Ashley her boyfriend Connor his friend Dean Dean‘s girlfriend Kaylee are all meth addicts Kaylee did have a job but due to Connor and Dean robbing a local quick stop they had to leave town and despite rumors of a wildcat call Perry roaming the hill where the asylum is Ashley talks them in to go in there to hide out. When they arrive at the asylum their goal is to get clean but first they have to finish smoking the last of their crystal meth . The first impressions of the asylum is the strong smell of cat urine and on the way up the hill they saw a fox ripped from limb to limb and they instantly know that isn’t the work of a bear or a coyote but something much bigger and much more fierce. It wasn’t until they start smoking the drugs they brought and everyone starts getting intimate with their partners that Ashley sees a shadow standing in the doorway when Connor turns he immediately thinks it is Dean despite the fact he was in another part of the asylum. Connor immediately starts beating on Dean this will not be the last strange thing to happen nor the last time Connor overreacts but when he and Ashley have a misunderstanding and she runs to the words to hide from him when she comes back she catches him with Kaylee in one thing leads to another and Connor is angry at Ashley again but he’s also torn between wanting her to just talk to him she has locked her self in one of the bathrooms but as he bangs on the door she hears what sounds like a body drop in when she is brave enough to open the door she sees him on the floor dying. This is when Ashley sees the bipedal feline staring at her once again from the doorway due to where he is standing Ashley cannot run and leave the asylum so her only choice is to jump out of the window two stories up and try her best to make it to the car they parked down the hill. Little does Ashley know her trip to the asylum is far from over and even though the book was good up until this point it gets really good after her long complicated treck to the sanctuary of the car. This is a great book it is a short story that I really feel deserves a sequel. I was not expecting the book to go where it did but OMG it was so refreshing for it not to be your typical haunted Asylum story. I really felt bad for Ashley and by the end I felt even worse. This is definitely a great horror story and another great book from this collection. I want to thank our DS publishing and NetGalley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Thanks NetGalley, RDS publishing and Sarah Hans for a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This novella started of strong and I enjoyed the atmosphere and the pace of the writing for the first portion of the book. Then it got to weird for me and I stopped enjoying it.

I would like to thank NetGalley for the e-arc of this Novella. (review contains spoilers). Asylum will be published 3/14/24.

I genuinely was 100 percent feeling this novella, until I wasn’t. It had the perfect start. Junkies squatting, running from the cops, strong personalties clashing. All the best ingredients for a gritty horror experience.

Somewhere around the 60 percent mark there was a major change up that felt rushed, clumsy even. It all goes downhill from there. The story never recovers and the reader is assaulted with a weird dose of furry-fetish-sexcapades.

I understand there will be a niche out there who will love this content, it just isn’t for this reader.

#NetGalley #Asylum #bookstagram #Horror #horrorbooks #betterreadthandead #horrorbooks #deankoontz #stephenking #weirdfiction #bookreview #GhastlyBookLover

Thank you to NetGalley and RDS Publishing for an ARC of this novella.

3.5 stars rounded down to 3.

Ashleigh and her group of friends are meth addicts, who are on the run looking for a new home so they can finally get clean. They decide to run to this abandoned asylum, since it's far from civilization and off the grid so they can remain hidden from police. However, once they arrive a shadowy figure appears to Ashleigh and things take a turn for the worse.

This one was difficult for me to rate, because there was a lot going on in such a short amount of pages. Despite that, it was actually really well written and mostly easy to follow. Themes of addiction (substance abuse as well as addiction to toxic relationships) were well-fleshed out, but it was maybe more than halfway through the story before anything "scary" started happening. For me, this wasn't really horror at all in a traditional sense. I think the horror was more about grief, addiction, and leaving toxic relationships more than any monster. The turn to a darker version of Beauty and the Beast was also something I didn't expect, and by the end I was left with more questions than those that were answered. I think this would make more sense to me if it was a full-length novel vs. a novella.

Overall, I liked the concept and the writing was well done and easy to follow for the most part. Very different concept than what I've read in the past and it was enjoyable and thought-provoking for a quick read!