Chapelwood

Today's post is on Chapelwood by Cherie Priest. It is the second her in Borden Dispatches. It is 434 pages long and is published by ROC. The cover has Lizzie on facing a beautiful night sky. The intended reader is someone who has read the first one, likes Lovecraftian horror, and excellent writing. The story is told from first person perspective of the characters moving from one to the next. There is no sex, some language, and some violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- Birmingham, Alabama is infested with malevolence. Prejudice and hatred have consumed the minds and hearts of its populace. A murderer, unimaginatively named “Harry the Hacker” by the press, has been carving up citizens with a hatchet. And from the church known as Chapelwood, an unholy gospel is being spread by a sect that worships dark gods from beyond the heavens.
This darkness calls to Lizzie Borden. It is reminiscent of an evil she had dared hoped was extinguished. The parishioners of Chapelwood plan to sacrifice a young woman to summon beings never meant to share reality with humanity. An apocalypse will follow in their wake which will scorch the earth of all life.
Unless she stops it…

Review- I loved Maplecroft and I loved this one too. The style is the same so it is easy to fall right back into this world. Thirty years have passed since the first book. Lizzie and the inspector Simon Wolf are the main characters in this volume. But I like the new characters that we meet, like Ruth, over the course of the story. I really hope that there is at least one more book in this series. This is a little slower in my opinion than the first one but I love the setting, the characters, and the excellent writing so much that I did not really mind. But once the story gets going it goes downhill fast. Once everything is in place there is only one way it could go. The ending is good but it left me wanting more and so I really, really hope that Ms. Priest has at least one more story in this world.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I was given this book by ACE/ROC publishing in exchange for an honest review.