I really wanted to love this one, but it just didn't hit. Such a cool idea, but the DID rep was a bit cringy, and the main character was just too unlikable.

I really enjoyed this book! It was mysterious and I loved the atmosphere. Alaska is a fascinating place and it was really cool to read a book where that is the setting. The characters were interesting and I liked seeing how information was revealed about them as the story progressed.
Thanks NetGalley for providing this awesome book!

DNF - I made it through 20% of this story, and then jumped to the epilogue. Things were too repeptitive and I wasn't engaged with the story or the characters. The epilogue literally spelled everything out that I needed to know.

I might revisit this someday as an audiobook, listening to it while working on other things might be enjoyable.

I received a didgital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed parts of this, wished the paced was a bit more balanced. I feel the ending needed to be more developed. Still a good read for readers who enjoy murder mystery and thrillers.

Book Review: The Red Knot by Monique Asher

Rating: 3 Stars

I picked up The Red Knot with the kind of eager curiosity that usually ends in a late-night finish — and for the most part, Monique Asher delivered. This is a moody, isolated horror-mystery that leans into atmosphere and small-town unease, and when it works, it really works.

The setup is deliciously claustrophobic: a tiny Alaskan island, knocked off the map by a storm and cut off from the mainland, becomes the stage for disappearances and murder. Audra, the island’s lead detective, is suddenly in a painfully personal position when her close friend — who also happened to be the local therapist — is found dead. Three girls have gone missing, and the town is brimming with secrets. Valorie, the ostracized daughter of a notorious cult leader, is found at the scene, bloodied and with large gaps in her memory. Her blankness acts like a black hole in the investigation — a place where trauma, repressed memories, and possibly something darker might be hiding.

Asher does a great job of knitting together the island’s past and present. Audra’s probe into the latest crimes pulls up a lot of old dirt: other suspicious deaths, whispered histories, and patterns that suggest these events aren’t isolated. The writing leans into discomfort in a way that keeps you uneasy but curious — neighbors who feel suddenly sinister, rituals hinted at but not fully explained, and an atmosphere that makes the whole place feel like it’s tightening around the characters.

Valorie’s fractured mind is one of the book’s stronger threads. Watching her struggle to piece together what happened to her and to reconcile with a traumatic past is compelling, and it gives the plot an emotional anchor amid the creepy imagery and slow-burn dread. Audra, too, is convincingly human — an investigator with personal stakes whose judgments and doubts make the story feel lived-in rather than schematic.

That said, this is very much a three-star book for me because the ending didn’t land the way the rest of the novel suggested it would. Up until the final stretch, the pacing, character work, and mystery layering mostly held together. But the resolution felt a bit sudden and, honestly, tangential to the careful breadcrumbing earlier on. I wanted a few more connective clues — a clearer buildup to the reveal — so that the ending felt inevitable rather than abrupt. It’s like being led down an intriguing hallway and then pushed through a door you weren’t given enough reason to open.

Still, despite that misstep, I enjoyed probably ninety percent of the book. The mood, the setting, and the human elements were engaging and often chilling in the right way. If you like atmospheric, slow-burn horror wrapped in a mystery about memory and community secrets, The Red Knot is worth your time — just be prepared for an ending that might divide you.

⚠️This review was written based on personal opinions and experiences with the book. Individual preferences may vary⚠️

Excellent, unsettling atmosphere and overall just a solid thriller/horror novel. I love a book that can pull you in using its setting and this does just that. I also enjoyed an unreliable narrator and paranormal underpinnings, so this book checked a lot of boxes for me. If you want something for the spooky season coming up, pick this one up.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This was SUCH a good book! The revenge scene at the end gave it a closing feeling and I really enjoyed the writing style of this author!!

To start off: this book deals with a lot of dark subject, and it may not be for everyone in terms of the amount of gore, but it also deals with topics related to mental health and sexual abuse. If you are particularly sensitive to these topics, this might not be the book for you.

Having said that, I really enjoyed this book. It was the perfect spooky, creepy, and completely deranged thriller that I was looking for heading into the fall.

Audra has returned to the island where she was born and raised in order to find peace as a small town cop. However, since she has returned, two teenaged girls have gone missing. When Audra’s best friend is found murdered and her friend’s daughter is missing, Audra’s protective instincts go into overdrive, and she begins to look into the dark history of the island and a mysterious colt that no one seems to want to talk about. Meanwhile, local teacher, Valorie, is facing challenges of her own as she thinks she is suffering a breakdown while trying to put together the pieces of her troubled past, which may be related to what’s happening in the present. As these events collide, the island faces are reckoning years in the making.

The book is told from the POVs of Audra and Valorie, mostly.

