This cover is what gripped me entirely! I wanted this to be a bit more gripping than it was, but I did enjoy it when I got to the end. The multiple POVs got a bit confusing at times!

Rebelein delivers an original and interesting horror story about interdimensional portals, small town monsters and writing with Edenville.
Billed as Goosebumps meets Stephen King it certainly has some comparisons to both and is a mostly fast-paced and imaginative debut with well-drawn characters, a fascinating mythos and some fantastically icky horror passages.
However, after a really solid first half the book doesn't quite stick the landing, rushing the conclusion and failing to live up to the build-up.
Still, there is more than enough to suggest that Rebelein is one to watch.

I thoroughly enjoyed this very original horror story that mixes dark academia, horror and some thriller.
The author did an excellent job in keeping the attention alive and creating horrifying, creepy and gripping story.
Full of twists, featuring well rounded characters and keeping on the edge till the end.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was a fun and wonderfully weird book! Whilst I wasn’t too sure if I was enjoying the book as I first started reading it, Rebelein’s writing kept me reading and I’m glad I did.

The writing is both humorous and horrifying and is incredibly bizarre, but in the best way! It’s most definitely a book that will stick with me for some time, mainly in the form of me questioning ‘what the hell did I just read?’

Very good book with lots of twists and turns and whoever said this was alike to Goosebumps was spot on. My first by the author and won’t be the last.

DNF - I found the writing style nearly corny making it difficult for me to engage with the story itself. I do not think this is a horror the likes of which all fans of the genre will find thrilling; most of the story follows a cheesy plot & the writing used to include & describe female characters (as explained by other reviewers) was enough for me to clock out early.

I found this really hard to get into to. The beginning just felt confusing and nothing was gripping me. Then I slowly started to become interested with Quinn and Cam wre deciding whether Cam should take the short term job or not, and then it just petered off for me to the point I hadn't read any of the story for a week and just couldn't get back into it.
I see this is a sci-fi Thriller and unfortunately sci-fi isn't a genre I enjoy. I felt this could have been excellent but maybe something in the writing style just stopped me from enjoying this one

It is hard in horror fiction to try and create something wholly original without someone pointing out links to established properties.

For author Sam Rebelein, they have attempted with Edenville to have something that dips into a number of different sub genres.

Edenville, is the title of a small town in Renfield, which has a reputation for being a bit different.

To say this would be an understatement with what unfolds in this novel. It feels oddly pitched between a young adult and a more mature audience.

We follow a largely young-ish cast, but this does not mean that when things go a bit awry, Rebelein holds back, because they don't.

We have body horror, gore, but also a wide spreading mythology that largely fits together by the conclusion although there are some blips in the road.

At 400 pages Edenville is a little bloated, but if you are looking for something widely ambitious and ragged around the edges, this is a book for you.

Edenville is a horror novel about a college in a seemingly cursed county in upstate New York and a writer whose novel might not be so fictional after all. Cam is a horror writer with a debut novel based on a dream and no more ideas, so when an out-of-the-blue invitation to be the writer in residence at Edenville College comes, he is excited, but his girlfriend Quinn is sceptical. She grew up nearby and knows that Edenville, and Renfield County where it is situated, are bad, the location of her high school best friend's death. In Edenville, despite being prepared for it to be like a horror movie, there's far more than they might've expected, with mysterious societies, a strange Creative Writing department, and disappearing locals.

The blurb I read for this said it was 'Goosebumps meets Stephen King', but as I've just read Alison Rumfitt's new novel Brainwyrms which features some similar elements, I would say it is a hugely toned down in terms of extreme horror Brainwyrms meets a bit of Stephen King, a cosmic horror novel with one great protagonist and one annoying one (though Cam is meant to be frustrating, especially from Quinn's POV). There's a lot going on, as you might expect from a horror book about different strands of something going on in a town, and when it comes together it is a bit confusing, as this kind of cosmic horror can be when you're not entirely sure what was happening and why, but it's kind of a vibe.

I enjoyed Quinn's character a lot, from her scepticism and general sense of genre-awareness combined with a desire to know what happened to her dead best friend and a sense that she should stick with Cam, even with their relationship on the rocks. Cam felt less fleshed out, but also maybe purposefully, given that most of what he did was have dream visions of things and be the character insisting they stay in the clearly bad place. There's a third POV character that's hard to discuss without going into depth with the plot, and is quite weird, but I liked what that did to the book, offering a side to the narrative that couldn't've come from the main characters' perspectives.

Overall, I enjoyed Edenville with its classic horror concept and some nice cosmic horror mixed with weird small town stuff. If I hadn't read Brainwyrms so soon beforehand, I might've found some of the specifics of the horror or the body horror elements more compelling or horrible, but as it was, it felt so toned down from the other book that they didn't have much impact to me.

