In the wake of his infant daughter’s tragic death, Steve Brannigan is struggling to keep himself together. Estranged from his wife, who refuses to be inside the house where the unthinkable happened, and unable to work, he seeks solace in an endless parade of old sitcoms and a bottle of bourbon.Until one night he hears a sound from his daughter’s old room, a room now stripped bare of anything that … anything that identified it as hers…except for her security blanket, affectionately known as Blanky.
Blanky, old and frayed, with its antiquated patchwork of badly sewn rabbits with black button eyes, who appear to be staring at the viewer…
Blanky, purchased from a strange old man at an antique stall selling “BABY CLOSE” at a discount.
The presence of Blanky in his dead daughter’s room heralds nothing short of an unspeakable nightmare that threatens to take away what little light remains in Steve’s shattered world.
Because his daughter loved Blanky so much, he buried her with it.
A new novella from the Bram Stoker Award-Winning author of SOUR CANDY and KIN.
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This novella was my favorite read of 2017. If you haven’t check out Kealan’s work, this is a good place to start!
4.5/5
Blanky is a tragic, twisted tale which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I myself have zero triggers for reading, but this one may be a little tough if you have young kids or have experienced the loss of younger relatives/friends.
I enjoyed the narrative POV immensely, found it a great way to keep moving the plot along, when you consider the aspect of this book being about a ‘possessed’ blanket.
This is my third KPB read this year and I can’t wait to dive into more of his stuff!
Kealan Patrick Burke really gets you in the head and heart of the father. Leaves you with some questions buy the end. Very good read.
In Blanky we find Steve Brannigan grieving the loss of his daughter and marriage. This was definitely a hard read for me as I could definitely relate to Steve’s pain. Losing a child no matter how old is the absolute worst pain ever. It is unimaginable and not the correct order of how things should go. It brought back a flood of memories for me that I wasn’t expecting. I was right there with Steve as he was grieving, as if that wasn’t hard enough he begins to have an experience in something other worldly. Definitely a good horror read and not at all what I was expecting. The way Burke described the grief of Steve and his wife, the loss of a spouse, then the haunting had me hooked even though it hit too close to home for me. I could not put this one down and finished it one sitting. Another book I highly recommend.
I am not going to lie, after I was done with this book it took me a full two days to write this review because I honestly have no idea what happened, still. I don’t know what is real. Was this all in his mind? Was blanky really the one doing these things? Did this guy just SNAP? I really enjoyed the horror aspect of this book and the fact that it left me wondering long after I was finished. I can’t wait to read more of this author.
So, I just read another novella by Patrick Kealan Burke, and personally I found this one to hold my interest much less, comparably. It was ok. I mean to say, the focus and underlying theme of loss seems to be a big point in Burke’s writing and was well enough met. But the plot itself was really less intriguing to me. I didn’t particularly enjoy the twist of mentality in this one, the way the main character questions his sanity was much darker than I had expected and honestly, this was much less about a build of anticipation and more focused on remorse. The writing is still well composed, the themes were deep rooted but understandable but overall this particular work made me feel much more sadness than it enticed any fear. So for me, it wasn’t as particularly interesting or captivating due to my expectations.
I love creepy/chilling eerie, and there are too few books out there that fulfill this emotion. “Horror” is a very broad genre. I felt the goosebumps several times while reading this book.