HORROR

Vanishing Daughters

by Cynthia Pelayo
Thomas & Mercer: Amazon. Mar. 2025. 336p. ISBN 9781662513930. pap. $16.99. HORROR
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Briar’s childhood home is empty and seems to ache with sadness since her mother’s death. She has nightmares of a beautiful woman desperate to get home and hears music from empty rooms. Briar has fallen into a world of grief, transported away from friends and the orderly life she created after she left home. She begins to question if her pain is distorting reality or if her dreams are a warning, as a serial killer who has killed 51 women is terrorizing Chicago. Briar is drawn into the story of the killer and begins to research the murders, and the killer has also focused on Briar in turn. Pelayo (Forgotten Sisters) writes another haunting novel about Chicago that presents a thoughtful, victim-centered view of violent crime.
VERDICT Pelayo transports readers, blending fairy tales, history, and urban legends with a true sense of fear. This novel will appeal to fans of horror where questions about the nature of a house haunting loom large, such as A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, and horror novels in which grief and loss feature heavily, such as White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi.
Reviewed by Lila Denning , Dec 01, 2024
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