This was an interesting idea for a book. I thought it needed some more depth and development of character to make it a deeper novel. It wasn't bad, but I was expecting more. I want to read more from this author to see what else they have written..

Thank you Net Galley ARC, Lege Industries LLC, and Shane Lege

::| The Cypress Tombs
By Shane Lege
Chapter 4 Page 28

“Johnny, is that you?”
“Yeah, it's me, Johnny called back, still unable to see Chris through the thick fog.
“Are you alright? What were you shooting at?”
“I… I’m not sure,” Chris replied, his voice shaky.
“I heard some strange noises to the East and - I get i just got spooked.”
“Alright, take a deep breath. I am almost there, so don't shoot when I come down the levee,” Johnny reassured him. Johnny could sense the strain in Chris’s voice, the unease from being alone in the swamp for too long. Thought it has been less than an hour since Johnny left to make the phone call, it might have as well have been an eternity in this environment. The bayou was notorious for playing tricks on the mind - stray sounds, shifting shadows, and the ever-present fog could make the most seasoned hunter feel on edge. Add the creeping thoughts of what they have discovered, and it was no wonder Chris had fired those shots. |::

Something is happening in the little towns on the outskirts of a beautiful bayou, seemingly during when festivals are held, where everyone knows everyone else, a horror is waiting to be sprung on some unsuspecting hunter. In more than one village, targeting those who came out onto the still waters to lose themselves in nature, some have grown up around the beautiful cypress trees, whose roots go deep down in the mysterious waters and one by one.. secrets are coming up to haunt innocent people, reminding everyone that even in the smallest of innocent towns and villages. Evil lurks.

Okay. So yeah I very quickly began to really love this story it was a little different from any other i wrote and although I could forgive the weird feelings poor Leah was experiencing during the situation she found herself in.. I have to admit I was so unhappy with how it ended. I wanted to know what happened! Like omg how could you end it like that? I don't know if I should be impressed or angry haha.
It was good while it lasted!
We definitely need a book 2 please!

Big thank you to Shane Lege, Lege Industries LLC, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and relay my honest feedback.

I saw some pretty negative reviews of this book online. While many of those reviews made good points, they were a little harsh. This book definitely veered from societal norms while combining erotica with thriller/murder mystery elements. I personally like both genres, so this was not off-putting for me. I wish the pace were a little slower, as I felt it rushed to get its point across. It felt like the actual story was just fluff to make it to the ending. This book has good bones and could be expanded into a great novel. I am unsure if this will be a series. I think that could be a great direction to go. It could further explore the feelings expressed at the end of the book and follow the investigation into the murders.

Now for my complaints. There was a recurring formatting issue. Anywhere "tt" appeared in the text, it became a space. So "attending" became a ending." This did make for some slight confusion throughout. It also looks like the author used the find and replace function to change "Tina" to "Leah." This caused words containing "tina" also to change (i.e., destination became desleahtion). My other complaint is a bit nitpicky culturally. As someone who grew up in the deep south, some of the phrases the characters used didn't feel authentic. I'm in no way saying that Southerners aren't intelligent enough to have an expanded vocabulary. However, two middle-aged duck hunters aren't going around saying "purposefully" and "simultaneously." You're more likely to hear, "I swear I ain't never felt that relieved and that embarrassed at the same dang time."

With all of this in mind, I would like to thank NetGalley, Shane Lege, and Lege Industries LLC for gifting me a free copy of Cypress Tombs. I would like to see Shane continue writing in this same world. With a bit of work, I think this could become something great.

A coroners assistant in the middle of the horror of her own investigation.
I just couldn’t get into this book I felt the premise of it was very good but for some reason I just really struggled with it.
The tense unnerving vibes along with the dark fantasy elements really drew me in but I just felt it got a little repetitive BUT I didn’t expect plot twist and I actually felt shock with the reveal

Cypress Tombs by Shane Lege is a tense, atmospheric thriller set deep in the haunting bayous of Louisiana, but despite its eerie premise and potential for nail-biting suspense, the novel struggles to leave a lasting impression. While the plot promises a gripping tale of survival and terror, it is weighed down by underdeveloped characters and pacing issues that undermine the story’s emotional stakes.

