Curse of the Reaper by Brian McAuley

Happy Spooky Season Readers, 

We are back on the spooky train dear Readers; I got this book not long after it published last year and have been waiting to reread for the spooky season and here, we are. I really am feeling all the nostalgia this spooky season and adored this slasher book. I think I really missed a trick not reading slasher books around Halloween dear read if anyone has any recommendations I would love to read more.

I went into this book expecting a typical slasher from what I had seen from other reviewers. I found myself flying through this slasher, enjoying every page, and devouring every word. Like any good slasher I couldn’t keep up twists and turns and guess where Brian was going to take me.

This book is something that could possibly be plausible I can picture it so clearly happening in the real world. A classic horror movie icon gets replaced by a new more popular model for the reboot. Howard Browning, who is best known for his horror movie icon role of The Reaper from a popular Horror Franchise. While Trevor Mane is a heartthrob and fresh out of rehab and determined to stay sober to fix his image.

Problems arise when the pair start to clashes over the Reaper, and soon a malevolent alter ego consumes Howard forcing him to the brink of violence to reclaim his rightful legacy as the one true Reaper. This book can be viewed as one man’s descent into madness or an insight into how it feels to grow old and realise when it is time to retire from your career. Is Howard losing his mind or has the Reaper taken on a life of its own? I loved the inclusion of extracts from The Reaper scripts throughout the book.

Brian has perfectly blended the right amount of fun and fear into his debut novel and cleverly mixed the modern day with classic Hollywood. I also think the addiction representation was really well done. Both of the main characters were wonderfully written and believable as they were both deeply flawed but could be redeemable if they could make the right choices. This added a human layer I didn’t quite expect.

There was just something about this book that just dug it’s claws into me, and it just hit this spot this spooky season and I could give this book all the praises in the world. I also would love to see this adapted to any screen and I think it would be a huge hit.

L x

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