Children of the Fog by C.W. Anderson keeps you hooked till the very end.
A well written suspense filled with twists that kept me hooked from the very beginning.
A quick and fun read that I finished in a few hours.
The characterization was superb, the writing pacey and flowing, and the tension delivered in a series of shocks and twists along the way.
This is a tightly written story, with well developed characters and enough suspense to keep you reading.

Children of the Fog was an unsettling reading experience. The writing style captures the main characters' mental state and makes for a sense of foreboding and inevitability as they battle for their sanity. It feels disjointed in the best way. At various times I found myself frustrated with the protagonists while also overwhelmed by the futility of resisting. I can't say I enjoyed the experience, but it did make a lasting impact that I still find myself contemplating.

Let's start with the good things. Cosmic horror is probably my favorite in the horror genre. So, the antagonist of this book is both truly and deeply terrifying, and completely compelling for me. It drove me to keep reading all the way to the end. I also liked the sibling relationship between Dylan and Liz, which reminds me of my own sibling relationship sometimes. I relate to the idea that no matter how wild and unhinged my sibling gets, I will drop everything to be there for them. I also think some of the exposition was beautifully written, with vivid and creative descriptions. Ultimately, there were several engaging excerpts in the novel, and I think that the direction the plot took was well constructed.

And now for the bad. First, I will admit that it is possible that the writing style is just not for me. However, I think that the grandiose nature of the exposition was poorly matched with the characters. It clouded the text and made it so that it was difficult to follow the story, and it made it hard to connect with the characters.

There were a few other issues that made it difficult to connect with the characters. The dialogue was poorly constructed, and felt divergent from the exposition. The characters also just didn't talk like real people, often making the dialogue a struggle to read, which was unfortunate because that was often the only way to get information about the past or details about what was actually happening. The characters themselves don't feel completely believable. Liz's career is far too advanced for her age and qualifications. Dylan is treated like some elder, but he's still too young to rent a car in most places. I can suspend my disbelief, but combined with all the other issues, it's too hard to ignore these issues.

Next, I found several errors. I'm not talking about a few typos either, some of these errors are egregious. For example, when a very intimate scene between Liz and her boyfriend suddenly turns into an unfortunate scene between Liz and Dylan, because the author accidentally used the wrong name. The text also wavers between the use of passive voice, active voice, and a few verb conjugation slips. These errors make the already gratuitously verbose text difficult to read.

There are also some issues with the plot. A lot of details get lost in the murky exposition. There appear to be rules that the Dark Lady and her minions must follow, but they are confusing, and not well laid out. Dylan is meant to be this expert in the situation but we don't see that side of him very often, especially during his final ritual, which one could argue is because the fog folk started to get to him, but that isn't made clear. The scenes where we learn about the past when Dylan and Liz were kids and things with the grandmother were kind of just described or told to us instead of experienced. In a story like this, a shifting timeline might have worked better.

I did like the direction of the plot though, and I felt the pacing was good. There are really good nuggets of exposition among the confusing or poorly constructed ones. I think that there's good parts in the text that could be worked on. It just needs that work and ideally, to see an editor to help facilitate that. As it is now, I would not recommend this title.

Children of the Fog intrigued me with its dark atmosphere and eerie premise, but I found it a bit uneven in execution. Lizzy and Dylan's sibling dynamic was interesting, especially the contrast between Lizzy's need to escape and Dylan's obsession with their past. However, I struggled to connect with them fully—Lizzy came off as a bit too distant, and Dylan's descent into madness was hard to follow at times.

The foggy, sinister setting of San Francisco worked well to build tension, but some parts of the story felt repetitive, and the pacing dragged in the middle. The supernatural elements were intriguing, though I wish they had been explored in more depth. Overall, it was a creepy read, but I was left wanting more clarity and emotional depth to fully engage with the characters and their journey.

The book description is the most coherent part of the book. The story is there, but it's lost in the convoluted and thick style.
It feels like the author had a heyday with his thesaurus and or really wanted to make this seem like it was written a century ago even though it takes place in the present.
There were a handful of "disturbing" scenes, I think I only once said "EW". So I don't think I would qualify that as "Splatter carnage", but who am I really?
I think the only truly coherent part where I wasn't frowning at nearly every paragraph in confusion was Lizzy remember grandma's lore.

Thanks Fever Dream Books for giving me the opportunity to ARC read this title

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the privilege of previewing this novel. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something I enjoyed.

From the prologue, I felt a lot of “what the heck am I even reading,” moments, not in a good way. The writing style felt forced and like it was trying to be something it wasn’t. The characters didn’t feel very developed and the “dark lady” celt pretty generic.

I found the ending predictable and the entire story very one-note/anticlimactic. This book felt, to me, felt like it was a wish of a screenplay that never got there, so it was turned into a book last minute.

Not the worst, but not for me.

Children of the Fog has one of the creepiest atmospheres I’ve ever come across in a book. It follows a brother and sister as they each deal with a terrifying, supernatural childhood trauma in their own way. There are some really eerie, gripping scenes that kept my attention, but I felt like the story got bogged down by too much inner monologue and description. I wish there had been more dialogue and forward momentum. I also would have loved more depth and detail about the Dark Lady. Overall, I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars. Thank you Fever Dream Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed reading this book! The prologue was very interesting and sucked me into the book immediately It was just the right amount of scary and story combination.

