Just finished this book. A pretty quick read because it kept my attention
The folklore is this novel was a one I had never heard before and I found it really interesting. This writer can write a great story. The characters were also well written.
If you like stories based on local folklore and eccentric characters this will suit you well.

I’d rather be eaten by muck-sucking maggots while being doused with flaming sea salt than be buried alive. Being buried alive is decidedly the most nightmarish scenario imaginable to me. So that part of the book was terrifying to me.

I thought this book was fine. I didn’t love or dislike the time I spent with it. I probably won’t remember much about it when I look back on it. It was low impact in either direction.

The first half was better than the second. I think it started get muddled down once it starting delving into lore explanation and it lost its early momentum.

The creatures were awesome, and I loved the setting. It’s hard to go wrong with a folkloric, dreary, claustrophobic island feeling. The characters were meh.

Those are my thoughts. That’s all I got.

The Burial Tide is sharp and gripping, drawing you into an Irish island dominated by storms and reclusive villagers who have lived here for centuries. It opens with Mara - a young woman who claws her way out of her grave, her memories gone, as she stumbles her way towards safety. One of her first thoughts is of hunger, which chilled me to the bone. Her past is a mystery and she is soon tucked away into a glass house where nothing is familiar.

Sharpson expertly weaves together Irish folklore and horror to tell Mara’s story as she struggles to find meaning in her life. The multiple POV chapters added so much intrigue, providing insight to the inner workings of the island. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at a coming storm front the same way again.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Zando team for the ARC!

The Burial Tide was an intense, action packed ride that brought the horror over and over again. This started at a full run right out of the gate, and had me glued to the edge of my seat. Packed with folklore, body horror, good for her, ancient tradition, there is something for every horror fan. I burned through this in a few hours, and now want to read everything Sharpson has ever put out. This earned him a spot on the insta-buy list!

I never planned to visit an Irish island, and this horror novel surely didn't sell me on a trip there either, just saying. It's unsettling right from the start with a woman waking up in a coffin, being buried alive, and that's really just the start of all of her problems. After crawling out of her own grave, the woman, Mara, realizes that she has no memory of anything and so she depends completely on the help of the other islanders. And they are all different kinds of weird, to say the least. From the doctor who wrongly pronounced Mara dead, to the old man who is telling her that they were married, to the boyfriend she was living with although nothing in the house points to her ever being there. Nobody is speaking directly about what happened, but there is this story about a virus outbreak that quickly killed four people. That of course doesn't explain a bunch of slaughtered sheep or another beheaded corpse, but no one seems to be too upset about any of that. So yeah, there is a lot going on on the island of Inishbannock and it was super interesting to figure out what's the truth and what's just another lie. There were moments when Mara thought she finally knew what had happened, but then she was promptly wrong again. The story was mostly told from her unknowing perspective, but several other islanders had POVs too and it was nice to see their strange routines. But I do have to say that most characters were just ok. Mara was great and I loved the reveal of who she really was, but many others were pretty flat. I think that all of the islanders had good motivation for their doings, but there was this one character who was evil just for the sake of it and I really didn't like him (not that I was supposed to). There was also a love story that really could have been just not there, because I didn't care about these two characters anyway. So, the character work wasn't the strength of this book, but the horror was still hitting pretty good. It was mostly horror of the gross, freaky, disgusting creature kind, but it was also deeply rooted in Irish mythology and that was just so cool, I loved it. It felt super unique and I can't even compare it to anything. The ending was good too and came with strong good-for-her vibes, but it also spelled out everything very clearly and got a little repetitive while doing so. I'm pretty fond of this book anyway and I will definitely pick up "Knock Knock, Open Wide" (gosh, what a title) soon.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Zando for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

Sharpson's Knock Knock, Open Wide is a 2024 favourite read of mine, so I was really excited to read this.

Unfortunately I couldn't even finish it, DNFing at 72%. Most of the writing is done in short sentence fragments, which I assume was done in an attempt to impart suspense, but instead it gives the story an air of juvenility, like a high schooler writing a scary story for English class.

The characters were flat, some of them downright stupid. Everything was confusing. At 72% I still had no real idea of what was going on, and by that point I just stopped caring.

Well that was so freaking scary. Page turner for sure. Couldn't put it down. Thank you for letting me read this in advance.

This book was CRAZY. At no point did I think I knew where it was headed and it just got scarier and scarier. SO GOOD!