Praise for 7 Days in Hell by Iseult Murphy
Rating: 5 out of 5.
“Wow! This is a very scary story. I could feel the tension and fright of the main characters. What a horrible little village.” Amazon Reader
Rating: 5 out of 5.
“A truly gripping read… I found myself living each moment through with the protagonists, and look forward to further instalments of this unfolding plot, with its deceptively super smooth villain. Compulsive reading.” Amazon Reader
Rating: 5 out of 5.
“I thought the characters were delightful, Irene and Vicky that is. The gore of the book was well placed for horror.” Amazon Reader
About the Book
Nestled between counties Limerick and Cork in Southern Ireland, something evil lurks in the place of High Death.
When Vicky’s boss offers her a free vacation in a self-catering cottage over Halloween break, she jumps at the chance to spend quality time with her twin sister, Irene, and Irene’s miniature schnauzer, Ronnie.
The village of Basard may boast Ireland’s longest running Halloween celebration, and one of the country’s best preserved standing stone circles, but Vicky finds the place rather dead. What’s more, she can’t sleep for the nightly roars of a distant crowd.
Will the twins survive this Halloween vacation to wake the dead, when their 7 days in paradise turns into 7 Days in Hell?
Book Review
Thank you to Blackthorn Book Tours for providing me with a copy for an honest review!
Vicky and her twin sister Irene are ready to kick back and relax in the country. Although when Vicky finds out there’s no wi-fi or cell service in their cabin, she starts to second guess their vacation. But the longer the two sisters stay, the quicker Vicky will realize no internet is the least of her worries. Something strange is going on. Every night Vicky is woken up by crowds roaring in the distance. And a parade of cars drives by the cabin every day at 3 in the morning. But when the sisters start to investigate the nighttime activities, they’ll wish they never went on vacation.
The writing style for 7 Days in Hell is cleverly done. Each chapter is another day the sisters stay in the village of Basard. And each chapter becomes progressively more horrific as they begin to unearth the darkness within the village. What starts off as simple things that seem amiss, turns into a truly horrific and mind-numbing experience for both girls. And when it comes to portraying horrific gore, Iseult Murphy’s writing crawls beneath the skin and sets your stomach churning.
I will admit though that some of the choices the sisters made didn’t make sense to me. I felt like certain encounters and oddities they came across should have lit red flags immediately. Instead, they sort of shrugged them off. I think the tension that would have been created from questioning more, in the beginning, would have benefitted the story. The sisters would have seemed a bit more realistic to me.
Although the characters might not have picked up on the suspicions I felt, I loved the sense of never quite knowing the whole picture. You’ll read about situations and people being off, and it drives you into having to read more. Should you be doubting what is happening and people’s intentions? Iseult Murphy has a way of making you second guess everything you think you know. If you are a fan of occult horror, give this one a try.
To Purchase: Amazon
About the Author
Iseult Murphy started writing at a young age, entertaining her family with magazines that she wrote and illustrated as a child. In her teens, she won several local and national short story competitions, including three time overall winner of the RDS Young Science Writers competition, and had work placed in international writing competitions such as the BBC Wildlife Poetry competition.
Iseult is drawn to horror, fantasy and science fiction, as she feels that the most difficult aspects of life can be best explored through the lens of speculative fiction.
She currently resides on the east coast of Ireland with five dogs, two cats, a parrot and a couple of humans. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys reading, art and spending time with her animals.