Leah, the coroner's assistant turned victim, is positioned as the heart of the novel, and her predicament should have been enough to keep readers riveted. However, her characterization feels thin, making it difficult to fully empathize with her beyond the surface-level terror of her situation. Her backstory—particularly her relationship with her boyfriend and her work in forensics—feels underexplored, robbing the reader of the chance to understand what truly makes her tick. This lack of depth makes her reactions to her terrifying circumstances feel predictable rather than surprising or emotionally resonant.

The setting is where the novel shines brightest. Shane Lege’s descriptions of the remote Vermillion Parish and the isolation of the bayou evoke an oppressive sense of dread and helplessness. The thick cypress trees, the looming mist, and the ever-present hum of insects create a vivid backdrop for Leah’s nightmarish ordeal. The use of the Duck Festival as the starting point for her abduction adds a sinister layer of normalcy turned horrific, underscoring how quickly ordinary life can spiral into chaos.

Unfortunately, the villain—a crucial element in any thriller—is also somewhat generic. While their motivations and methods are horrifying, they lack the psychological complexity or charisma that make great antagonists stand out in the genre. The scenes of torment, while graphic and disturbing, don’t reveal much about the captor’s deeper psyche, making the conflict between Leah and her abductor feel more like a mechanical struggle for survival rather than a cat-and-mouse game brimming with tension and intrigue.

The pacing of the novel is uneven, with the middle sections bogged down by repetitive internal monologues and slower-moving sequences that dilute the urgency of Leah’s predicament. The final act does pick up the pace, delivering some genuinely pulse-pounding moments, but by then, the emotional impact feels diminished due to the lack of investment in the characters' fates.

At 2.75 stars, Cypress Tombs succeeds in capturing the oppressive atmosphere of the Louisiana bayou but falters in making its characters memorable or its story unpredictable. Shane Lege has a talent for crafting vivid settings and the bones of a gripping thriller, but the lack of emotional depth and distinct character voices make the story feel more like a standard procedural horror than a standout entry in the genre. Readers looking for a quick, unsettling read with a strong sense of place may still find something to appreciate here, but those seeking layered protagonists and a more psychologically complex narrative may be left wanting more.

Im not really sure how to review this book!!!! Great imagination definitely. Awesome plot for sure. Very vivid and detailed in some areas, would have loved more character building. I would definitely read more from this author now that I know what I'm getting into lol.

Thank you so much for the arc copy of this book, I am so grateful for the opportunity to read early.

However, I wanted to be honest and say that I don't believe this book was something that meshed well with me. I ended up dnfing, I do apologise and books are so subjective. However I found it lacked the ability to reel me in, hence why I dnfd.

There is a serial killer in Vermillion Paris; he is targeting women and hiding their bodies in the bayou. The public nicknamed him the Bayou Butcher. Leah was the assistant to the coroner; she spent hours at the crime scene documenting the horrific details of the crimes. Sarah Cormier was the first victim; she was tortured, restrained, beaten and her body was thrown into the bayou. The second victim’s identity was unknown. Rebecca Boudreaux was the third victim; her body told the same story. All three women had blonde hair and blue eyes. The fourth victim was Leah Broussard.
The reader has a front row seat as Leah’s predicament is played out. She is tied, gagged and blindfolded by her captor. She knows her life is in danger. Her captor played games with his victims; he tortured them. Can the information she gathered from the crime scene assist her in any way?
The cover of this book is well done. It hints at the suspense, fear and intrigue that awaits the reader. The setting is frightening, and the atmosphere is tense, intimidating, and disturbing. This tale has potential but there are several aspects that need work.
1. There is too much repetition.
2. There are times when the plot loses focus.
3. The plot has a split personality. It is mystery and suspense and yet it is erotic suspense.
4. The characters lack depth.
5. The men that found the bodies got more sympathy than the dead women.
6. The ending needs work.
7. The writing is rambling in many places.

Things that work.
1. The cover quickly caught my attention and reeled me in.
2. The setting was perfect: A bayou and cypress trees set the atmosphere.
3. The atmosphere is tense.
4. The premise had potential and with work could be great.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

Although I think this book could have had potential, the writing was just something you'd find out of a bad sci-fi movie or something on an erotic website. Most of the time, the dialogue was just one person saying something and then the person they were talking to would say it right back, just worded a tiny bit differently. A lot of the paragraphs seemed like they were written to say the exact same thing as if the author had alternate things they were writing but weren't sure which one they were going to use and then accidentally used both. I felt like it was all rambling like the author was writing a 5000 word essay and they had to fill the word count. I honestly would have liked it if everything about finding the bodies was taken out and it was just turned into a short erotica.

