommend this book to any true horror fan. I want to thank Net Galley and the publisher for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.