Fear Not The Dark

Fear Not the Dark works by setting a suspenseful atmosphere. There’s all the elements we want in a book - adventure, strong characters, sharp dialogue, and more. Recommended for readers looking for a creative adventure with horror elements.

A very good fantasy/paranormal book. I liked the plot, the style of writing and the characters.
It was and enjoyable and entertaining read.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC

Marley McCormick is a Minnesota reporter. Her latest job is to write an article on The Dark , a motivational speaker on facing your fear as therapy. His supposedly actual name is Delroy P. Dark. Is it? Marley is not sure of what to think when she sees his followers all dressed in black - almost as if it were a uniform. As she gets to meet The Dark, she finds it surprising and strange that he knows she has inherited a bookstore from her adopted uncle. She is bothered when there are two mysterious deaths at the conference she has been attending while interviewing The Dark. Then when The Dark asks her about a book he is looking for. He is positive she has it in the bookstore. Coming back from the conference, she finds that the bookstore has been ransacked. She is surprise but wonders what book was being searched for. Then she is warned by two different people that she is in danger. Marley starts having strange and unusual dreams and seeing things things she can’t explain or understand. Whoever is searching for a certain book threatens her. She has numerous peculiar events happen to her. The least strange one is a black cat appearing in her uncle’s home - how did the cat get in? She turns to her best friend a paraplegic who is technically savvy and runs a shelter fo homeless children.

The novel is a fast paced story with several unusual surprises and curiosities. It is a mystery that doesn’t stop. I love reading but wanted more answers than what was given. I’m hoping there will be a sequel that will answer this unusual but delightful mystery.

You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

Actual rating of 3.5

Marlyn's Uncle Max has just been declared dead, his houseboat exploded and human remains were found among the charred mess. No one could have survived the blast. So she has inherited his Rare Speciality Bookstore, and unbeknown to her a world of problems to go along with it. She has also been asked to forego her compassionate leave, and over the illustrious self help guru known as The Dark. She accepts, not realising that this will change her life forever. Thrown into a world where strange deaths are occurring and adults start putting The Dark's weird seminars and laser tag battle before their children, who knows what Marlyn will uncover. What follows is a journey into completely life altering events, and one that she may not survive. The Dark isn't all he appears to be, he is much, much more. And the biggest question is, will Marlyn be able to come out of it unscathed, if at all?

So I wasn't a hundred percent sure what this book would be about when going into it, as the blurb doesn't give away a whole lot. I was actually pleasantly surprised with what I got. This was a normal woman, who had just lost the only family she had left, who has been thrown a complete curve-ball in life when she is asked to cover The Dark's seminars and meetings and so on and so forth for the week. She's thrown into a world of supernatural occurrences and beings, and finds it a hard pill to swallow. I was pleasantly surprised and actually loved the fact that Marlyn did not swallow the whole "the supernatural and paranormal are real" thing, it took a bit to convince her, only when she was presented with irrefutable proof did she go "Oh, okay, so maybe it all was real" then cue the slight internal freak out because how could any of what happened actually be real and not part of a movie or book plot? It gets a little annoying sometimes when characters in stories accept the strange and unusual with no reason for doing so. If a character had been experiencing odd things or already was kind of open to something, then it might not be so bad, but most of the times the characters are written as sceptics that all of a sudden accept that which they were scoffing at a second before. So it was incredibly refreshing to have a character not accepting what had happened to her at face value.

The mystery was good, I liked how it unfolded and I'm pretty sure all bases were covered when it came to explanations. I had a feeling that there wasn't something quite right with one of the characters but I had no idea actually what it was until the reveal which was great.

The characters were all likeable enough, I liked Marly's character but also felt that she was maybe a little flat, that could just be me though. I was a little bit annoyed with Alison's character, just because it was like she was a closet batman, with all of these gadgets and gizmos, and her knowledge of such things wasn't really explained. It was just expected to be an accepted fact. That annoyed me a little bit, but it didn't really take away from the story, it tied in well enough.

I didn't really understand the epilogue. I'm not sure if this story was based on some kind of legend or not, if it is, that would explain the epilogue and why I didn't understand it as I clearly don't know the legend (if it was based on one). If it's not based on one, I feel that the epilogue could have been cut from the story. It didn't really add anything other than the possible explanation of the strange black animal that Marly encounters a couple of times.

Another thing that irked me was, I really enjoyed the way that Murray writes, she writes wonderfully and it has a lovely flow. However, I was jolted out of my admiration when I came across a recurring sentence structure that I found felt unfinished or missed in editing. An example is:

Chapter 3: "As if to emphasise his words a brass grandfather clock on the marble mantel behind him chimed the hour. A gust of wind against the picture windows."

Chapter 3: "Gathered her notebook and purse. Got to her feet."

Chapter 6: "She already knew and reached for a packet of special peppermint tea, started the water boiling."

Those are just a few instances that I wanted to use as guide to what I'm talking about. It's almost as though the author or their editor felt that the word 'and' was being used too much? Where in this case, it's kind of needed otherwise it can come across as an error, and it really jolted me out of my reading zone when I hit sentences like this. Another thing was not using commas where it was needed. Sentences ran on and I found myself having to re-read a lot of sentences due to the lack of commas, things weren't making sense until I realised that there should have been a pause at some point.


All in all, a good story, one of short length which worked well for it, I don't think it needed to be any longer than it was. Besides things that could be rectified with another round of editing there wasn't really any issues with it bar a couple that were my own personal issues with things.

Fear Not the Dark by Susan Murray is about Marley McCormick who inherits her Uncle Max’s house and bookstore after Max is killed by an explosion on his boat. Marley is a reporter for the Mississippi Gazette and her editor wants her to get an interview with The Dark, a well known author of books written about dark topics. Marley is also involved with a missing book, a gypsy, ghost and time-travel. She eventually realizes they may be related. A very detailed plot, with mystical characters and a bit of unrealistic fantasy, but the book will keep you guessing until the end. Thank you to Net Galley for allowing me an advanced reader’s copy for a review.