An utterly propulsive and unpredictable psychological thriller from stunning new talent T. Marie VandellyShe didn’t run from her dark past. She moved in. For the lucky among us, life is what you make of it; but for Dixie Wheeler, the theme music for her story was chosen by another long ago, on the day her father butchered her mother and brothers and then slashed a knife across his own throat. … a knife across his own throat. Only one-year-old Dixie was spared, becoming infamously known as Baby Blue for the song left playing in the aftermath of the slaughter.
Twenty-five years later, Dixie is still desperate for a connection to the family she can’t remember. So when her childhood home goes up for sale, Dixie sets aside all reason and moves in. But as the ghosts of her family seemingly begin to take up residence in the house that was once theirs, Dixie starts to question her sanity and wonders if the evil force menacing her is that of her father or a demon of her own making.
In order to make sense of her present, Dixie becomes determined to unravel the truth of her past and seeks out the detective who originally investigated the murders. But the more she learns, the more she opens up the uncomfortable possibility that the sins of her father may belong to another. As bodies begin to pile up around her, Dixie must find a way to expose the lunacy behind her family’s massacre to save her few loved ones who are still alive—and whatever scrap of sanity she has left.
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This was a seriously twisted book – mostly in a good way – and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even when I was reading with one hand over my eyes as though to shield my brain from what I was seeing…
Dixie should be a difficult protagonist to relate to or like, but somehow I found myself doing both things almost from the get-go. She is broken. Indelibly broken. There’s a very good reason for it, but Vandelly does a very nice job of never letting you forget that this is a girl on the edge and that her motives and actions are therefore not entirely to be trusted… At least, I felt that way right up until the Big Reveal, when it felt as though all of that previous edgy brokenness was somehow swept under the carpet and she was the sanest person in the room. I found that a bit jarring and discordant with the previous 95% of the story, but it was still interesting to see how it all played out. I think that’s a testament to the author’s ability to tell a good story. Even when things didn’t feel quite right, they were still very engaging and I couldn’t turn pages fast enough to figure out what would happen next.
From the first pages I had no idea where the author was going with this one, in a very good way. It is indeed gruesome – there are no punches pulled and the violence is slathered on like butter on bread. For all that, it’s a very entertaining story with a lot of lies and secrets and twists and red herrings, and I found the journeys into Dixie’s mind to be some of the most fascinating bits of all. She’s a great darkly funny, wry and sarcastic protagonist, and I loved how she had either a fainter or much broader grasp of reality than everyone around her at various points in the book. It made her a very interesting character and very enjoyable to read.
It would have been a 4-star read for me, but for the weirdly tidy way everything got pulled together. That felt rushed and off pace with the vast majority of the book. It was a satisfying enough conclusion, don’t get me wrong, it just felt like it all came together too fast and too tidily and that’s the only thing that kept it from being a 4-star read for me. The writing is very good throughout, with more description than you’ll want and a snarky tone that I thought was a great foil for all of the bloody violence.
I will look for more from this author, although like other reviewers I hope it will be slightly less gruesome LOL, as this one nearly put me off breakfast with my family forever…
Thank you to NetGalley for my review copy.
3.5/5
I had never heard of Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly until I received it from The Book Drop as part of a rep package. Once I had it though of course, I started seeing reviews on Bookstagram and there were a lot of raves, so I was excited to give it a try. There are a lot of things to love about it if you are a crime fiction/horror fan like I am. For one it is incredibly creepy and at times icky, thanks to all sorts of strange noises and Dixie seeing ghosts of her family. Ghosts that are bloody and literally coming apart of course. There is also a sense that Dixie might be losing her sanity, and I spent much of the book wondering if there was something wrong with her, or something completely different at play. There is plenty of murder and action, but I do think it could have been about 100 pages shorter. It started to feel like it was dragging and at that point I wanted the author to hurry up and get to the point. There are only so many noises and visions I can stand before I need something more.
Thankfully, things started coming together and there are a few surprises that I wasn’t expecting at all. The audiobook is really well done and narrated by Sarah Mollo-Christensen who did a great job at all the sounds Dixie hears. If it’s possible, Mollo-Christensen made this story even creepier, and I was really glad I decided to listen to the audiobook. It is on the longer side at almost 14.5 hours, but I loved listening to her narration, and she made it more enjoyable. While the end was a shock, I am feeling very ambivalent about it, but I can’t really pinpoint why. Clearly, Theme Music is not going to be for everyone but I think it is a great read to pick up during the spooky season. It didn’t scare the pants off me or anything, but it was the perfect creepy read for cooler weather. Read it if you don’t mind books that are graphic and enjoy family mysteries with violence and intrigue. Yes, I said enjoy…
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
A must-read Halloween horror/thriller! I’m not a huge reader of horror, but I do try to cram several in during October.
