Book Review: Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell

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“The dead do not keep company with the living.”

📚

In the town of Babylon, Florida, something shifts in the chill depths of the local Styx River. Something bred of malice that avenges under the cover of night, determinedly stalking its prey, leaving horrible squishing sounds in its wake. Answering to no earthly authority, it seeks vengeance for young Margaret Larkin, brutally murdered, as well as her generations of victimized kin.

The opening three pages of Cold Moon Over Babylon are absolutely chilling and brutal, laying the groundwork for the calculated cruelty and carnage to follow. McDowell’s writing effortlessly blends comforting, atmospheric, seemingly mundane daily life with jaw-dropping horror, all conveyed in a calm, captivating, matter-of-fact voice that sets the scene for the Larkin family’s tragic struggles. The resulting novel is a truly horrific and terrifying tale of wealth, privilege, evil, crime, scandal, and supernatural revenge — a masterful Southern Gothic that renders the reader anxious, unsettled, and utterly at its mercy.

❤Amanda

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