Very dark and intense. A depressing picture of a disturbed family life. Requires the right mood for reading.

Some disturbing gore and self-harm scenes require a strong stomach. Horror fans only for those.

Disclaimer: I read horror on occasion, but not regularly. If you are a bigger fan of the genre the book may be more appealing to you. I appreciate the author's effort in writing such a dark story.

In Children of the Fog, C W. Anderson tells a story of two siblings attempting to outrun a traumatic incident from their past - one orchestrated by a dark entity that comes in the fog, an apparition known as the Dark Lady. Unfortunately, despite the author's clear skill with the written word, the novel itself is largely dull and uninteresting.

I wanted to like this book; every element was there for me. Gothic horror? Check. Moody atmosphere? Check. Mysterious event from the past that drove two siblings in wildly different directions? Check. But, C.W. Anderson is more skilled with putting flowing sentences and nightmare imagery together than forming likable, engaging characters. Neither sibling gets me to a point of rooting for them, and the brother is downright unlikable.

Reading the book is an exercise in frustration, as the author is given to long paragraphs of description that pad out the page count far beyond what is necessary. I'm all for poetic prose and painting a picture for the reader, but this tested my patience.

The threat itself is generic to a fault. You've seen ghosts and ghouls like this many times before, and the Dark Lady doesn't stand out or become fleshed out enough to be something beyond a vague, abstract threat. The way the story ends feels predictable and anti-climactic.

Overall, I can't recommend this book entirely. Some of the writing is impressive on a technical level, but this book really reminds me of horror movies from the early '00s: great cinematography that is fantastic to look at, but that has no depth and fails in demanding emotional investment from the reader.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Fever Dream Books for providing me a review copy of this novel.

This book is the reason why you should be afraid of the dark, why you should not go outside once the sunsets. This story messed wit5h my mind.

Wow. What a great read. Could not put it down. Thank you for letting me read this in advance. I stayed up way to late trying to get to the end.

What I Loved/Enjoyed About The Book:

Story/Writing/Structure:

* Simple, informative yet taken aback with a lot of information/background while effective style of writing throughout
* No jargons or phrases which are not necessary used


Background/A Bit Of The Plot Without Giving Anything Away:

* Strong Characters with a history
* Trauma, hurt, pain and suffering
* The story does fit in well and has many ups and downs

I Highly Recommend This Book I Will Give This 5 Out Of 5 Stars

I was given the opportunity to read this book from Netgalley as an ARC and read this for leisure voluntarily. The title really intrigued me and it made me want to know who were the Children of the Fog. I found the beginning really interesting and wanting to know more about Dylan. The story though focuses more about Lizzy. The Fog was really interesting and I have found this theme in previous books and movies. Kind of the "are you afraid of the dark" theme, which yes, yes I am. This book claimed me and I read it in a day. I wanted to know what happened to these siblings. I wanted to know about their past, and their future. I will say the book had a twist which I wasnt expecting. I didnt think it would go in the direction it did. I found this book to be really easy to read and fast paced. I appreciated the length of the chapters and felt the chapter titles were well thought out. Thanks for an interesting read!

This book was WOW! Once I started I didn't want to stop! Any reader of horror should definitely check this one out. I would have given more stars if able.

As children the siblings suffered something terrible, and as adults go their own separate ways to deal with their trauma. However it’s back, the fog is returning, the dreams are drawing them in and they find themselves facing their demons again.

This was a slow start for me, I found it hard to get into but as the book went on I was sucked in more and more as I got used to the writing style being a bit clunky and choppy. Very spooky vibes that at times give you goosebumps

"In the fog-drenched hills of San Francisco, siblings Lizzy and Dylan were once inseparable. It was the only way they could survive a childhood of horror and evil…until one final bloodstained night left them near-dead orphans. Now in their twenties, each has taken a wildly different path through Lizzy is ambitious and polished, compulsively driven to escape her haunted past and the forbidden truth that still whispers in her soul, while her younger brother Dylan hitch-hikes across the country, homeless and half-insane, obsessed with a return of that dark realm and the sinister presence that hungered for them. But something ominous is happening in the City by the Bay. Whispers of a strange fog that floods the streets at night, of beckoning shadows and dreams of a crumbling manor aloft over the city. As Dylan had feared, the Dark Lady has returned at last, and soon there will be nowhere for brother or sister to hide. "You may be done with Her, but I'm not so sure She's done with you."

The story does have a slow start, it does pick up after the first chapter and is very immersive on some realities. Anderson did not disappoint, enhancing the unsettling element of the fog . This horror did not disappoint.

This was eerie and filled with dreadful and tension filled scenarios. Can't help but to feel for the characters and hoping they'd survive.

I really wanted to enjoy this one, I love the idea of the story and the setting, but it didn't work for me. I couldn't connect with the characters and everything felt a bit...not as tense and scary as it should have been. Like the place in the fog should have been really creepy and intense and yet whenever I was reading about it it was just meh. I don't know why exactly it didn't work, something about the writing style didn't work for me.

What a book! This was an unsettling psychological thriller that captures your attention from the first page. This book was a good page turner that kept my attention through out the whole story. Very good book.