"What the hell did I just read?" Is what I thought when I finished this.
Sheriff Sterling Marsh has had a rough go of it lately and she has decided to resign as Sheriff of Drybell, Ct, where she's worked for ten years. Her last night working seems like it will be relatively quiet, a little too quiet considering a once-in-a-century storm is raging outside. But she and her co-workers take advantage of it and have a Christmas/Going Away Party and make the best of it. As soon as the egg nog is gone though they get their first call. Her deputy's wife calls to report an intruder at City Hall where she works. Sterling arrives to find an honest to goodness straight out of a fairy tale witch complete with the silly hat is the intruder. Sterling arrests her unleashing hell on her tiny sheriff's office. With the phone lines down all she can to do is protect her people till morning. Easier said than done.
This wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be, it was more creepy than scary. I really just wanted to know what the hell the witch was actually doing, which was motivation enough to finish it in just a few hours. And in the end, I was slightly disappointed as there was one scene that made it pretty clear as to why the Witch was there earlier in the book. That being said it was one hell of a ride getting to the end so that's forgiven.
Every character in this has some sort of messed-up background too, and the Witch seems to use these to make them do things they normally wouldn't. A depressed wife becomes a suicidal wife, a child who normally isn't a thief becomes one around the witch, etc., etc.
There are a couple of things that were sadly standard horror fare. The whole "Omfg don't go back in there!" was yelled a lot and the "Why are we disregarding the guy who clearly knows what's going?" was pondered every time the action slows down. But other than that I don't have any complaints.
Overall this was a solid horror story with a creepy (the Witch was incredibly creepy) villain with just enough violence that you knew you were dealing with something no human could hope to defeat.
Ooh totally forgot to add this to the Netgalley review, it has illustrations, which is worth a whole star in my opinion!
Thanks to Netgalley and Oblivion Publishing for the eArc of this creepy tale.
Pre-Order available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble!
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