A Library Journal Horror Best SellerFrom Nebula Award winner Sam J. Miller comes a frightening and uncanny ghost story about a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it.Ronan Szepessy promised himself he’d never return to Hudson. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. But his father is ill and New York City’s distractions … photographer. But his father is ill and New York City’s distractions have become too much for him. He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge.
Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom’s wife, Attalah. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become—overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable.
Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real-state developers aren’t the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. Ronan’s hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.
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Horror Bookworm Reviews
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Welcome to Hudson. Because this little town is infected with depression, prejudice, and a declining economy, Ronan makes a life-changing decision to leave his hometown to pursue greener pastures. But after twenty years away, Ronan is summoned back for a return visit.
His father’s butcher shop is in jeopardy by means of a real estate development project called Pequod Arms Project. Actively seeking ownership, the corporate powers undertake a sinister scheme fueled by hate, skullduggery, and deceit. Not only are people losing their houses due to an aggressive acquisition, they’re also losing their minds. The war over Hudson’s future has begun.
The Blade Between is set in a waterfront harbor town where whale blubber was once the engine of its rich historical industry. However, as the economic uprising eventually collapses, an introduction to a society inflamed by vulgarity, bloodshed, and destruction begins. Using these destitute motives as leverage, central characters seek out the needs and weaknesses of those easily manipulated. A terminal facade between the new and the old consistently feed a storm of altercations that bring about lingering consequences. Laws will be broken, lives will be taken, and manipulation will rule the town of Hudson with an iron fist.
Author Sam J. Miller weaves a disturbing tale of how fears and insecurities can be preyed upon to the point of escalated violence. He brilliantly orchestrates this transformation by utilizing schemes of co-conspirators and precarious shenanigans attaining new levels of deception. Tapping into a dark abyss of manipulation, Miller takes several approaches towards his tense plots. In return, this builds a momentum that reaches a surreal crescendo infested with gods, ghosts, and monsters.
Readers, consider the actions you choose to undertake. The repercussions could result in maybe discovering a dead stinky rat cleverly hidden in your car or mailbox. A run-in with whale-headed marauders armed with harpoons may also very well occur. Although a supernatural fiction, The Blade Between addresses morality and its potential life lessons. The author mixes horror, compassion, and straight-up psychotic behavior into a gratifying reading experience. A strong recommendation for this imaginative ghost story, that’s also so much more.
(originally posted at mysteryandsuspense.com)
Ronan Szepessy told himself that once he had left the small town of Hudson, NY, he’d never returned. But he is inexorably drawn back to the town and the people who had made his life miserable. What he finds is not the sleepy town he’d left but a town overrun (in his mind) by rich City dwellers who are buying up property like it was going out of style and gentrifying it into something unrecognizable. The people who call the town their hometown are outraged at the changes and want them to stop. Even the forces that live beneath the town’s inherent hatred of change, including, apparently, the ghosts of dead whales, are angry. Ronan must stop all of it before it destroys the town and its people, including himself.
The main character is a complex gay man who is driven by his anger and his meth addition. The plot is also complex and sometimes convoluted and tries to be too much by spanning too many genres.
While this book was not my cup of tea, I think people who like the author’s previous books may find this book fascinating.
My thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for an eARC.