When horror writer Cam Marion is invited to teach at Edenville college his long term girlfriend Quinn is not keen. She knows that the college is located in Renfield County where people disappear and creepy stuff happens and she lost her best friend there. Cam thinks this could be the opportunity of a lifetime but Quinn believes its a trap and that they're going to star in a real life horror movie. Things go from bad to worse once they arrive and Quinn starts to realise everyone may not be who they say they are and Cam finds out his horror novel may not be an original idea after all and that they're both in grave danger.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was fast paced, creepy, horrifying. It kept me gripped and I didn't want to put it down. Told in different perspectives and throughout different timelines this had so much going on which may not be for everyone but i loved how iy kept me thoroughly engaged. The characters were well written and there was enough gore and terrifying scenes to keep me on the edge of my seat. Will definitely be picking up more by this author.

Thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for the digital ARC!

This is one of those reads where you come out of it thinking 'what a ride'.

There are 3 main characters in this - Cam, Quinn and Yennigan. Cam is an aspiring, yet failing, horror writer living in NYC with Quinn, his theatre loving girlfriend who has also failed at her career. The start of this story sees Cam having a nightmare, and he wakes up to strange goop coming out of his eyes and insatiable urge to write. That's how his first, and only, novel comes about - The Shattered Man. It doesn't really so anything, so 3 years later he's still desperately holding onto that book whilst his life hasn't changed.

Then he gets a mystery invitation to an upstate NY college for a semester as their writer in residence because of his book. Understandably, Quinn finds it all bizarre and Cam thinks it's a bit odd as well, yet they still go.

The college is in a county called Renfield, an area with a few small towns and many spooky stories that have leeches out to the surrounding counties. Quinn is particularly hesitant as she's from a town neighbouring Renfield, and she's heard all the horror stories that come from there. It's a place people go and never leave, and some people even disappear.

Yennigan is the third main POV, but I won't say anything about him because it would spoil the story and also because I'm still not entirely sure what he was, or what the point of him was.

This is an example of a book with characters who should know better, and who do, yet ignore their concerns. They even point out many times at the start that this all seems like the set up to a horror film, which it is. Yet they still end up going and getting sucked into the horror story of Edenville.

My favourite character in this was Quinn, and she was far too smart and good for Cam. She should've got out way earlier and just left, listened to her instincts. Cam was annoying, with his constant need to feel special and important. I find people like that annoying, because they end up making bad decisions to benefit themselves yet ruin others lives. Unsurprisingly, this happens here but Cam is too invested in being 'special'.

Edenville is a horror story that doesn't hide what it is - you're fully aware that things are wrong and bad, because the main characters are basically always aware there's weird stuff happening. They just don't realise how weird. There's lots of body horror in this and I would probably say this is firmly cosmic horror. Which is unfortunate, because I've realised I don't really like how cosmic horror stories never explain anything. That's not a fault of this book, but just a quirk of my own.

Overall, I got to the end of this and found the last quarter went by very fast. It really ramped up as you're reading and the last quarter is very action packed. The characters and descriptions were written well, but I never really felt connected to them and overall didn't really feel much at the end. Some of the quirks and plot holes here felt like they just got explained with a wiggly hand wave and cosmic horror, which is something to keep in mind if you like your stories to feel like they have a coherent ending. I wouldn't be surprised if this got a sequel with how the ending is written!

Thank you to Net gallery for an arc in exchange for a honest review.

4.5 stars~

The less I say about this book the better. It’s much easier to go into this blind and get swept along. The cosmic and occasionally gory parts of the horror are brilliantly done. It really answers the age old question of “would I survive in a horror film?” The answer? Probably not, but it’s entertaining in the way.

The style might not be for everyone. Personally I enjoyed the conversational tone, it felt as if the book was winking at you while you read.

Cam was a bit of an asshole but in a way that didn’t make you hate him too much. Who among us hasn’t wanted to be the protagonist of their own story? My heart for Quinn and her determination to get the hell out of Edenville (go crows)

I can’t wait to see what the author does next.

There's little I enjoy more than a spooky town, an entire town where weird stuff happens and it's just a part of life. Arkham, Jerusalem's Lot, Twin Peaks, just small town America where weirdness found its home.

Enter Sam Rebelein to one up it to a spooky county. Renfield County has a dark past, bad things have happened here, blood has drained into the soil and polluted the whole damned area.

This was a fun read, it had cults, body and cosmic horror, and lashings of weird, small university town goodness. I loved the gradual piecing together of the county's history. The slow build of the story was really enjoyable, I don't think I would have liked this book half as much if I had known exactly what to expect from the offset. The slow burn reveals were very much a part of it's charm.

