Darlene's Book Nook: #Audiobook #Review: 4 out of 5 stars for Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman @JoshMalerman @BOTLibrary

Friday, July 20, 2018

#Audiobook #Review: 4 out of 5 stars for Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman @JoshMalerman @BOTLibrary

TITLE: Unbury Carol

AUTHOR: Josh Malerman

NARRATOR: Dan John Miller

PUBLISHER: Books on Tape

PUBLICATION DATE: April 10, 2018

FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook

LENGTH: 10 hrs and 49 mins

GENRE: Horror, Fantasy, Western

ASIN: B077BKJMQ1

Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. She has died many times . . . but her many deaths are not final: They are comas, a waking slumber indistinguishable from death, each lasting days.

Only two people know of Carol’s eerie condition. One is her husband, Dwight, who married Carol for her fortune, and—when she lapses into another coma—plots to seize it by proclaiming her dead and quickly burying her . . . alive. The other is her lost love, the infamous outlaw James Moxie. When word of Carol’s dreadful fate reaches him, Moxie rides the Trail again to save his beloved from an early, unnatural grave.

And all the while, awake and aware, Carol fights to free herself from the crippling darkness that binds her—summoning her own fierce will to survive. As the players in this drama of life and death fight to decide her fate, Carol must in the end battle to save herself.

MY REVIEW:

This is going to reveal something about my age, but do you remember the 1988 movie The Serpent and the Rainbow? The movie, in part, is about how a Haitian voodoo priest gave medicinal herbs to a victim so that the heartbeat could be virtually undetectable and the victim was then buried alive. That movie scared the dickens out of me! When I read the synopsis of this book, it reminded me of that movie so I just had to read it.

Carol Evers is a 38-year-old woman with an unusual condition that causes her to lapse into comas at the drop of a hat, kind of like narcolepsy but worse because her heartbeat is not detectable. When Carol's best friend John dies who was the only other person aware of her condition, she implores her husband Dwight to let the maid Farrah in on her secret just in case that something were to happen to him. She didn't want to be accidentally buried alive! Unbeknownst to her, this is exactly what Dwight wants because he wants to be rid of her.

Carol's comas often occur at times of great emotional distress, so it is not a surprise that it happens after John's death. It occurs when Carol is with Farrah but, unfortunately, before she has a chance to let her in on her secret. Farrah, of course, thinks that Carol is dead. Dwight sets the wheels in motion to have Carol buried as soon as possible because the longest that she's ever been in one of her states is two days. Little does Dwight know that Carol's ex-lover, James Moxie, also knows Carol's secret. When word is sent to James that Carol has died, he sends a return message that Carol is not dead and that he is on the way. It's a race against time, for Dwight to bury Carol before she wakes and for James to get there in time to stop Dwight before it's too late.

This book was just as creepy as I had hoped! Carol can hear and see everything going on around her, and just the thought that she knows that her husband is going to bury her alive just makes me shudder. The book is fast-paced and made my heart race in fear for Carol, whose condition is literally my worst nightmare! Dwight as the smarmy villain made me feel ill, who clearly had been biding his time. I'm not normally a fan of westerns, but Malerman's choice of setting for this book worked. I loved the atmosphere he created!

This author is new to me, but I already have his Bird Box waiting to be listened to.

Dan John Miller is also new to me, and his narration was fantastic! I definitely will be looking for more of his narrations. His pace and inflections were perfect. Here is a sample of the narration:

MY RATING: