Rose McFarland is a trained killer–a Memphis S.W.A.T. sniper with a secret. Her team knows about the burn scars that lurk under her clothes, a legacy of the house fire that killed her father and brother sixteen years before. Her supervisors know that she spent two years in a rehabilitative facility, healing and learning to cope with the emotional trauma of the fire. But no one knows about the … visions that drove her there, angry spirits that consumed her childhood, alienated her from her family and made her doubt her own sanity–the Whispers.
When Charlie Akers, a half-brother she never knew, ends up on the wrong side of Rose’s rifle, she unwittingly sets off a chain of events that puts her family in the middle of increasingly dangerous paranormal visitations. Charlie won’t stay dead, and soon ghosts from Rose’s past are creeping back into her life. People she’s killed in the line of duty, family she thought long buried, every one of them under the influence of Rose’s greatest fear, the Whispers themselves.
As the walls between our world and the world of the dead grow thin, Rose will have to face her old nightmares to stop the Whispers from breaking free. If she can’t, it won’t just be Memphis that falls to the dead–there will be no safe place left on earth for the living.
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A fantastic read. Debut novel? Never would’ve guessed it. This is really more like 4.5 stars for me–and it deserves to be rounded up. The writing is scalpel sharp, with an understanding of character and motivation that is tough to come by these days. There were multiple occasions where a passage or a sentence stuck with me for an hour or so after I closed the book for the day. And that kind of good, insightful writing is the reason I like to read. It’s the sort of thing that can forever change your perspective on a thing. It’s close to magic, I think.
The only reason this isn’t a five-star read for me is because, like pretty much every horror book, it gives just a bit too much away. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to be given as little info as possible about what is causing the terror. The more in the dark I am…well, the more in the dark I feel. And that’s what I like in horror –the unknown. And I’m totally cool with not getting the answers, so long as the ride is fun. To be sure, Whispers is a blast of a ride, and it is far from heavy-handed in dealing with its exposition, but I still felt like I was given a little more than I needed in a few spots toward the end. This is absolutely a book worth reading and, more importantly, Laurel Hightower is an author you should put on your radar. If this is what she can do in a first novel, I’m excited to see what comes next
I came to Whispers in the dark by Laurel Hightower, through the Women In Horror Month (WIHM). Having previously read Laurel’s “Crossroads”, I had set myself up for a voice I knew I could trust to entertain/horrify me and wanted to see how her Debut novel read compared to the very polished and brilliantly written “Crossroads”. A core element in what made her later novel a success for me was the character work and relationship the MC had with her recently departed son, so I was hoping for similar work here, and Hightower delivers, and it is really what makes this debut novel stand out from the field.
Without giving too much away, the book’s MC, Rose McFarland, a Memphis SWAT sniper, is introduced as she is in the field with her crosshairs trained on a man that has taken his own two children and their mother hostage, at gunpoint. After resolving the incident satisfactorily, Rose experiences a paranormal shock, which triggers memories of her abusive childhood, which in turn trigger a series of paranormal events which center around herself and her son. As other members of the Swat team go missing, and her own family is threatened by what appear to be ghosts, Rose is forced to confront her own traumatized past in order to face a haunting undead spirit, hell-bent on revenge.
I think I managed to be suitably vague there 😀 Right, on with the actual good stuff 😀
Rose is lovingly and realistically fleshed out with the care and attention of an Author far more experienced than Laurel was when she wrote this book, and Rose is immediately likable, flawed, relatable and complex. So, everything a reader would wish for. Mrs. Hightower than layers on an interwoven patchwork family and two male love interests, with two children from separate fathers also completing the jumble – and for me, that was the real book here. It’s messy, complicated, holding together disparate family relationships that really shows life in all its glory, and is the reason so many readers have hailed the book a triumph. Yes, the horror in the book is violent, sudden, uncensored and raw, but that contrast to the loving mismatch of people we come to like and care about make the horror something that is then personal. It’s the groundwork here that wins the reader. It’s the horror that seals the deal as we scale the heights.
And what heights Mrs. Hightower aims for. We have ghosts, hostage situations, burn victims, real-life shootings, psychological horror, paranormal horror – and this is a debut novel, remember. And it works, because Laurel has invested time and effort into her world-building and key character development. You care about the characters because they are flawed, hurting, and hold together regardless of their differences because they, like we, trust each other. Laurel’s voice, which won me over in Crossroads, is full of compassion and introspection, a win-win for the reader and the meat of the book. The flow is great, you are captured by the drama of the first scene, but then we are thrown into the middle of the love triangle and patchwork family, which rightly hold center stage in this novel. There’s a real human heart beating here.
This IS a debut novel – for me, the ending is a little flawed, it is almost too neat, too rounded in its summary, as the loose ends are tied off and the resolution to the threads are resolved, the i’s are dotted and the T’s crossed. Charlie’s last threat is basically dropped, it disappears as other battles are won. And I think that gets the feel-good factor for the majority of the readership, but for me I wanted that sour taste to be present, or unresolved, or for the whole thing to have cost more. But that’s because I’m a mean ol’ Austrian, and my wishes for alternate endings have no place in the review of what stands on the page, which, let me leave no doubt here, is first-class storytelling. Add to that the fact that this was Laurel’s debut, and you really have something extraordinary. As far as character relationships go, Laurel is in a class of her own, and her books remain well-observed, lovingly rendered and terrifyingly human. Which has to be the definition of the craft of writing itself.
I’m giving this 4.5 stars, which I am rounding up to a 5-star review because of the ridiculous rating system of Goodreads, which seems to penalize writers more than promote them. I’d rather Laurel is benefitted than hindered by my middle star rating.
This is a stunning debut.
This review is highlighted on the site Horror Oasis:
https://horroroasis.com/whispers-in-the-dark-by-laurel-hightower/
Whispers in the Dark by Laurel Hightower is a powerful and fiery tale about motherhood and the lengths one woman will go to protect those that she loves.
Rose McFarland is a member of the Memphis S.W.A.T. team who works as a sniper when duty calls, taking out the targets when negotiations fail. When she puts down her gun and removes her work clothes, she’s a mother to two young children.
Rose also struggles with two things that always have her on edge. One, her body image; Rose is covered in burn scars from a fire that had killed her brother and father when she was a child and she still doesn’t let anyone touch her. And second, she hears whispers and sees things that no one else can…
The one person that believes her and, in turn, who she believes when he says things to her is her ex husband, Sam, who she still has a great relationship with as they continue to co-parent the children.
One day, after neutralizing a target at work, the whispers pick up again. Rose tries to move on, but when they start to go after her son, she starts off down a path that leads straight to hell itself. While terrified, Rose will do whatever it takes to make them leave her son alone.
My gosh. Right from page one I was hooked! The plot overall was incredibly eerie! Laurel has such a talent with organizing tales to scare the pants off of you in one scene, and then jump to a heartwarming scene that will have you melting. I absolutely love this because I never quite know what to expect next!
I loved the main character, Rose, immediately. She is such a powerful woman both with her line of work and how she handles her family life. I was in awe of how well she seemed to balance everything. I also really loved Sam and I was interested to see where things on his end were going to go. Out of a feeling of protection for Rose, I was wary about Sam’s intentions at first, but hoped for the best.
This is one of those stories that I could go on and on about, but I’ll leave the rest to you to discover when you pick it up!
I cannot believe it took me this long to get to this book. This was Laurel’s debut novel and my goodness, it was incredible! I love the focus on family and how strong the love was there. I also loved the elements of the paranormal that, while very eerie and intense, were added into the story in such a believable way.
I will definitely be reading this one again from time to time.
If you haven’t yet picked this one up, I highly recommend doing so ASAP if you enjoy seriously creepy reads with a strong focus on family.
4.5/5
If you spend any time on Twitter within the horror community, you’ve undoubtedly experienced two things; A) someone recommending ‘Whispers in the Dark’ as a must-read or B) Laurel piping in on a Twitter thread with her hilarious wit.
I don’t believe I’ve ever once been on an extending sub-tweet thread with Laurel where we haven’t gone off the rails and it’s always hilarious.