There are a lot of strands of plot that start out in this book, but the author does a really great job of slowly bringing them together, and making them easy to follow so that all of the dots begin to connect as the book goes on. I didn’t find things hard to keep track of as they played out. I really enjoyed guessing how each of the parts of the story we’re going to come together and the author did a really good job of bringing all of the characters together in the end to create a cohesive narrative that answered all the questions involve in the plot.

I know I was pulled in from the very first pages because there is a palpable creeptastic atmosphere from the very beginning. I mean, an isolated island that has an origin story that involves literal sacrifice, and rumors of a cult, I’m in! But I have to say, this isn’t your garden variety cult and it was definitely not pleasant to read about some of their beliefs and practices. No spoilers, but they definitely were villains you were rooting against, which is what I’m assuming the author was going for.

I had a couple of questions toward the end that I’m not sure got completely wrapped up, but not enough to have the novel lose a star because it was so well conceived and written. I definitely look forward to reading more from this author and would recommend this book to anyone looking for something to scare them during the spooky season.

It definitely gave me some chills as I was up reading late into the night.

The Red Knot by Monique Asher

This book was such a treat! It had all the twists and turns I look for in a psychological thriller. I’m always intrigued by stories about cults and the psychological impact they leave behind, so this was right up my alley. Now, while this book was marketed as horror, I’ll be honest, it didn’t feel like horror until the final 5%. For most of the story, this read as a straight-up thriller with a paranormal edge, and I think it’s better approached that way.

I do wish we’d uncovered more about the cult itself and the family ties, but I still found it totally binge-worthy. I flew through it in a single day, swept up in the high stakes and the steady unraveling of secrets.

Vibes:
Cult psychology
Family secrets
Paranormal undercurrent
Fast-paced thrills
Secrets unraveling

Would I recommend? Yes! Just go in expecting a psychological thriller with a horror sting at the very end. I would absolutely recommend.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Rising Action Publishing. These copies were so much fun.

Thank you Netgalley,Rising Action Publishing | Rising Actionand Monique Asher for the Arc of The Red Knot.
Narrated by Jennifer Pickens.

Monique is a fairly new author in the Horror/Thriller Genre and after reading Don't Eat The Pie by the same author, I was excited to be accepted for The Red Knot. Unlike Don't Eat the Pie, which has a dark humorous edge ( as well as being dark and disturbing ) The Red Knot burrows underneath your skin. The plot direction and some of the scenes were disturbing and unsettling and has a very cult-like/ folklore overall feel

I loved the character building in this book, Our two main POV, in first person was Audra and Valorie. Both felt like they were built from the ground upwards. Audra is a fantastic DI and with the added dimension of having one of her closest friends being involved in the mystery gave the DI a very venerable edge, Valorie, the daughter of a supposed Cult leader who was seeing a therapist felt unhinged but again with a vulnerable edge. Both identities I bonded with almost immediately and intrigued were they were both gonna go and how their stories entwined. The side characters of this book were also well developed.

I love these dark psychological murder mystery tropes that have horror elements. Because at the end of the day, what is more horrifying than humans?

Jennifer Pickens narrated this book which I found her voice very engaging as I swapped from the ebook to the audio when I was out and about.

4.5 for Storygraph, 5 stars for other review sites

Unreliable narrators, frequent time jumps, and an overly drawn out and unnecessarily convoluted plot make this story hard to enjoy.
It just seemed a piecemeal and didn’t flow smoothly at all. Plot holes aren’t closed by the end, and there’s a few continuity errors as well.

Unfortunately, by the last page this had felt like a waste of time. I had pushed through because I was super curious about what would be revealed as things progressed, but the history and details of The Red Knot and their beliefs were still super vague. The characters felt a bit flat, and Valerie’s condition just had me eye rolling. DID seems to be the mental health plot device of the year.

Grab this one if you really want a rambling small town murder mystery with some twists and turns. Just be forewarned it may leave you not feeling totally satisfied.

Thank you anyways to the author, NetGalley, and Rising Action Publishing for a copy.

Were you looking for something dark, disturbing, complex, and twisted to read? The Red Knot is going to tick off all of those boxes and more.

If The Red Knot had a recipe, it would be a protein made of procedural crime thriller, a starch made of psychological thriller, vegetables made of women’s fiction and cult horror, and seasoning made from LGBTQ fiction…with maybe a splash of feminist rage thrown in. This isn’t meant to convey a sense of levity or fun when it comes to this book, because believe me, this book is dark, sad, tragic, and angry. It’s only meant to convey a sense of this book being well-rounded and complete–the type of story you can really sink your teeth into and immerse yourself in.

