DiLouie, Craig

A great read for fans of authors who embrace slasher-movie tropes in their storytelling such as Brian McAuley, Grady Hendrix, and Stephen Graham Jones, and also those who love tales where artists and cursed objects collide, such as Gothic by Philip Fracassi.

In this subversion of the classic haunted-house/found-footage story, DiLouie demonstrates his ability to toy with and eventually upend readers’ expectations. What could have been a story full of the typical tropes becomes an unsettling exploration into what lies beyond life, death, and reality itself.

Presenting a dark alternate reality that touches the seams of current events and a possible future, DiLouie (One of Us) offers an uncompromising view of child soldiers and patriotism in conflict. [See Prepub Alert, 2/18/19.]

The ghoulish premise is given nuance by focusing on the reaction of ordinary parents both immediately pre-Herod's Syndrome and after the children return changed. This vampire variation of recent resurrection fiction (Jason Mott's The Returned) will be especially terrifying for any guardian, as they ponder what lengths they might go to for their children's sake.