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Macabre
For most people, the season of spring means new sunshine, fresh blooms, and embarrassing spring break stories. But for Eliza Serpan, springtime brings fresh corpses. This bourbon guzzling, machete wielding, antisocial mortician has an uncanny knack for putting on the best funerals in the U.K.—even when she is faced with a sudden series of horrific events of the occult that threaten her very existence. But when Eliza discovers that making death look good isn’t her only talent, she welcomes this new dance with the devil. Because after all, you should never underestimate a woman who can embalm.
456 pages, Paperback
Published April 23, 2016
4 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Tabitha Freeman
16 books29 followersTABITHA FREEMAN is an international bestselling and award-winning fiction author of The Life We Unmade. Her works also include The Life We Unmade, the Ghost Story Trilogy, the explosive, social contemporary novels Broken Glass, Coyote Creek, and The Phobic's Son. She also writes horror under the pseudonym Rigby Glass. Find her online at www.tabithafreeman.com, Instagram handle @tabbytime, and www.facebook.com/authortrfreeman.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 25, 2022
To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.
I got an ARC copy of this book.
I got this book because it sounded ridiculous. It sounded like I would be laughing non-stop at how B movie it was, I was thinking Lollipop Chainsaw level bad (if you don’t know what this is, just imagine a spoof of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with zombies). I didn’t get that though. There were few laughs to be had, despite it sounded very much like a comedy.
The book was much more series. It was slow to start and then it was a meandering path of ghost/revenge horror. I almost put the book down for good at a few points in the beginning because of how slow it was to start. Then I got sucked into the horror aspects of the book. There were so many good points. The journal is still fascinating to me even after I have finished the book. The horror build up was pretty amazing. It was not Joe Hill level horror, but it was a nice slow burn.
The ending was a bit off kilter for me. It went from a good slow burn to a frenzied mad house. There was suddenly a ghost hunting organization and a lot of twists and turns that felt completely unnecessary. I can forgive the slow beginning because there is a lot of character development and not a lot of wasted space in it once the horror starts you realize that the slow burn was really setting up a lot. It felt slow, but it was really setting the scene perfectly. The ending was a bit much. It set the book up for a sequel, which in horror really isn’t my thing. I like my horror to terrify me, make me think, and then leave me like that. Don’t resolve things perfectly, let there be some scary feelings left. Don’t make it a ten book series about hunting ghosts.
So my advice is to ignore how ridiculous the description is and how the machete is never explained fully. Then sit back for a pretty decent ghost story that has a lot of moving parts. There are some plot points that feel forced, don’t get stuck. Just experience it. If you can suspend some belief, then this story can get spooky.
I got an ARC copy of this book.
I got this book because it sounded ridiculous. It sounded like I would be laughing non-stop at how B movie it was, I was thinking Lollipop Chainsaw level bad (if you don’t know what this is, just imagine a spoof of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with zombies). I didn’t get that though. There were few laughs to be had, despite it sounded very much like a comedy.
The book was much more series. It was slow to start and then it was a meandering path of ghost/revenge horror. I almost put the book down for good at a few points in the beginning because of how slow it was to start. Then I got sucked into the horror aspects of the book. There were so many good points. The journal is still fascinating to me even after I have finished the book. The horror build up was pretty amazing. It was not Joe Hill level horror, but it was a nice slow burn.
The ending was a bit off kilter for me. It went from a good slow burn to a frenzied mad house. There was suddenly a ghost hunting organization and a lot of twists and turns that felt completely unnecessary. I can forgive the slow beginning because there is a lot of character development and not a lot of wasted space in it once the horror starts you realize that the slow burn was really setting up a lot. It felt slow, but it was really setting the scene perfectly. The ending was a bit much. It set the book up for a sequel, which in horror really isn’t my thing. I like my horror to terrify me, make me think, and then leave me like that. Don’t resolve things perfectly, let there be some scary feelings left. Don’t make it a ten book series about hunting ghosts.
So my advice is to ignore how ridiculous the description is and how the machete is never explained fully. Then sit back for a pretty decent ghost story that has a lot of moving parts. There are some plot points that feel forced, don’t get stuck. Just experience it. If you can suspend some belief, then this story can get spooky.
