I feel like this could be a very polarizing book. Unfortunately it was not for me. The pacing was off, with the beginning being incredibly slow and the ending too fast. It felt like two separate stories. I also felt like there was a lot unanswered. I do think some will love this book but its 2 stars for me.

I think I need time to think about this book because it's complex, it deals with a lot of sensitive issues like mental health and you don't what is real and what is delusion for most of the time.
That said is disturbing and gripping, a novel that left craving for chocolate and some very light story as it was easy to feel for Morgan and share her emotions
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was such a creepy book! It follows main character, Morgan who goes into an asylum undercover to try and learn what happened to her sister there.

I’ve never read anything like it, absolutely loved it! The main characters were written well and I loved the text message exchanges between Morgan and Hadleigh that were peppered throughout.

The story was a little confusing at first but all comes together in the end. It deals with some very serious issues and was a difficult read at times (because of the dark content) but I found myself unable to put it down.

DNF at 20%. The premise sounded interesting to me, but I found the execution a bit confusing. Also, I’m beginning to realize that I don’t enjoy books about women with mental health issues.

I wasn't quite sure what was going on (but in a good way if that makes sense... I was confused yet still intrigued) for most of the book but the puzzle pieces do eventually fall into place. There are a few times where I sometimes wish I could have recorded my facial expressions because there are a couple of graphic scenes that kind of sneak up on you (bugs are really going to gross me out now). I ended up purchasing the audiobook to follow along with the ebook and both versions are just fine. There are two pictures in Morgan's research notes that you'd miss out on with the audiobook but you don't need them to follow the plot.

This is a difficult review to write without giving away too much that is key to unraveling The Redemption of Morgan Bright.

Panatier has crafted an unusual narrative style for this gothic horror that combines epistolary elements of police interviews, reports, messages and notes. These are combined with the storytelling style to create a variety of perspectives to the narrative. Morgan Bright, determined to find how her sister Hadley died violently and bizarrely and near-frozen so many miles from the Hollyhock asylum.

Panatier creates an unreliable in Morgan as not long after her arrival at Hollyhock undercover as the fictional Charlotte, her memories and reality begin to dissolve and Morgan is replaced by the more pliable and mentally fragile, Charlotte. This is a clever use of technique by Panatier, who sows doubt into every aspect of all characters and the supernatural phenomena they frequently encounter at Hollyhock becomes a question of genuine haunting or genuine insanity. The few faults with this work are affects the unrealistic transformation from Morgan’s persona to the fictionalised Charlotte which feels too swift and absolute to be believable. Nonetheless, the final revelations of the truth about Hollyhock Asylum are truly within the subgenres of supernatural and weird horror, all meticulously designed and carefully revealed in a crime-mystery style.

Conclusion
A recommended read for fans of gothic horror, psychological thrillers, supernatural elements and weird horror. There are strong sociopolitical issues surrounding mental illnesses, women’s health and disability fiction, in general. These aspects are addressed head-on and may be confronting to some readers. A strong gothic horror which is part-mystery, part-supernatural horror.

** This is my personal opinion and does not reflect any judging decisions **

More horror than I was expecting, which I actually really loved. This one kept me up late reading - I just had to know what was happening!

This book!!! Loved it!! Just not what I was expecting at all.

The story follows Morgan, a woman who's struggling to come to terms with her sister's mysterious death at Hollyhock Asylum. A year later, she is still working out what happened when Morgan decides to take matters into her own hands and checks herself into the asylum. She creates her own persona to infiltrate the system and get answers.

Just when you think you know what’s going on, it suddenly takes a turn. The story is laid out so well that you almost don’t see the twist coming in the capacity that it does. I love a great twist and I wasn’t expecting the horror aspect.

Thank you Netgalley & Angry Robot Publishing for an eARC!!!

Thank you Netgalley & Angry Robot Publishing for an eARC ♥️

The story follows Morgan, a woman who's struggling to come to terms with her sister's mysterious death at Hollyhock Asylum. A year later, with no answers in sight, Morgan decides to take matters into her own hands and checks herself into the asylum under a fake identity. Talk about a bold move, right?

