Blog Tour stop for this dark, creepy yet beautiful and painful story
#TheSlaughterMan #BlogTour @cassandrajaneuk @Legend_Press
"when the lines between dreams and reality become blurred"
Synopsis
When her identical twin Laurel dies, seventeen-year-old Willow’s life falls apart.
With her parents’ marriage faltering, she finds escape at her uncle Joe’s cottage. But even as they begin to know each other, Willow is plagued with memories of her sister.
Then, Lucas arrives in her life – troubled, angry and with a dangerous past. Joe’s cottage is idyllic, but the forest is filled with secrets.
What is Joe hiding from her? What events have brought Lucas to her door? And who is the Slaughter Man who steals through Willow’s sleep?
As the lines between dreams and reality become blurred, Willow’s torment deepens. It seems as if her only escape lies with the Slaughter Man.
'A dark, eloquently creepy tale. Parkin's prose quivers with visceral terror' Carol Lovekin
Praise for Cassandra
Shortlisted for an Amazon Rising Star Award
'A thoughtful novel. Parkin creates authentic, interesting characters' Carys Bray
'Fresh and original, written vividly and with lair. I was completely engrossed!' Katherine Webb
My Review
OH GOODNESS, WOW! It has taken me some time to write this review as this book genuinely left me speechless and mostly in tears!
I settled in for what I believed would be a dark and creepy tale but this story and the emotions conveyed in the writing are so much more.
The reader is thrown in to this read with a families overwhelming grief at the loss of their daughter. The loss of Laurel is heartbreaking for her parents but oh so much more in some ways for her twin sister Willow.
Willows grief and shock at the loss of her sister, her twin, her other half means she now finds herself unable to speak.
Firstly to others outside her home, but as the loss of Laurel became too much she then lost the ability to speak to anyone. We hear Willows internal thoughts, her dialogue and what she wishes to say also the struggles she has with wanting to use her voice so much but been unable to, even to comfort her parents.
The opening chapters of this book left me reeling, I cannot imagine the loss of a child but I had never thought of the loss of a twin and how that would effect the other twin. Wow! as Willow describes her feelings of seeing her own face and knowing her face when her parents see her is the living haunting of her dead sister! I just cried!
When the grief seems just to be a breaking point, Willow's uncle offers her and her parents the chance of a break, he and Willow will go to his cabin and spend sometime away from it all in the hope the break will aid Willows healing and allow her to start speaking again.
Here the roller-coaster of emotions kick even more in to high gear. Willow learns the legend of The Slaughter Man and he now haunts her nightmares as much as her sister haunts her living memories.
We then meet Luca who is an amazing character all of his own, as always I am a spoiler free reviewer so I leave the full details for you to discover but will just say the the further emotions, the conversations and confessions from Luca just left me raw with my own emotions, feelings and even more tears!
A slight warning to some that this book could be triggering, topics such as suicide, death, and self harm are plentiful and quite graphic yet in no way over done.
This is absolutely one of my books of the year so far and even more fitting to read as the dark nights will start to roll in.
My only negative is that I wanted more! I wanted this book to just keep going! I was to enthralled and drawn in by both Willow and Luca and I just wanted to stay in their world and know more!
Author Bio
Cassandra Parkin grew up in Hull, and now lives in East Yorkshire.
Her short story collection, New World Fairy Tales (Salt Publishing, 2011), won the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories.
cassandraparkin.wordpress. com
@cassandrajaneuk
Other books by the author:
The Summer We All Ran Away (2013),
The Beach Hut (2015), Lily's House (2016),
The Winter's Child (2017),
Underwater Breathing (2018)
Purchase Links
Social media links
@cassandrajaneuk Twitter @cassandraparkinwrites Instagram @Legend_Press Twitter
@legendpress Instagram
Publisher
Legend Press
ISBN (Paperback): 9781789550443 ISBN
(Ebook): 9781789550436
Price: £8.99 (Paperback) £4.99 (Ebook)
Extent: 304 pages Format: 198x129mm
Blog Tour
Thank you to the Publisher and Author for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel and for the opportunity to review these works.
All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.