Soon By Lois Murphy – A Book Review

Blurb:

On winter solstice, the birds disappeared, and the mist arrived.

The inhabitants of Nebulah quickly learn not to venture out after dark. But it is hard to stay indoors: cabin fever sets in, and the mist can be beguiling, too.

Eventually only six remain. Like the rest of the townspeople, Pete has nowhere else to go. After he rescues a stranded psychic from a terrible fate, he’s given a warning: he will be dead by solstice unless he leaves town – soon.

Author: Lois Murphy

Publisher: Titan Books

Release Date: 15/10/2019

Pages: 352

My Chosen Format: Paperback

My Rating for ‘Soon’: 5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon UK, Amazon US

 

Review:

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Soon, is not a new book. It was released a few years back in its native Australia and finally, the rest of the world gets to see what the aussies have known for the past couple years: Lois Murphy can write some seriously good suspenseful horror.

Ordinarily, I don’t tend to go in for literary fiction. I like my story to be plot-driven more so than character-driven. But, upon reading the blurb and seeing the gorgeous cover art for ‘Soon’, I knew I had to break my usual routine and dip my toe into literary fiction.

I’m glad that I did.

From the very beginning I found it an incredibly hard book to put down. The writing is extremely good and it’s incredibly atmospheric. At times you feel like its you locked behind windows and doors as the mist screams outside, waiting for you to be stupid enough to let it in.

The first person narrative is something I just find easy to sink into whenever I find a book with that as its chosen narrative. My main concern would be that we would get far too many parts that just revolve around thousands of words worth of feelings and inner reflection. There are parts like this, but it is in no way an issue like I expected. The book goes along at a pace that suits it and none of the internal monologues or past recollections from Pete (the main character) gets in the way of this. Thankfully, for the most part, they add quite a bit to the understanding of the character and the choices he makes.

The main concept is that, one winter solstice, a mysterious convoy of featureless grey cars pulled into to the town of Nebulah and had everyone on edge. They promptly vanished without a trace and, ever since their visit, a strange mist haunts the town at night, disappearing anyone foolish enough to venture out at night.

The majority of the novel revolves around the surviving handful of townsfolk unwilling to leave their homes and the struggles they face just to stay alive with this horrific mist plaguing them every evening.

What made me really curious about this was having read Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’ and loving the idea of another deadly mist. I am happy to say that the mist in ‘Soon’ is way more enjoyable to read/discover. I liked King’s ‘Mist’ but just found that this, as a whole, works so much better. I think what makes the mist in ‘Soon’ so unnerving is that, for the vast majority of the novel, it is spoken about rather than experienced. I find that when I get to the bits where it is causing issues for the characters, I found it far more suspenseful and unnerving because of this. Well played, Lois Murphy for that.

I did find that, near the end, a lot of what was happening was easy to predict. However, I also found that my knowing what was going to happen, and not wanting it to happen, gave me that ‘I don’t want to turn the page feeling’. So the whole being predictive thing, for me at least didn’t lessen the enjoyment. My only real complaint for the ending would be that I don’t feel that particular type of ending suits a first person narrative. But that could just be me being picky.

I was left feeling as though the author had something against dogs … I mean seriously. You’ll see what I mean if you pick up a copy.

All in all, I absolutely loved ‘Soon’ and am glad I had the chance to get stuck into it. It had been a while since I had read a horror that had me unnerved at times. So thoroughly enjoyed from first to last.