Brian and his wife Darcie moved to Smokey Hollow in order to slow down now that Darcie is pregnant.  Brian is the new editor of the Hollow News, a weekly paper that reports on such news such as the Garden Club tour and the annual Dump festival.  Darcie begins to clean out the attic of their new house and finds a trunk. When they open it, there is a gruesome surprise that sets into motion a series of events that shake the small town and give Brian a series of killer front pages.  The trunk is linked to the Mustard House, a psychiatric treatment center in town.  The more Brian digs into the contents of the trunk, the more strange things happen; a sleepwalker may hold the clues, the fire chief’s ventriloquist dummy might be doing naughty things and everyone in town keeps dying. 

From that first sentence I was hooked on what that trunk unlocked on the small town of Smokey Hollow.  I loved the slow build of suspense.  This was a well-crafted mystery where each event layered on top of one another the build an intricate story line.  Most of all, the whole time I really didn’t know if this was going to be something natural or supernatural.  The ventriloquist dummy, the sleepwalker, the Knackerman and a whole list of other intriguing characters keep the story moving as Brian tries to figure out each of their roles in the mystery.  Brian makes a great detective, a relentless reporter who puts nothing in front of his job is determined to figure out where the babies in the trunk of his attic came from, but keeps getting pulled in much deeper into the secrets of Smokey Hollow.  Overall, an engaging horror, thriller and crime drama that kept me guessing to the end. 

This book was provided for free in return for an honest review.  

Sean Casey is a struggling comic book artist with enough problems of his own including recurring nightmares from an abduction during his childhood and a germaphobe mother who hates his girlfriend.  When naked people start coming out of the woods and onto his property, Sean can’t think of anything to do but help them.  When the naked people turn out to be people who have all died, including his own Uncle, Sean still attempts to help any way he can.  As the media storm gathers, stories of zombies, dangerous chemicals and possible miracles ensue and the fungus that has helped people come back to life is spreading, helping some and hurting others.  Sean is trying to help one of the Spore people, Mindy, get back on her feet; but Sean’s nightmares about his childhood abduction worsen and the killer that kidnapped Sean all those years ago seems to have resurfaced.

I really liked that this is not a typical horror story and definitely not a normal zombie story.  The dead are rising, yes, but the method behind the reanimation is discriminatory.  The people reanimated by the spores are also not out for your brains, they are just confused and scared.  Most of the horror comes from the living who wanted their dead to stay dead and their secrets to stay buried with them.  I really liked the spores as a method of the reanimation, adding a science fiction aspect and a bit of a mystery.   The addition of the kidnapper’s reappearance adds another dimension.  The characters were all well done and I’m glad that the focus was only on a few as opposed to all of the reanimated characters.  Sean’s mother Helene was great, although I had guessed one of her secrets a little early.  Sean’s girlfriend Mare and Helene’s interactions were awesome.  There were a variety of reactions to the Spore people showcased by each character; also the social media coverage was really interesting.  Overall, a unique genre-bending horror/science-fiction/mystery read that displays all facets of human nature.