This very graphic debut is filled with dark and creepy horror elements. If you don’t like blood and gore, you better skip this one! But there is also a touch of humor mixed in with all the carnage, which I found very enticing. This would make a terrific Halloween movie.
The cover grabbed my attention as soon as I saw it, then my brief review of the description closed the deal. A father slaughters his family with an axe. Baby Blue is the only survivor of this inexplicable massacre. Lots of blood and guts, and just enough mystery and thrill to peak my interest!
Thank you to Edelweiss, T. Marie Vandelly and Dutton, for this free digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
My Rating: 4 ’s
Published: July 23 2019 by Dutton
Pages: 400
@TVandelly @DuttonBooks @weiss_squad
#Edelweiss #InExchangeForReview #psychologicalhorror #NoRulesJustThrills #HalloweenRead
25 years ago, Billy Wheeler murdered his wife and 3 sons with an ax on Thanksgiving morning, leaving his 18-month old daughter Dixie, alive, in the high chair. Now, the house is up for sale and Dixie has decided to move in. She finds out her uncle has kept all the furniture and she re-creates the house. With the “ghosts” of her long deceased family members haunting her, Dixie is trying to figure out what really happened that morning. As Dixie tries to wade through the facts, people around her are disappearing. I liked this story a lot and cannot wait for a 2nd book by this author.
Theme Music has a brilliantly chilling start that had me all geared up for an equally chilling tale. And it does deliver on that in a lot of ways. The setting and atmosphere don’t lack on the creep factor scale. Even though the house has been updated and seems to be in a good neighborhood, the writing and tone of the story give it an almost gothic feel.
The author has quite the imagination, and it is shared with us in graphic detail. The problem with that is I too have quite the imagination and most times, I can imagine it worse than a book can describe it. So, I usually find that less is more when it comes to the gory details. The gore and graphic details run rampant in this one, and while I would agree that those details were probably necessary to give us a good visual of the scene, it becomes repetitive all too quickly between Dixie’s imagination and crime scene photos. Speaking of, I’m still trying to figure out why the detective, who is now retired, would’ve still had any files or photos from the scene, or why anyone related to the family would be given access. Wouldn’t those have been part of a case file on record?
Anyway, back to those repetitive details – am I the only one who started getting really worried about Dixie’s gag reflex? Seriously, about halfway through, I was already tired of Dixie’s need to throw up or actually going through with it. There are other reactions to fear and turmoil, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing a few of those in place of the all too frequent vomiting – freeze, pass out, freak out, scream your bloody head off, just do something other than throw up.
Despite all that, we do get some solid suspense reading with Theme Music. Is Dixie crazy? Is she haunted? Was someone else involved? All of those questions are bound to go through a reader’s mind at least once while reading this one, and the author does get tricky with some of the happenings. We also have the equivalent of a couple of decent red herrings to wonder about as things progress along with some pretty good twists, especially in the last quarter or so of the book. There is also a supernatural element, which I didn’t mind and felt like it worked with the story.
In the end, this one had things I liked and other things that I didn’t, landing me firmly in the middle. I do think it was way longer than it needed to be, and with a bit of trimming down on the repetitiveness, this could easily have been a more entertaining and even creepier thriller. As I mentioned earlier, the author does have a great imagination and based on many things in this debut novel, I will be interested to see what she does next.
Omg, I couldn’t put this book down. Theme Music was really good. I took an entire rainy Saturday to dissolve into this horrifying tale. Warning: it is gruesome and violent but such an impressive debut novel by T. Marie Vandelly. The way she took a haunted house and turned it into something unique and twisted was a delight.
I had the most amazing Live chat with the author on Instagram. Check it out!
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CGyW7WCg2uZ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
#botm
WOW!! 5 stars all the way for T. Marie Vandelly’s novel Theme Music! This book was incredible. When I was lucky enough to receive an advanced readers copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review, I wasn’t sure what it was even about but I was seriously hooked from the very first sentence. It is so graphic and detailed to every little piece of information. Its bloody, gory and gruesome. And I never would have guessed the ending at all, of course it all makes so much sense but wow! I was shocked to find out that this is T. Marie Vandelly’s first novel, I would have never guessed and I look forward to reading any future work she creates.
What a riveting and disturbing read this is! Charting the return of Dixie Wheeler to the childhood home where her parents and brothers were killed in front of her, Theme Music is a fierce and intense slice of psychological horror that will leave you vowing, Never Go Back. Never.
Amazing from the very first page, this thrilling novel had a huge grip on me from the beginning to the end. And wouldn’t let go for days afterwards.