We Turn Gruesome at Night (Burnt Sparrow 2)

Every time I read something written by Eric LaRocca, from short story to novel, I wonder what I've gotten myself into.

His subject matter can often be brutal, violent, deviant, not to mention out of the wheelhouse of my usual horror reading, but he is so emotionally and intellectually smart and writes about these things so thoughtfully and beautifully, I keep coming back to it.

I read We Are Always Tender with Our Dead, the first in the Burnt Sparrow trilogy about a year ago (https://candikathorror.com/reads/we-are-always-tender-with-our-dead), so I thought I knew the depth of what I was in for with Book 2, We Turn Gruesome at Night. (Cut to me laughing ruefully and maniacally at turns.)

Book 2 picks back up in the small town of Burnt Sparrow, about ten years after the tragic events of the first, and Rupert Cromwell is now cursed to a monotonous life, trapped - perhaps literally - in End House with an older woman, Gladys Esherwood.

As they become more desperate to escape and believe they have found the key, we see how easily anyone can become a monster and find ourselves questioning, what would it take to turn us?

I had a chance to read these words while hearing them on audiobook, narrated with perfect depth and emotion by Tristan Wright.

I both can't wait and am glad I have time to recover before reading the final book in the Burnt Sparrow series…but I hope I don’t have to wait too long.

Thank you to NetGalley, Titan Books, and Dreamscape Media for the advance copies for my honest review.