As Morgan navigates the creepy atmosphere of Hollyhock, she starts to uncover some pretty disturbing secrets. But here's the thing - the more she learns, the more she starts to question her own identity and sanity. It's like, what's real and what's not? And that's exactly what the author wants you to think.

The writing is superb, and the pacing is spot on. I mean, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, wondering what would happen next. And the twists? Oh boy, the twists are crazy insane🤯😳

It is rare that a book leaves me at a loss for words but The Redemption of Morgan Bright is the exception to the rule. It is a story that is hard to articulate but if you like wickedly weird tales, steeped in physiological horror, that keep you up late into the night, this one is a must read!!

Trigger warnings for The Redemption of Morgan Bright includes: mental illness, non-consensual violence; suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, sexual assault, child injury, and death of a child.
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This book was interesting. The setting made me intrigued. I've read an array of books set in psychiatric care facilities, but none went quite the way this one did.
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I'm not always a fan of books that use mental health conditions as a plot device, which this one did to some extent. It was a good book, but I don't think the way that the main character's mental health was portrayed was necessarily accurate.
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There are things I'd like to be able to say in regard to that however, I can't without spoiling the book and the plot.
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Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot Books for sending me an ARC copy of this book.

Okay, not to be dramatic but this book is going to be in my top 5 for 2024, I’m calling it now - with confidence. Maybe it was partially that I was reading this book on a travel day, between airports and planes and felt like I was slowly losing my sanity myself. But mostly I think it’s just that this book is absolutely terrifying.

As if the loss of bodily autonomy isn’t scary enough, Panatier explores the loss of autonomy over Morgan’s mind as her imagined persona fights to take over. I can’t imagine anything scarier than fighting for space in my own head.

When Morgan checks into Hollyhock, as Charlotte, to infiltrate the Asylum and find answers for her sister’s treatment and death - shit hits the fan relatively quickly as we find that not all is as it seems. I recommend going into this book as blind as possible because the slow unraveling of the past and present creates the perfect story.

This one is gory, weird, scary, haunting, and incredible. Check it out if that sounds up your alley - it’s out now!! Also a shout out to Chris Panatier for writing female characters well and with respect, it made your afterword hit all the harder!
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Quotes:

“Have you ever tried to claw your way through reality?”

“My mind was trying to push me down the stairs I’d climbed.”


**Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for the eARC of this haunting title!**

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC.

This was quite a book.. Unlike anything I have ever read I think. I did not know where it was going and certainly did not anticipate it. I think I liked it? I need to digest more.

What the actual f&#$ did I just read? This is one of those "weird books" that you will get or you will... not.

The book follows the title character, Morgan, as she goes into an asylum undercover to try and learn what happened to her sister and how (or why?) she died. The book is called the *Redemption* of Morgan Bright because Morgan feels somewhat responsible for her sister's death. We are not quite sure why, but Morgan is an addict only recently in recovery, so we assume her prior drug use has some role in all of it. The book quickly takes a (artistically) confusing turn, as we learn that Morgan has developed dissociative identity disorder in the form of her undercover persona in order to cope with the trauma she experiences.

Panatier writes in three separate timelines, which is easily understandable based on their methods. With the past written as text exchanges between Hadley and Morgan, the present in prose, and the future in transcript formatting. When I first saw this while flipping through the ARC, I was stoked. This felt right up my alley. I will say the writing was well done, and as someone who tends to dislike male writers, I have no critiques on Panatier's writing.

My main issue with the book is the weirdness. This book is advertised as a standard asylum based thriller, and for the first 50-70%, it truly gives that. I was feeling Shutter Island vibes, which was great. But then it takes a sci-fi turn. This wouldn't be horrible, but once the book turns in this direction the pacing skyrockets, which had me SO confused. I felt like I missed details, and I still don't know the answer to most of the questions from the plot. Why did Hadley die? How did she die? What did her death have to do with the overall sci-fi part of the book? I have no freaking idea.

