releasing September 12, 2023 from St. Martin’s Press
I’ve been a Kelley Armstrong fan since her first novel, Bitten, and I was excited to see her release her first horror novel. I really enjoyed Hemlock Island. It combined Armstrong’s strengths with character and witty dialogue with some seriously creepy imagery. (Those windchimes…yikes.)
This is a great book to go into blind. I was surprised that it involved one of my favourite subgenres of horror, but that’s a revelation that comes about halfway through.
I can at least talk about the setting, which is a house on an isolated island in the middle of Lake Superior. I’m a sucker for wilderness and isolation horror.
I did find that the second act focus on relationship and family/friendship secrets took away from the horror a bit. I appreciated those elements but would have liked a slightly different ratio — maybe one less secret exposed, and more creepy buildup on the island?
I also didn’t find Kit to be an interesting enough character for the amount of focus on him, but I loved the protagonist, Laney, and her niece, Madison — Madison is a wonderfully smart and snarky teen girl who captured my heart immediately.
Overall I really enjoyed the novel and I would love to see Armstrong continue to write horror. There’s some wonderful gruesomeness and terror here, and thematically it was right in my sweet spot. It gave me series Darcy Coates vibes with the combination of cozy horror, creepy buildup, character work, and the “what the heck is going on??” factor.
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Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for my review copy of this book.
Leanne Olson 
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