Dark and Lonely Water

Heart pounding thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Definitely one of the best books this year.

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed this one. The tension was high, the creep factor just right. It was a pretty unique story (for me at least.) and I hope to see more of this trope in the future.

Dark and Lonely Water by Graeme Reynolds explores the legend of Jenny Greenteeth, a type of water hag that lures the unwary, old and young, to their untimely demise. We follow Sam, an investigative journalist, assigned the unwelcome task of looking into a few unexplained 'disappearances' in the area and before long she finds herself on the hunt for a monster, although, not everything is as it seems...

What I liked best about this book is the author's style or voice as it's sometimes referred. It's reminiscent of '80's horror novels and maintains a strong visual feel that could easily lend itself to film. This style is distinct and different and therefore comes as a refreshing change of pace. There's a fair amount of gore, chucked in by the bucket load, a little action towards the end, yet it still finds time to create interesting characters and dynamics. Well worth a read.

*note for publishers- a section repeats itself around the page 71 mark*

Awesome horror/thriller short!! I stumbled upon this on Netgalley and decided to go in blind and it preceded my expectations by a huge margin! The story dives into the action quite quickly and continues to build upon it, while also building upon the characters. The writing flows, the dialogue feels so natural and the character development in so few pages is astonishing! I genuinely felt more for some of the people in this novella than I have for protagonists in 600+ word full length door-stop books.

There's thrills and chills, a little bit of mystery and a nice bit of folklore thrown in for good measure. I'll be keeping an eye out for future works of Graeme Reynold's for sure! Highly, highly recommend this one. If you enjoy horror then do yourself a favour and read this story. Huge thanks to Netgalley for my copy.

I mean... I don't even know what to say. What an ending!

While Dark and Lonely Water started out rather slow and took its time picking up speed, it eventually ended up being a very atmospheric, eerie little horror book for me.
Using a figure from actually existing English folklore (yep, I asked Google), Reynolds created a creepy story of a single mother-slash-reporter who's sent back to her home town in order to investigate a series of water-related murders.
There was enough character development to make me feel and root for the protagonists, a good amount of very graphic gore, and, thankfully, a lack of info-dumping on the myth surrounding the creature. I really liked this, though I'm still a little shook by the very surprising ending.

I started this book when I was in a reading slump as the cover and description drew me in.

It is such an interesting take on 'just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water'.

The story follows Sam, a journalist and single mother, as she tries to uncover the truth about disappearances and deaths in the waters near her home town. The realist aspect of the individuals in this book are incredible and the twists and turns along the way made it such a good book.

Although I wish the ending was different, I loved it all the same! Amazing book, hoping for a sequel

This was a fast easy read that was a dark mixing of folklore, creepiness, tension and was reminiscent of old creature feature movies.

Sam Ashlyn is a single mother raising two children. She works as a journalist and her latest assignment takes her back to her hometown to investigate recent drownings. But once her investigation begins, she quickly realizes that these are not typical drownings if they are drownings at all.

She joins forces with Chris, a disgraced police diver and they soon stumble across a decades old conspiracy to keep an ancient evil hidden. She and Chris hope to put an end to this nightmare before it puts an end to anyone else.

This one quickly grabbed my attention and held on to it until the very end. Speaking of the end, I'm still processing it.

This book was creepy and full of tension that ebbed and flowed throughout the book. That alone kept me on my toes, turning the pages. It also had a nice amount of dread in the last part of the book. I could feel the chilling atmosphere as I read. I enjoyed being a silent observer tagging along as Chris and Sam investigated, interviewed, and got closer to the truth.


3.5 stars

#DarkandLonelyWater #NetGalley #GraemeReynolds

7/10

ARC Provided by publisher

Fairly solid, quick read, horror book. It holds the suspense well and slowly unfolds itself and its monster, which helps keep the fear of it strong. Unfortunately the ending felt rushed. There were a few other oddly worded passages throughout but nothing that made it hard to read.

Samantha "Sam" Ashlyn is a reporter for the News 24/7, a web-based news source. Her editor, Jason Holmes, has clued into mysterious drownings in Lancashire, and knowing Sam is from that area originally, he dispatches her to find out what's going on. She's reluctant to go—a widowed mother of two, Sam relies on her mother-in-law to watch the kiddos while she works. Also, she has a standing girl's night with Heidi, a fashion correspondent for a much better paying magazine; Heidi is more than a drinking and carousing partner, she' a necessary sympathetic ear for all of Sam's woes.