Based on the other reviews I have seen, it seems I am alone in my complete misunderstanding of this plot. I think if the author wanted to achieve this goal, he should have cut down the first 50-70% and expand the sci-fi aspect, to make it feel a bit more coherent.

SPOILER WARNING PAST THIS POINT. THIS EXPLICITLY DISCUSSES THE ENDING.
While I appreciate that Panatier, a man, is highly disturbed by the destruction of reproductive rights being stripped away in our country, I had to roll my eyes when I realized this was a horror book based on the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Forced birth is trauma, you're right sir, but also the way that the forced birth occurred in this book (entirely while Morgan was tucked into her brain by Charlotte) felt like the least trauamatic way for it to occur? I didn't really understand how this got his point across. Further - she was impregnated by a shot through the wall of her uterus. Yes this book is technically in the near future and this is sci fi so who knows what the science is, but to me I was like sir you have referenced that you have a child, you must know how they are made?!?!??!??!?!

Thank you to Angry Robot and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

This is a hard review to write and for a lot of different reasons, too. In part, it’s because this book is so outside my comfort zone. I shouldn’t have enjoyed it so much (but I loved it!), in part because it’s hard to talk about this book without doing any spoilers, and in part, because this book deserves to be read by a lot of people (and again, this is for a couple of different reasons, too) so… I don’t know how I can make justice to it, and how can I make you curious enough. Still, I really really hope that you will read this book!

When I saw this book on NetGalley I requested it because I have read and really enjoyed another book by this author, Stringers, (and I have The Phlebotomist on my TBR since it came out), so I was curious to read something other by him, and because the plot sounded like something I may like. Psychological thrillers are not my favorite but from time to time I enjoy them, and this one sounded too promising to ignore! I started having doubts after reading some reviews of it because it sounded like more horror than thriller, and I am so not a fan of horror, and because all the reviews hinted at a paranormal element, and I need my thriller to be rooted in reality, I really strongly deeply hate paranormal elements in thrillers. But I was still curious, even if cautious, so I just went with it. And I am so glad and grateful because I enjoyed this book (well, enjoyed may be the wrong word for this book, because it is dark and it is hard, it is painful and it is about bad things, really really bad things! But I couldn’t put it down, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it so… I’ll go with “enjoyed” but keep all of this in mind, please) and I appreciated what the author did with his work. The last part of the book, the Afterword was a surprise… well, not really surprising, because if you read the book you can see all that the author said, but it was a nice surprise to see the author recognize it, and what he said made me happy, and a tad more hopeful for humanity in general. It is a beautiful thing to do, and it moved me.
It made this book political, in a way, and I think that we need more of these around right now. We desperately need them. And for this, I am really grateful to the author. (And grateful was the latest thing I thought I would be while reading this book!).

That said, I’ll try to talk a bit more about the book per se, trying not to spoiler anything. (It is hard, but I am trying!). As I said before, this book is outside my comfort zone, for different reasons, and I should not have liked it. I mean, the beginning can be considered as a psychological thriller, and I was there for that. Then we have the creepy factor, which starts subtle and grows slowly, oh so slowly, because you know that there is something wrong (aside from the obvious)still, you don’t understand what it is, and you keep reading, trying to understand what is happening, and why, especially the why, because what you know at the beginning is different from what you are showed at the moment and it was just so captivating! Usually, this kind of narration does not work for me, but here I was glued to the pages!
What’s more, is that the narration is not linear, we have some chapters mixed with excerpts from an interrogation with the police, with text messages, articles, and research, and, again, this isn’t my favorite way but in this particular case I loved it. I think that the way in which the author decided to tell us his story is one of my favorite things in the book, if not my favorite!

The world of the author is the scariest ever because it is our world, but with a little twist, that regards institutionalization, and if things start out as not good, they will progress fast into bad territory. There is so much evil in this book, so many bad things, that are bad on so many different levels! And the creepiness is not only due to the paranormal element, and this is quite sad. Because this book is sadly (and scarily) so plausible!! (Paranormal elements notwithstanding, obviously).