Cosmic horror isn't usually my go-to, I find it can be a little draining to get long winded explanations of other dimensions and worlds etc, but Edenville was an okay level for me. There were some moments when I didn't fully understand what was going on, but I put that more on my own dislike of cosmic stuff than on the book/ author.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time in Renfield County. Go Crows!

Hi

Thank you so much for the review copy of Edenville. Unfortunately this story isn't quite working out for me at the moment and so for now I've had to put it down. Again, my thanks for the review copy and apologies that this isn't a full review.
I might try to return to this at a later date to see if this is a 'mood' thing but for the moment I find myself struggling with it.

Kind regards

Lynn

First up – I don’t think I have ever read an opening chapter to a book – or if I have it’s been so long the feeling has dwindled – that enthralled, entranced, baffled, excited and thrilled me in such a way so swiftly and so effectively. I was gripped, hard, from the first few paragraphs.

Is this really a debut? Nah – can’t be.

It’s horror and fantasy and ancient, timeless monsters. It’s spooky small town America, a horror writer, his cynical other half, a failing relationship, a human inhuman ancient being and creepy goings-on.

I can’t really do the book justice here, but the two main characters, Quinn and Cam have me locked in throughout their very well-crafted character build. For different reasons. We empathise, we sympathise and we cringe. Way too much reality sometimes in their flaws; yet set in the most outrageously strange environments.

Cam, a previously semi successful writer is asked to join a creepy creative writing department in a college in a mysterious town plagued with disappearances and oddities. You can feel the shuddres as we explore the streets and shops of Edenville with Quinn.

People can get into the town, but can they get out? It seems not.

Quinn, Cam’s long-suffering girlfriend, sees the offer out of nowhere from a unnerving stranger for being what it is: too good to be true; and follows her boyfriend to what used to be her hometown area. Weirdness ensues. Eldritch creatures abound. Dubious characters slither into each scene. Mysteries unravel and so do minds.

Please, read this. Dive in and lose yourself for in a weird other-universe for a while. The writing style is easy and fluid, whispering strange nothings in your ear over eons of unseen chaos, forging filigree spectacles in words - the recent past and the present. A joy to consume.

Read if you like King’s small town horror vibes, Stranger Things, Eerie Indiana, Lovecraft, fantasy, horror, ghosts, mysteries and simply enjoy the thrill of solid story telling.

Big love to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

I am mesmerised by this book, really. It has everything I love in a horror novel: eldritch monsters, creepy townspeople, a secret academia society, and a "you're being delusional" romantic relationship at the core of the story. I was in love with Quinn's POV in particular, especially with her unsatisfying relationship with Cam, her deep explorations into what's really going on in Renfield, and her ascendancy into final girl state. I liked Cam's character too, to be fair. His insecurity leapt off the page, and his connection to the eldritch monster was compelling too!

🎵 What’s New Pussycat? 🎵 Spider people! Do you need to know more than that? I didn’t. For the sake of argument, though, let’s assume that you do. 🎵 It’s Not Unusual 🎵

University staff actively seek Cam out to be their next writer in residence. They travel to him to offer him the position and there’s not even an interview. Which, you know, has red flag written all over it.

Cam and Quinn (🎵 She’s a Lady 🎵) know horror movies so they should know better. They do know better.

“Look, I’m just sayin. If it smells creepy, it is creepy.”

They go to Edenville anyway. 🎵 I’m Coming Home 🎵

On the way, they pass a burnt garage, which you don’t need to know. I just wanted an excuse to say 🎵 Burning Down the House. 🎵

Do they get what they deserve? Does anyone deserve what they get? That’s for you to decide.

I only know that there’s no way I would get out of Edenville alive because I would’ve been sucked in by the nice old lady offering me free ice cream samples. In my defence, there’s chocolate marshmallow, caramel coffee and birthday cake on offer, which all sound to die for.

“We’re all rotting ribbons in the end.”

I cherish having the opportunity to read advanced copies, especially when they’re debut novels. It’s like I’m in on this wonderful secret that’s about to be shared with the world. I’m so excited to have been able to love and laugh and be grossed out by this book early and I can’t wait to watch others discover this amazing new author. I need both a reread and Sam Rebelein’s next book ASAP. 🎵 Do What You Gotta Do 🎵

“”How was it?”
“Strange. You?”
“Fucking bizarre.””

This read was so much more fun than I expected, and I expected a lot. It’s culty, it’s body horror, it’s people messing with stuff they have no business messing with and expecting different outcomes. There are sunflowers, berries and a character that loves 🎵 Tom Jones 🎵. And did I mention the spider people?!

“Don’t say nobody warned you.”

Ichabod!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

An interesting concept and a really good debut! I did have to read a few bits as I found it was a little confusing at times but it was overall fun and over the top and gory and generally a good read! Looking forward to seeing more by this author!