May 24, 2017
Really creative exciting book. Love love love it
March 1, 2018
Macabre is a dark suspenseful tale with strong characters. It started out slow and has some slow parts throughout but totally worth sticking with it.
May 8, 2016
3.5
I received a copy of this novel in return for an honest review
"It's a macabre book mobile!" Phineas and Ferb
I was really intrigued with the concept of this novel. You know me, love a good morgue. The first few paragraphs drew me in and then the author gives an info dump before the end of the first page. I know we need to know about Lindley, but it could have waited.
However within that first chapter I found something out that was lovely. Eliza is a beautiful kind of disturbing hard core bitch. So no matter any issues I had with this novel the character was great!! Plus her back story is fairly interesting, especially the part about her dead Grandpa. Her emotions are written in a very real way. She reacted just like you would think a real person would in many of the awful situations, like during a heavy betrayal.
I appreciated that the author did her research about funeral homes and the embalming process. I've worked in a funeral home so this sort of accuracy really made me respect the author's story telling ability.
Trigger Warning: many many MANY suicides.
This book was written pretty well, some formatting issues, a few teeny tiny grammatical errors that were easy to over look.
The characters, asides from Eliza, were hit or miss for me. The evil grandmother spewing family secrets to a grand daughter she barely knows 50 pages in? Eh, didn't care for that. Marcus and Lindley? AWESOME. I would LOVE to have seen more of both of them. Wolf was a pretty bland character, not quite great as a love interest and mainly used for purpose and bringing together all the plot lines.
Several of the plot twists were pretty obvious and I wish the murder mystery hadn't been solved so quickly or with so many easy coincidences.
I'm not sure what category to put this book in: horror, ghost story, murder mystery... Probably Urban Paranormal Fantasy. I wish the author had really committed to just one genre.
I loved how the author wrote the ghostly and otherworldly stuff. She managed to make the writing creepy and cool. Makes me wonder if she has ever had an experience herself.
Not sure I cared for the last plot twist and the diabolic turn the novel takes, but it kept me intrigued and over all I enjoyed this novel and would read more by this author.
I do have one question however:
How'd she get a machete through customs?
I received a copy of this novel in return for an honest review
"It's a macabre book mobile!" Phineas and Ferb
I was really intrigued with the concept of this novel. You know me, love a good morgue. The first few paragraphs drew me in and then the author gives an info dump before the end of the first page. I know we need to know about Lindley, but it could have waited.
However within that first chapter I found something out that was lovely. Eliza is a beautiful kind of disturbing hard core bitch. So no matter any issues I had with this novel the character was great!! Plus her back story is fairly interesting, especially the part about her dead Grandpa. Her emotions are written in a very real way. She reacted just like you would think a real person would in many of the awful situations, like during a heavy betrayal.
I appreciated that the author did her research about funeral homes and the embalming process. I've worked in a funeral home so this sort of accuracy really made me respect the author's story telling ability.
Trigger Warning: many many MANY suicides.
This book was written pretty well, some formatting issues, a few teeny tiny grammatical errors that were easy to over look.
The characters, asides from Eliza, were hit or miss for me. The evil grandmother spewing family secrets to a grand daughter she barely knows 50 pages in? Eh, didn't care for that. Marcus and Lindley? AWESOME. I would LOVE to have seen more of both of them. Wolf was a pretty bland character, not quite great as a love interest and mainly used for purpose and bringing together all the plot lines.
Several of the plot twists were pretty obvious and I wish the murder mystery hadn't been solved so quickly or with so many easy coincidences.
I'm not sure what category to put this book in: horror, ghost story, murder mystery... Probably Urban Paranormal Fantasy. I wish the author had really committed to just one genre.
I loved how the author wrote the ghostly and otherworldly stuff. She managed to make the writing creepy and cool. Makes me wonder if she has ever had an experience herself.
Not sure I cared for the last plot twist and the diabolic turn the novel takes, but it kept me intrigued and over all I enjoyed this novel and would read more by this author.
I do have one question however:
How'd she get a machete through customs?
June 23, 2016
If the first book, "Iniquity," was like "Final Destination," then this one takes all the best parts of the first and adds in a "Supernatural" component. And the best part about this sequel is you don't HAVE to reread the first book to feel caught up. Great job of summing up the first book without wasting too much of the reader's time. Love this genre from this author and can't wait to see what's next!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews