Revevant by Gina and Anne Marie Dicarlo - The never-ending horror

 Renee and Lou are as close as two sisters can be, after the loss of their mother when Lou was twelve they have relied on each other through everything good and bad. As adults, the girls now work together as photographers for a travel magazine along with Renee's long-time boyfriend Ian. The girls' newest assignment will take them to Romania to do a spread on the area's castles, something Renee is not looking forward to except that she gets to work with Ian. Lou, on the other hand, is excited she loves the occult, and when a passenger on their train offers her a tarot reading on the way to their first castle Lou jumps at the chance. Unfortunately, the reading casts an ominous future ahead and after stumbling upon a castle that has such a bloody past the entire village surrounding it abandoned it decades ago even Lou is beginning to think this wasn't such a good idea. 

I honestly didn't connect with much of anything in this book. Even though it was really long (or at least it felt like it was) I never really felt like I got a feel for any of the characters. I didn't really care what happened to them as long as it hurried up and happened.

The dialogue felt unnatural at times as well. There were several conversations where it just felt like no one would actually say the things the characters said in the manner that they did. And the way they talk about Lou's "incident" was really just not right. Even after Renee reveals the "incident" it's still super vague. It felt like we were back in 1980 and these are things you just don't talk about. 

The plot kinda mixes up the story of Elizabeth Bathory (Bathory isn't actually in the book just a character that resembles her), Gypsies, and Hindu beliefs and I thought that was a bit much too. Without giving to much away one of the characters is possessed by the Bathory character, that would have been enough right there. You've got a person possessed by one of the most prolific serial killers in history, the story practically writes itself. But the authors threw in all of this other fluff that was just not needed. 

Overall it was meh. It wasn't bad but it also wasn't great either. I really thought what really dragged it down was the length, cut a couple of chapters out and this would have been much better.