It begins with a deceptive cry for help. Before it ends, a quiet Detroit suburb’s illusion of safety will be shattered forever. Inspired by real-life events.“Corvo Hollows is an edge of your seat thriller that grabs hold with the first line and doesn’t let go until after the last page is turned. A must read!” – ReedsyFrom the award-winning, multi-genre author behind the highly lauded Sinkhole: A … behind the highly lauded Sinkhole: A Horror Story and The Haunting of Cabin Green comes a terrifying psychological thriller that will make you double-check your locks and fear your neighbors. This book is perfect for fans of Mark Edwards, Peter Swanson, Karin Slaughter, & Sarah Pinborough.
Anna’s world is turned upside down after a mysterious couple tries to gain access to her apartment. Soon, she begins seeing them everywhere. At the same time, a series of loud banging noises keeps emanating from the apartment behind hers. Are these incidents just a coincidence? Or do they have something to do with the gruesome serial murders that begin to plague her town?
Anna will need to piece the clues together despite many obstacles, including the disbelief of the FBI and her friends. Making things even more complicated is her daily struggle with fibromyalgia, along with a secret past that threatens to completely destroy her credibility. Is she on the right track or is the entire thing a figment of her overactive imagination?
April A. Taylor’s previous works have been praised by critics and readers alike. Her Gothic horror novel, The Haunting of Cabin Green, was named one of the Best Horror Books of 2018 by PopSugar, Inquisitr, Ranker, & BoredPanda. Sinkhole was named one of the Scariest Horror Books of 2019 by Grit Daily. Her books have earned a solid reputation for being mind-bending thrill rides with several unexpected twists & turns.
Corvo Hollows Excerpt
An unseen woman’s ragged screams had just split the air inside Anna’s apartment. She hesitated imperceptibly before jumping to her feet. Without a single thought for her own safety, the tall brunette threw the front door open and peered outside.
The harsh July sun beat down on the pavement and reflected off the neighbor’s wind chimes. Sun spots obscured Anna’s vision, and she lifted her hand to her eyes in a bid to wipe away the visual disturbances.
Her sight started to clear just as the disorienting and terrifying screams returned. A middle-aged woman with ratty hair, disheveled clothing, and bare feet reached toward her from about one-hundred feet away. Anna’s eyes fell first to the woman’s bloody feet. Then she spotted a black pickup truck and its elderly male driver. His long gray hair threatened to fly free of his head as he sprung out of the newly parked vehicle.
The woman rapidly advanced upon Anna’s doorstep before stopping unexpectedly. Her body shook with the force of her recent exertions, and she appeared poised to scream yet again.
“What’s wrong? Do you need help? I can call the police,” Anna said in a jumbled mess.
The woman’s eyes darted from Anna to the front door. She took a deep breath and said, “Yes, I need help! Please, let me in!”
All of Anna’s instincts screamed as she patted her pockets in search of her phone. Dammit, she thought. Her phone was nestled safely inside the apartment.
A quick scan of the environment showed Anna that the mysterious man hadn’t come any closer. In fact, he stood calmly on the side of the truck and appeared to be watching them with interest. Anna made eye contact with him, and it sent a shiver down her spine.
Something isn’t right.
“Look, I’m going to call the police for you, okay?”
“But I already called them. They’re on their way,” the woman pouted.
“I’m going to call again, just to make sure. Stay there,” Anna said while motioning for the woman to remain at her current position, approximately twenty feet away.
A strange smile flitted across the woman’s lips, and it accentuated the wrinkles around her mouth. She took one step forward, then another…
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Anna lives in Corvo Hollows, a suburb of Detroit Michigan she lives alone with a few cats, in a quaint apartment community. Anna had suffered from mental illness and a breakdown in the past but has since gotten much better with medication and she also sees her therapist weekly. Things seem quite pleasant in her little apartment community for the most part until one day a strange woman with her hair all askew and her eyes looking all as crazy as the woman was acting, tries to get in her home and the next thing Anna knows the woman and her boyfriend are moving into the apartment community where Anna is living. Things really start happening when they move in and get stranger as each day goes by. The book flowed very smoothly and it is definitely a page-turner. I highly recommend this to all psychological thriller readers. Parts of this book were taken from actual events that a friend of the authors had gone through.
Corvo Hollows is an edge of your seat, what’s gonna happen next thriller from the very first line, and it moves at breakneck speed all the way through. We meet our main character, Anna, in the midst of a scary situation, and things spiral from there. I love that the author has crafted the story in such a way that the reader is left reacting to the various goings on, which doesn’t give much time for sussing out the answers in this twisted and sometimes gruesome tale. That didn’t stop me from trying to figure it all out. As an avid crime fiction reader, I’m usually pretty good at guessing the killer’s identity if I’m at least introduced to them during the story. In the case of Corvo Hollows, we get plenty of possible suspects, and I suspected most of them at least once, some more than once. On top of that, there are things that only Anna sees or hears, or so it seems, leading everyone to believe she’s unstable at best, or possibly even the killer. Despite, or maybe because of that niggling bit of doubt in Anna, she’s a terrific character. As a sufferer of one of those ‘invisible illnesses’ myself, I was impressed with the way Taylor gives us the many ups and downs of Anna’s fibromyalgia without letting it completely define the character or take control of the story. It added a touch of realism and made Anna more relatable. We also have a handful of other characters, each having some impact on Anna’s life or the serial murder mystery at the heart of this one. Love them or hate them, and there are some of both, there really aren’t any throwaway characters here, nor is there time for them. Each character impacts the story in some way, big or small, from the law enforcement investigating the murders to the silly and nosy neighbor and the possible love interest for Anna. My personal favorite was Detective Brodsky, who sees more than he’s given credit for, and I have to add here that I really wanted him to punch a certain FBI agent square in the nose. To sum it up, Corvo Hollows is one of those thrillers that keeps a reader awake at night, relentlessly turning those pages to see what’s going to happen next while jumping at every strange sound. It’s fantastically paced, packed full of twists, and absolutely impossible to put down.
Wow! My mind is blown… I was pleasantly pleased to find the killers were not who I had guessed from the beginning!
Spectacular writing kept me intrigued from beginning to end…
I wanted to throat punch FBI agent Russo more than once! The worst example of law enforcement… But, all too real!
I found myself in Anna’s cheer squad more than once. I wanted to befriend, and encourage her. We could all learn to be more compassionate towards others.