Today I’m joining the blog tour for The Torments. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to Orenda Books for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

Hiding from the world in her little white cottage on the shores of a loch, Annie Jackson is fighting to come to terms with the world of the murmurs, a curse that has haunted female members of her family for centuries.

While she is within the ancient, heavy stone of the old dwelling, the voices merely buzz, but the moment she steps outside the door they clamour to torment her all over again, bringing with them shocking visions of imminent deaths.

Into this oasis comes her adoptive mother, Mandy McEvoy, begging for Annie’s help. Mandy’s nephew Damien has gone missing, after dropping off his four-year old son at his mother’s home.

Unable to refuse, but terrified to leave her sanctuary, Annie, with the help of her brother Lewis, is drawn in to a secretive, seductive world that will have her question everything she holds dear, while Lewis’ life may be changed forever…

The second book in the critically acclaimed Annie Jackson Mysteries series, The Torments is both a contemporary gothic thriller and a spellbinding mystery that deeps deep into a past that should, perhaps, remain undisturbed…

Review:

I really enjoyed The Murmurs last year, so I was delighted to learn that Michael J Malone has written a sequel and I was excited to see where he would take his characters. The author wastes no time in getting started, as we are thrust into this story really quickly, with the hook coming in the first few pages. It definitely starts as it means to go on, with short chapters and a fast paced writing style that kept me gripped the whole way through.

As usual with Michael J Malone’s novels, The Torments does not fit neatly into a particular genre. It’s part crime, part horror and part supernatural, and I absolutely love the way that the author combines these genres so seamlessly. I’m normally put off by supernatural elements in novels, but in this case, it really enhances the story and makes it stand out from the crime investigations I usually read.

It was great to catch up with Annie and Lewis again, and I felt that in The Torments, Michael J Malone digs into these characters even deeper than before and this really helped me to re-establish my connection with them. They are both characters I found really interesting and wanted to root for, particularly as we got to the heart of the story. Michael J Malone writes from several different perspectives in this novel, including Annie and Lewis and this also helped me to get to know the characters better, especially as this often enabled the author to show us the same event from different angles. 

Through the multiple viewpoints, we also meet Ben and Sylvia, first in the past and gradually moving into present day. Ben and Sylvia are really well crafted characters and I was really intrigued by them and how their story would be relevant to Annie and Lewis.

Michael J Malone is an excellent plotter and although I know it must have taken lots of blood, sweat and tears to get The Torments right, he makes it look so easy. Throughout the novel, I never had any idea what was coming next, even though at times the answers were right in front of my nose! I loved the twists and turns as the story gathered pace and it is written in such a compelling way. As The Torments reaches its conclusion, there is plenty of tension and danger and I could not swipe my Kindle fast enough to discover how it would be resolved.

I do hope we see these characters again, but whatever Michael J Malone does next, I’m really excited to read it!

The Torments is available from Amazon.

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