Another great thing of this book is the characters. They are all humans, and all broken, in one way or another. And they all feel so real! I am not the biggest fan of Charlotte, for example, and yet she is so desperately human! I think that the author did an amazing job with everything here: the pace, the vibes, the story, the mystery, the characters… everything!
And last but not least, he manages to surprise me time and again. This book is surprising in many ways, and it is hard to put down. It is also quite a difficult book to forget, if I have to be honest!

And I guess that’s all. I know that I haven’t said a lot about the book but it is hard to say more and still not doing spoiler, so I will leave it at that. But really, this is creepy, it is painful, it is an amazing horror book that will stay with you for a time, and that is pretty hard to put down!

This book had me unsettled and confused in the best possible way. I don't think I've ever said that about a book before until now.
I'd also like to point out that the cover is gorgeous and I'm obsessed with it.

I don't wanna say to much about this book because I think this is the type of book you need to go into it not knowing anything about it. But I will say that Chris's writing style is phenomenal and will have you hooked from the very first page. It defientely had me questioning what was real and what wasn't. The asylum setting was really itriuging and creepy which was perfect for the story.

Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc! This beauty is officially out now and I highly recommend picking it up if you love a good psychological horror that'll keep you up late at night and saying to yourself 'what the actual fuck'.

Gorgeous cover but I don’t know. It took a while to even know what was happening and the jumps in narration were confusing. It’s hard to buy in when you don’t even know what’s going on.

Ultimately my biggest issue is I just find men writing about women’s trauma and struggles voyeuristic. Imagine a white writer doing this with the trauma of POC; it feels exploitative.

Chris Panatier’s The Redemption of Morgan Bright is a fantasy-horror novel with a patriarchy reminiscent of The Handmaiden’s Tale. In a world where men can have their wives admitted for psychiatric care against their will, all under the guise of “domestic psychosis,” Morgan Bright goes into Hollyhock Asylum with a secret.

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book cover: The Redemption of Morgan Bright.
The novel is told from the perspective of Charlotte and Morgan and is interspersed with excerpts from police interviews and text messages. As the story unfolds, we learn that Morgan desperately wants to understand what happened to her sister, Hadleigh, who died while wandering alone along the road outside the asylum.

All in all, I felt the novel moved at a very slow pace. There’s a lot of character development and narrative twists throughout. However, the supernatural aspect of the horror elements didn’t do much for me. Additionally, the police interviews and text messages, while important to the story-telling, felt forced and intrusive.

If supernatural novels with an evil patriarchy are your jam, you might like this more than I did.

⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Thanks to NetGalley and Angry Robot for an advance copy in exchange for sharing my opinions. All opinions in this review are my own. Links in this review are affiliate links, and I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

This is not my usual type of book, but I was hooked!

The format is quite interesting, having chapters where the action is presented from the FMC POV mixed with police reports, text messages and flashbacks.

I don't want to spoil anything, but there is a lot about mental health, how to asylums treated the patients in the past, especially women. With unreliable narrators, you will really feel like a part of this horror story.

I can't say that I loved every single moment of this book, but I surely am glad I gave it a chance.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

P.S. The cover is absolutely gorgeous

Hello again dear reader or listener, buckle up, this is going to be a tough one. Let’s take a moment to drool over the beautiful cover though.

With thanks as always to the Angry Robot team for approving my NetGalley request for an eArc of this book, allow me to try and unravel my complicated thoughts about it.

You may have noticed that I kept this rating-free and the simple reason why is because I cannot for the life of me decide on a numerical rating, for a variety of reasons. In very short, Panatier certainly succeeds in what he sets out to do with this story, but in getting there, unfortunately, he somewhat lost me along the way for a while. Purely from an entertainment point of view though, cause intellectually I was vibing. Let me try to explain.

At its core, Redemption is a book about the true horror that is the loss of bodily autonomy and mental health. Something that women have faced (and, depressingly, continue to), in societies that have arbitrarily decided any deviation from certain gendered templates is grounds for taking over their free will and guilt-tripping them into oblivion. And, as I said, from an intellectual standpoint, Panatier carried this very important theme across brilliantly. His writing is evocative and the narrative style he employed for the novel, worked perfectly well to deliver the dizzying, disjointed, and progressively more horrific plot. Some of the imagery was truly chef’s kiss. Stylistically, it strongly reminded me of the first season of True Detective, with a past plot unfolding while interspersed with present time police interrogation transcripts, among other types of evidence. These various change ups actually helped me to read the bits of this book that were written in present tense, which I normally struggle with, but that’s a personal caveat.