When the Ladies of Horror Fiction announced that they wanted people to start their 2020 reading year off by choosing a book written by someone identifying as a female, I knew which two I was going to start with – The Making of Gabriel Davenport by Beverley Lee & this book, Whispers in the Dark. Now that I’ve finished Whispers, I’ll be starting Davenport shortly!
What I liked: Pretty much everything! Hightower throws us directly into the story. We quickly are introduced to Rose McFarland, SWAT Sniper. She’s on a call and things are not exactly as they seem. Throughout, Hightower kept the story pulled along by a very tight string made of tension. It was great. This a book that falls into the “page-turner” category with ease. The characters that are introduced are great and you feel like you know a good portion of them, and the others you’ve met at some point. The backstory is teased along the way before Laurel does a great job of connecting all of the dots and the ending was fantastic.
I personally enjoy epilogues, and with this book it was great to see what happened after the final moments of the main story.
I loved the character of Rose. She was a physically and mentally scarred character who was tough but caring. Her desire to be the best mom while also being the best sniper was a great plot piece and a lot of the time Hightower made story decisions based on that mentality.
What I didn’t like: Two small things. I didn’t care for the character Luke. Part of it was the fact that Rose and Luke had been partners for so many years, so the traces of jealousy we saw I found frustrating, and when the character Neal was involved and Rose was questioning some of Luke’s actions, I struggled to believe Rose would feel that way, due to them having been partners for so long.
The second thing was a character at the beginning I thought was going to be more prevalent but who just disappeared. I can’t even remember his name, but he wanted Rose essentially kicked out of the force due to his indecision and then poof gone. It wasn’t a big part of the story, but I kept wondering when we’d see him return.
Why you should buy this: You should buy this because it features some of the best writing I’ve read in some time and it’ll blow your friggin’ socks off that this is a debut novel.
You should buy this because it’s always great to find another strong female lead like Rose, especially one who has paranormal attachments.
I loved this book and I can see why people suggest that if this wasn’t released in December of its release year, there would be a good chance this would have won a Bram Stoker for Best Debut Novel.
My first take on this book is that I’ve never read anything like it, and that’s a good thing. In a world of rehashed stories and remade movies, we need new blood (pun intended), and this is a slice of what we’ve all been waiting for. Yes, I have heard W.I.T.D. described as “The Sixth Sense except the main character is a SWAT team member,” and that’s pretty close, but at the same time, that ain’t quite it. The main character in this story is a brave woman (and trained killer) protecting her child and while she’s naturally afraid of the threatening supernatural forces, she doesn’t shy away from them like the kid in Sixth Sense tried to do. This story is refreshing, original, polished and professionally written. It has been said before, but, remarkably, this is the author’s first novel. I most certainly look forward to more books by Laurel Hightower.
***I received a free copy and am giving an honest review by choice***
I liked this supernatural story. At first it read very slow for me, like it was a drama, showing Rose’s relationship with her ex-husband and best friend. I wasn’t scared at all even though the story was labelled suspense and horror. But, the story began picking up at 23% and the action was pretty good. Plus, I was finally starting to get a little scared. Only read during the daytime
The story was mostly told through Rose’s first person point-of-view. When Zack was taunted by a ghost who ended up not being his brother, the scene had me sitting on the edge of my seat, chills going down my spine. I felt bad for Luke after a very touching scene involving him and Agent Neal.
The plot was interesting. It was cool that Rose’s son could hear the Whispers too. Poor kid. The author did a great job with tension throughout the story. Agent Neal was especially creepy, but I understood his motives.
I’m not sure why Rose kept using character’s full names if the narration was in first person. It kind of made it seem like she had distant relationships even though the scenes clearly showed how close she was to her family and coworkers. I liked Rose, but she infuriated me so many times. She didn’t seem proactive at all in stopping the Whispers. Character after character kept telling her she needed “to close the door.” I’m not sure why she waited and waited and waited before doing any research.
My favorite lines: 1) Zack lingered, watching, waiting. Hoping. 2) A shadow, darker than the rest of the night. It moved, swayed. Waited.
I loved the ending; the story ended on a very high note. Interesting villains throughout the story. Good plot, nice tension.
I RECOMMEND this book to read.