The premise is terrifyingly captivating, yet because of the character relationships and repeated descriptions, the pacing occasionally lags. Lege's strength, meanwhile, is in his painstakingly detailed depiction of the scene, which captures the stifling, unearthly atmosphere of the Louisiana wetlands.

I skimmed like half this book and that's not great for being under 150 pages. There was so much detail and background about the people discovering the bodies, but at the end of the day, those people didn't really matter. It was unnecessary fluff in a thriller. If you want to go into excruciating detail about the towns people, write small town fiction.

Also we never discover who the killer is or what exactly is going on. The twist was interesting but since it didn't lead to the killer it felt so unsatisfactory.

Leah, a coroner's assistant in a small town finds herself in the middle of the horror she's been investigating. Following a town festival she awakes bound, gagged and blindfolded in the middle of the bayou, eerily similar to a multitude of other blonde hair blue eyed women.

This is how the book starts, this is the first few pages. What follows is the next 95% of the book leaves Leah where she is and delves into backstory and exposition. The backstory however, is paced and written very poorly. It's constantly jumping from different POVs; it's repetitive and frankly boring. Don't read this and take a shot every time the phrase "bound, gagged and blindfolded" is used, you might be hospitalised.

All the set up and backstory comes to a head with a very lackluster ending. The twist has been done better by so many other authors.

This book just could not decide what it wanted to be: suspense thriller, horror, dark erotica. It needed to figure it out before it put pen to page.

Thank you to NetGalley and lege industries LLC for providing a copy for review. All opinions are my own.

While I typically eat thriller novels up there was something about Cypress Tombs that I couldn’t get into. I think the book could have been longer to fully give closure to a few things.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Short quick read, overly descriptive and wordy, almost rambling at times. Lacks direction and plot.

Cypress Tombs by Shane Lege is an eerie plunge into horror that ensnares you right away. The novel skillfully blends tension with the creepy, cramped atmosphere of a small, hidden hamlet against the ominous backdrop of Louisiana's bayous.

As a coroner's assistant, Leah becomes entangled in the tragedy she used to investigate. As she fights a deranged captor, the novel immerses readers in her desperate struggle for existence. You are drawn into the story by the detailed descriptions of the bayou and its ominous seclusion, which heighten the suspense on each page.

The premise is terrifyingly captivating, yet because of the character relationships and repeated descriptions, the pacing occasionally lags. Lege's strength, meanwhile, is in his painstakingly detailed depiction of the scene, which captures the stifling, unearthly atmosphere of the Louisiana wetlands.

The bleak stakes and unrelenting tension will appeal to fans of psychological horror and survival thrillers, even though several plot points could need additional refinement.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars.

"Floating eerily still between the gnarled cypress knees was a woman’s body. Her pale skin was ghostly against the dark water, and her limbs drifted slightly, caught between the roots that seemed to cradle her like some grotesque offering to the swamp."

Someone is targeting these women and using the bayou to hide the crimes. People were beginning to whisper about the “Bayou Butcher”, a name locals had given the faceless monster stalking their waters.
First victim: Sarah Cormier— wasn’t just killed. She was tortured, restrained, assaulted… and then dumped.
Second victim: unidentified
Third victim: Rebecca Boudreaux, from Estherwood, worked at a local law firm. Same story and pattern. Blonde hair, naked, floating between the cypress knees. The only connection so far is that both victims had blonde hair and blue eyes.
Fourth victim: Leah Broussard - works at the coroner's office. We get to see her POV as she is bound, gagged and blindfolded by her captor - bracing herself for whatever was coming next, her body trembling, every nerve screaming with the fear of the unknown. She's about to become the fourth victim - or is she?