This book is what would happen if elements of True Detective, The Alienist S1, Split, and Don’t Worry Darling (and I’m told AHS Asylum by Anna) had a chimera spawn that brought and discarded at your feet most of the injustices that patriarchal societies impose on women, the way a cat proudly presents its owner with dead vermin. It even goes a step further in exploring the deeper horror and hypocrisy of those crimes being enacted by a woman. That is a whole other level of betrayal we don’t have time to unpack here but oh so good and nuanced.

Since researching the beginnings and atrocities of early psychiatry is one of my more morbid hobbies, I was instantly hooked by the premise of a woman going undercover in a psychiatric hospital to discover the truth about what happened to her dead sister. The author even used real events to inform his story. As such I was so ready for psychological horror, and I even welcomed the body horror elements or the tact with which Panatier explored some of the more harrowing aspects of asylum “care” that I expected to find. That is also one of the most bewildering aspects of this novel perhaps: the fact that it is supposed to be set in our current times yet everything that happens within Hollyhock is reminiscent of the 50s and before, from the diagnoses reminiscent of female hysteria to the gaslighting and manipulation perpetrated by those supposed to protect the patients. As for the supernatural elements within, a part of me would have enjoyed more concrete definitions of what they were but at the same time a bigger part of me could appreciate the point of them being as abstract and abstruse as they were, as it fit within the confused and disoriented point of view. We don’t always get the answers we want or hope for and it can work if it’s done well.

This is where you’ve probably begun to wonder then what is it that has me so conflicted, dear reader. Well, here’s the thing. I’m very jaded when it comes to this genre but so long as there is a mystery to solve, I’m hooked and even curious to see what kind of weirdness the author will come up with to evoke the various states they wish in the reader. Just because I don’t necessarily feel all the feelings of disgust from body horror myself for instance, doesn’t mean I can’t be appreciative of the work that’s gone in it since I know it’ll affect others strongly. And as I said already, Panatier’s writing definitely wins in that department. His pacing is good, the reveals well timed and working within his planned disorientation of the reader, to accompany the confusion, denial, and terror that the protagonist is going through. In fact, I read 80% of this book in one sitting during an afternoon.
I got to the last 20% the next day and I was ready. I had all my questions that demanded answers, I had my theories, and I had my deep appreciation for the overall themes and messages. But then came the downfall of what had been up until that point really solid storytelling. I’m probably being a little dramatic here for silliness, but the truth is that in that last buildup to the end, the author went too heavy handed with the metaphors, the imagery, the meandering, hell, even the abstract supernatural that up until then I had been ok with just became too much. For lack of a better phrase, it killed the mood. The point had been made, 99% of the reveals cleared up, and I felt like a horse overbeaten into indifference, so I just mentally checked out hoping the end would finally get here. Had this book been about 50ish pages shorter it might’ve worked better for me.
Even then, through that, call it a stumble, the final scene is a powerful final gut punch, so it’s not like the author just lost himself entirely and dropped the ball completely. Just took a few turns too many to get to the destination.

This book isn’t for everyone, that much is true, and maybe the way the author went about that climax will work for others in the ways that it didn’t for me which is perfectly valid. I am still very interested in reading his other books because I enjoyed his overall writing style and I would surely enjoy reading more of it.
Plus, any author that takes the time to try and work through the themes that Panatier did, with the tact and grace that he did, deserves the attention.

In fact, what is perhaps most aggravating/infuriating in the end is nothing strictly to do with the book itself, but with the knowledge that such a horrific and prolonged metaphor might be needed by some in order to even only begin to understand the terror and pain of the real women whose bodily autonomy is horrifically in the hands of others.

Until next time,
Eleni A. E.