When the editor agrees to not only put Sam up in good lodging but to pay for daycare up in Lancashire, she's more amenable to the idea of going. The scant details around the story itself turn out to be final push. Drowning in her old hometown of Lancashire might be attributable to a sadistic killer much like the famed Manchester Pusher legend, a bogeyman who supposedly shoves people into the river and watches them die. She agrees to take on the story, packs up her family, and heads out …

When the promised amenities turn out not to be at all what the editor promised, Sam has to appeal to her one remaining family member in the area, Marcus, the uncle who raised her. She has no love for the man, has not contacted him since leaving for school and life in the big city at age eighteen. However, she's pleasantly surprised by his willingness to welcome her back into the home as well as let bygones be bygones. It's a relief to leave the kids with him, since they seem to take quite nicely to him.

This allows Sam to explore the story itself, involving a series of drownings. Another of which occurs while she is visiting the area. The police are oddly reluctant to talk about it, seem to be covering something up. The surviving families are unconvinced by the official stories of simple drownings—after all, the corpses are unaccountably missing limbs. When Sam talks to Chris Buchanan, a cop who was suspended after attempting to retrieve a couple of victims and claimed to have seen something uncanny, she discovers the deaths are far older than she's been made to believe.

There may be a killer on the loose, someone tied to folklore a little more outré than the simplistic Manchester Pusher. This mystery has ties with a bit of Liverpudlian folklore about an aquatic horror called Ginny Greenteeth, a creature who supposedly draws her victims underwater to drown, gnaw, or claw them to pieces. The police are more than passive-aggressively hushing things up; they seem to be actively thwarting inquiries. Can Sam penetrate the conspiracy of silence and find out what is going on and possibly put a stop to it? Graeme Reynolds spins a yarn of mystery, folk horror, and crushing terror in Dark and Lonely Water.

Some horror fiction introduces us to characters who are immediately sympathetic and allows the story to unfold around them while maintaining an intimate study of how the horrors and stresses those characters endure affect them. Others trust their readers to follow along for a little while despite having a protagonist who is as far from sympathetic as you can get but are caught up with intrigue and strangeness.

Dark and Lonely Water falls into the latter school. This is a plot driven novel featuring a somewhat insufferable protagonist. When we meet her, Sam is brash, takes zero nonsense, is inattentive to her children, is not terribly good at handling her work/life ratio, is a functioning alcoholic, and is pretty much on the verge of self-destruction. She meets the gig in her old stomping grounds with reluctance … but not total resistance. As we spend time with her, we discover she's a product of the world she occupies and the unresolved traumas she's endured—particularly the loss of her mother in a pond/lake behind the family house in Lancashire. The city living seems to have hardened her as well, and her friendship with fashion correspondent Heidi (who encourages the consumption of at least one bottle of wine a night and often more) does not help. As we develop an understanding of the situation that made her, we nurture hopes for the character to climb out of the well of the soul that she's been dwelling in. However, there's a long ride to get to that place, which is surprising given the brevity of the book itself. A good half of the thing passes before she takes a self-evaluation, commits to a different course, and faces the temptation to slip back into her old habits.

Dark and Lonely Water is not a doorstop novel from the 1980s. It is a lean and mean supernatural thriller that clocks in at just over 200 pages. The prose is engaging, the action is written well, and the plotting is good and tight. There's a bit of a rushed quality to the finale, but that is a good match for the raised stakes. Sam is allowed only a brief span of time to assemble a plan and find some allies for the final confrontation. As one might expect, their plans go to pot because they do not have either the time or information they need, and Sam eventually faces a memorably horrifying ultimatum.

When Dark and Lonely Water is at its best, Graeme Reynolds channels the same kind of breathless prose and shocking scope of early James Herbert. As with Herbert's books such as The Rats, The Fog, or The Dark, the plotting of Dark and Lonely Water is engaging, the revelations are surprising, and the horror stuff is down, dirty, and deliciously meanspirited. Reynolds' novel is not as gory as those Herbert penned (though it is unafraid to show some decidedly nasty scenes), but the grim tone, the characterizations, and the many twists are on par with the best of those works.

Regular readers of Reynolds' fiction will be surprised at the lack of werewolves in the narrative. However, there is at least one specific mention of events from others of the author's other books to suggest a connection here. Dark and Lonely Water is a stand-alone novel that works quite nicely on its own, but it is also a part of the author's larger fictional universe. As well, the book has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but the folklore and mythological elements could easily lend themselves to a sequel or even a crossover work with the author's other works.

Dark and Lonely Water is an entertaining read of the grim horror variety. Fans of character driven stories or those who require protagonists who are sympathetic out the gate will be left wanting, but those readers who enjoy following around an abrasive personality and coming to discover the reality about a strange, flesh-eating creature of folklore through her eyes will find plenty to enjoy here.
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A special thank you to NetGalley and Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales From the Darkest Depths for supplying an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fast and well paced modern pulp, filled with twists and surprises I did not see coming. Truly creepy and with a monster have made me vary of bodies of water(remind me to never vacation in England again). There is some truly horrific and gory scenes here that will keep you on the egde of your seat!
Reynolds has managed to create some great and believable characters in Dark and Lonely water, full of flaws and grace. On top of that, the interactions between family members is some of the most realistic writing I have read in a long while!