Monique Asher’s writing is effortlessly atmospheric as she writes about a small and rather isolated island in the Alaskan wilderness, filled with the type of small-town people who know each other both a little too well and not at all. Knowing everyone’s past secrets only means knowing how to keep new ones safe, after all. It’s clear the ones who need to keep secrets most on this island are the ones who don’t want people to think too hard about how they came into possession of islands that didn’t belong to them in the first place: white men. White men who stole the land and constantly fear not maintaining control of it. On this small, claustrophobic island, it’s the women who are expected to sacrifice. It’s a tale we all know too well by now and a narrative the women in this novel fight against with all of their might. 4⭐️



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

File Under: Crime Fiction/Cult Horror/LGBTQ Fiction/Psychological Thriller/Women’s Fiction

Set on the tiny isolated harsh Alaskan island of Typhon, three girls have vanished without a trace. When a storm cuts all power, Audra, the towns lead detective, is now facing another tragedy-the murder of the island therapist who is also her best friend. After finding her at the scene, the prime suspect is a girl named Valorie, the daughter of a dangerous cult leader.
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This one is told from two points of view: Audra and Valorie, one of them being unreliable. While the characters were multi dimensional and written fairly well, I didn’t find myself really attached to any of them. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I did have more of a connection.

I did, however, really like the plot. What’s not to love? Small town secrets, horror, cults, mystery and suspense! That’s what really held my interest. I thought the pacing was good and didn’t feel any lulls in the story. I did also enjoy the surprise at the end.

I thought this one was a really solid debut!
I give this 3.5 stars

This is such a wild ride with missing girls, an Alaskan ride, cult and much more. (Trigger warning: mentioning of rape, sexual violence/abuse).

A short *synopsis*
On a tiny, isolated island off the southern Alaskan coast, three girls have vanished without a trace, and Audra’s close friend—the island’s therapist—has been found murdered. A recent storm has severed all communication with the outside world, leaving Audra, the town's lead detective, trapped and at the head of a very personal case.

Her lead suspect, Valorie, the daughter of a notorious cult leader and the town's outcast, was discovered blood-covered and dazed at the crime scene. Valorie’s memory is a gaping void, a dark well hiding traumatic secrets, including the truth about the teenage kidnappings that haunt the island.

Intriguing: 1
Unsettling: 2
Scariness: 0

We follow a detective, Audra as she Investigates strange disappearance. It's an interesting book, but I felt like it get dragged in some places and for some I didn't really connect with any of the characters. Overall, it's a 3 ⭐ read for me.

SO GOOD! Everyone needs to get on the Monique Asher train. I’m obsessed. This book had some twists that I definitely didn’t see coming and left my jaw on the floor

3.5 🌟 rounded up

This book is a wild ride, for sure. Interestingly, it is categorized as horror, but the horror aspect doesn't really come into play until the ending. It felt more like a thriller/mystery/police procedural up until that point. I did enjoy the premise, and it was pretty entertaining. My only issue is that I got a bit lost in all of the character names, especially regarding Valorie and all of the townspeople. The conclusion wasn't my favorite, either. I would read another book written by Monique Asher, though!

Recommended for lovers of mysterious, small-town cult books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rising Action Publishing for the ARC.

The Red Knot is the kind is gritty small-town horror that leaves you feeling unsettled. I was absolutely transported to the isolated Alaskan coast and its inhabitants. The murder mystery is intriguing and old secrets are slowly revealed. I loved the unreliable narration and how I could not predict the next step. Trauma and mental health are well presented. The cult and occult are simply the stuff of nightmares. There is gore, blood and violence along with plenty of other trigger warnings. I felt all the elements were expertly executed and created such tension. Definitely a book for those looking for disturbing horror. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

This was a genre mash up of thriller, horror, police procedural, family drama, cults? It felt like it was too much and not enough at times. I didn’t love the main FMC, I actually found her quite frustrating and confusing most of the time. I wanted more backstory, I feel like a lot of the “romance” could’ve been left out and replaced with backstory and context.
I was a bit underwhelmed with the ending as well.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Fabulous read, what a rollercoaster. This book had me hooked a few chapters in, anything cult focused is an immediate yes from me.

Detective Audra returns to the remote secluded Alaskan island she grew up on and girls start to go missing and show up brutally mutilated and murder. The same as when she was a child…. All fingers point to Valerie as she’s the cult leaders daughter and her therapist has just been murdered. But did she really do it, can she even trust herself? This girl has got some personal issues and a terrible history.

This story follows these two women as they try to get to the bottom of what is happening, how does it tie into the past and how do they put a stop to it.

The twists are twisting and you will not see them coming!

This only got crazier and scarier the further I got into it and I only got more and more invested in the story.

It was very atmospheric, creepy and very interesting.

Please be aware of these trigger warnings:
Murder, rape, mental health, kidnapping, cult, gore.

If you are fine with these warnings and are looking for a good occult horror book, this is definitely for you!