The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess - Outstanding Debut Horror Novel!
“I’ve got this thing with me now,” I say, “This swimmer. At first, I was scared of it, like it was haunting me, but now I think it might be protecting me. It might just be me. The person I’ve been all along.”
Sydney Burgess is nine years sober, has a great boyfriend and an awesome kid. One day she comes home to find a burglary in process and is attacked. She wakes up in the hospital with a shattered memory and a suspicious police sheriff. As her memories start to return, so do strange whispers and old urges she thought she was safe from. Before Sydney knows it, she can’t trust anyone around her, especially not herself.
A massive thank you to Redhook for sending me a copy of this to read and review. And a massive shoutout to author Andy Marino. This is his first horror novel and he knocked it out of the freakin’ park!
You may be tired of the possession genre, or just believe you’ve read it all - but The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is going to knock you upside the head and change everything you think you knew about this horror subgenre.
Seriously, the twists and turns in this story are incredible and you’re not going to be able to predict where it goes. The reveal of the possession and everything behind it blew my mind. Marino has created something really special here.
The horror is hardcore - lots of body horror. The story is SO visceral and wild. Chapter 26 is going to stick with me for a long time, it’s got one of those scenes that just tears into you and you want to stop reading but literally can’t pull yourself away. It reminded me a lot of some of Grady Hendrix’s famous scenes, especially the tunnel scene in We Sold Our Souls. In the acknowledgements Marino gives a shout out to Italian horror and you can see the influence it has had on his writing of the bloody scenes.
book mood board (all images from weheartit.com)
Character wise - Sydney is a very complex and fascinating study. Massive trigger warnings in this book for addiction all around. Marino’s handling of addiction is so realistic it can be hard to stomach at times if you’ve experienced it in real life, or lived with someone experiencing it. Granted, possession and addiction have been mixed before in the horror world, but Marino really does bring a fresh and exciting new voice to it. The addiction isn’t just a crutch to make someone weak and easily possessed. It’s an integral part of the story and brings up some real life issues that addicts are faced with every day while venturing through society. “I wonder if it’s standard procedure to dig up the criminal record of a survivor on the night of her attack, or if being an addict affords you this special scrutiny.”
I can’t say much more without spoiling anything and trust me, you don’t want to be spoiled here. The reveals are so great and unravelling this mystery with a very unreliable narrator is a ton of fun for horror fans. And that ending…….oof…..gut punch of an ending. And I LOVE that in horror but it’s rarely done as well as in this story.
Overall, The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is perfect for horror fans looking for a fresh take on the possession genre, but also for fans of that genre who just want more. I highly recommend it if you love; body horror, mysteries, gory murders, tamagotchis, unreliable narrators, big scary corporations, and gut punch endings.
“Do you love me?”
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess hits shelves September 28th! Go get yourself a copy!
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