⚠️ Possible spoilers ⚠️


The setting and atmosphere is tense, unnerving and unsettling. It's more of a murder mystery weaved with dark fantasy and erotic elements. The writing style is ok but it gets repetitive and boring in some parts. The ending took a different and surprising turn which I didn't expect. The murders were unresolved and still an ongoing investigation. Turned out that Leah wasn't really a victim. She and Blayne were both role playing (BDSM) - the murders apparently inspired and brought their deepest, darkest fantasies to the surface. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️
It reminded me a bit of the iconic yet somehow morbid love/s*x scene from the movie Taking Lives starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke. If you've seen the film, you get the idea.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lege Industries LLC for the arc. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.🖤

3.45✨
2 🌶️

There was so much promise with this. So many amazing ways it could have gone. However, this did not leave me wanting more.

The plot was not well thought out. There was far too many descriptions of the city/bayou/community and nothing about who the characters truly were. It was, at best, barely glossed over. By the end, I had no idea who Bryce or Leah actually were as people.
This story was also VERY repetitive. Each paragraph for a solid 5 chapters was just different phrasing of the one before it. And even in all those rephrases, it was not very captivating.
The “erotic” aspects of the book felt very forced and did not seem at all necessary or important to the story, but more so like a distraction. I have read other “erotic thrillers” but from the very beginning of those stories, it was known that the FMC enjoyed the thrill of the chase, being hunted, etc. Leah had none of those traits that would make her reactions even slightly plausible. And at the end, it made zero sense for her to be just okay with everything that occurred.
While I know this seems super critical and negative, I feel like if given the time to be truly fleshed out and given more intrigue, this could be an amazing thriller. It just was nowhere close to being ready.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it had that that element that I was looking for and worked with the description. I enjoyed the overall story and characters that I was looking for from this type of story. I was invested in what Shane Lege wrote and was glad I read this.

*Cypress Tomb* by Shane Lege had all the elements of an engaging erotic thriller, but it fell short due to a lack of character development, making it a challenging read. Despite this, the novel’s strengths lie in its evocative small-town setting, atmospheric swamp aesthetic, and the close-knit relationships among the characters.

The story had immense potential and kept me intrigued with its unexpected twists that turned the narrative on its head. However, the numerous unanswered questions by the end left me wanting more resolution.

While this book had its shortcomings, the author's knack for plot twists has piqued my interest in exploring more of his works.

Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ★ ★

Cypress Tombs, by Shane Lege, is a horror read with erotic elements that blurs the lines between truth and dark fantasy with its unreliable omniscient narrative. “Dark Taboo” romance readers and horror fans alike are the appropriate audience for this Trigger-Warning-Happy story. If you align yourself with either or both, you may find this read to be right up your alley!

A solitary woman with smudged makeup, swallowed by a swamp, immediately caught my eye and based on the cover, I wanted to read the blurb and learn more. The cover-art imagery is reminiscent of the Bayous, the setting of Cypress Tombs. I love the dark swamp aesthetic in fantasy and horror. Even better, the small-town setting featuring your usual “townies” and gossips, made up a close-knit community of characters. The premise, location, and mystery were promising, but I was disappointed with the way it was executed.

On the topic of characters, I would’ve liked to see further development of their personalities. The FMC isn’t given any form of identity until about 90% through, (when the big tornado of a twist turns this story on its head, redeeming some of the more deviant details). This also applies to the victims. Unfortunately, more attention was paid to the strife of the men who discovered the women, and how their secret fishing spot deep in the Bayous is now tainted by the burning sight of a floating dead girl. It was disappointing that the victims were merely an inconvenience to not only the locals who discovered them, but also with law enforcement tasked to the job.

Who were these women? What was their backstory? Why weren’t they reported missing? I had so many questions that weren’t answered.

It was very Long Island Serial Killer vibes, with the Bayou Butcher leaving bodies in a familiar pattern in the wilds of the Louisiana swamps. I wish this storyline and the mystery and motive of the killer was explored further. The horror elements were my favorite.

The writing style includes reiterating stream-of-consciousness inner dialogue in addition to repetitive phrases and wording within the omniscient narrative itself. There were times I was certain I had already read chunks of paragraphs earlier in the book, and my eyes would gloss right over it. I had the impression the author was focusing on a set word-count. I would have liked to see the characters and world-building fleshed out more instead.

This story truly has potential to be an excellent erotic thriller, if the mystery had a stronger focus, and the story itself was more concise. I would consider reading other titles by this author because I liked the shock value and the twist completely blew everything out of the water… or swamp!