Reynolds belongs on lists with the greatest British male horror writers, among the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Adam Nevill and Shaun Hutson.

This is simply not a book to miss out on, go get it!

I have to say I quite enjoyed Dark and Lonely Water. It’s a fascinating fast paced creature story based around English folklore. Sam, a reporter and single mother of twins, gets saddled with investigating a series of drownings in her old home town, a place she’d rather not return to. But if she wants to keep her job she has no choice so reluctantly agrees to go. It’s not long before she begins to suspect these aren’t mere accidental drownings. Worse, it seems as if there is a coverup going on that goes back for a very long time. Can Sam and Chris, a police diver, uncover what is really going on before it’s too late? This is a quick but enjoyable read with some genuinely creepy moments. This is the first book I’ve read by Graeme Reynolds and I have to say I’m impressed and look forward to checking out more of his work in the future. I’d like to thank BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of Dark and Lonely Water.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R24IFTA8OF5I3S/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

First of all, my thanks to Netgalley and Crystal Lake Publishing for allowing me the pleasure of reading this book for an honest review.

I am one day short of publication, but either way, "Congratulations! on the new book!" I'm sure that publishing a book is similar to birthing a baby. A lot of turmoil and crying and screaming, and somewhere in there, hopefully, is good sex.

I really, really enjoyed reading this story. The plot zipped right along, the characters were well written, and the graphic, gory bits were appropriately graphic and gory.

What I really enjoyed was the way that the story all came together at the end in a way that I was completely not expecting. What started as a seemingly reporter/cop friend duo investigating a string of deadly water drownings turned into a centuries-old folk horror with ties going back generations. I quite loved the ending and am now officially enraptured by this new-to-me author. Well done!

P.S. Please fix the itty bitty editing issues towards the end. A clean reader's copy is always a delight!

Definitely worth a read if you like horror with lake monsters! I really liked the build up of what is thought to be drownings to definitely the work of something that is in the water.
Just when you think you know how the story is going, it changes again. Definitely a page turner with the right amount of horror and suspense.
The ending was really a surprise!
I would recommend.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly didn't think id like the story that much but i haven't been able to put the book down, who dont like to read, My son started reading it too and now were are both fighting over whos gunna read it for a while lol

Creepy, haunting fusion of ancient folklore and modern urban myth, with some interesting and realistic characters and a really nasty twist ending. Good stuff.

Graeme Reynolds' "Dark and Lonely Water" delivers a chilling and suspenseful narrative that seamlessly weaves together horror, mystery, and a touch of conspiracy. The story follows Samantha Ashlyn, who is reluctantly drawn back to her hometown to investigate a series of drownings, only to discover unsettling parallels with her own childhood experiences.

The novel masterfully combines elements of psychological horror with supernatural elements, creating an atmospheric and tension-filled narrative. Reynolds skillfully builds a sense of dread from the very beginning, immersing the reader in a world where the line between reality and ancient evil blurs.

Samantha Ashlyn serves as a compelling protagonist, and her journey from initial reluctance to the realization of a dark conspiracy is both engaging and emotionally resonant. The character's complex past adds depth to the narrative, creating a connection between the reader and the unfolding mystery.

The pacing of the story is well-executed, with a careful balance between moments of intense horror and slower, more atmospheric scenes. The gradual unraveling of the ancient evil and the revelation of a centuries-old conspiracy keep the reader hooked, eager to discover the truth behind the mysterious drownings.

Reynolds excels in creating vivid and unsettling imagery, bringing the eerie atmosphere of the town and its dark secrets to life. The author's descriptive prose enhances the horror elements, making the novel a genuinely immersive and spine-chilling experience.

The collaboration between Samantha and the disgraced police diver adds an intriguing dynamic to the narrative. Their partnership brings a sense of urgency to the story as they race against time to uncover the truth and prevent further loss of lives. The suspense is palpable, and the stakes are high, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat.

While the novel is a gripping and intense horror experience, some readers may find certain scenes to be quite graphic and disturbing. Additionally, the complexity of the conspiracy may be challenging for those who prefer straightforward narratives.

In conclusion, "Dark and Lonely Water" is a compelling and well-crafted horror novel that successfully blends supernatural elements with a gripping conspiracy. Graeme Reynolds delivers a dark and atmospheric tale, filled with tension and unexpected twists. Fans of horror and mystery genres will find this book to be a satisfying and thrilling read, with its well-developed characters and a plot that keeps you guessing until the very end.