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This is a book review tour hosted by Black Tide Book Tours. A copy of the book was provided in exchange for my honest review.
MY REVIEW:
A book about the degeneracy and depravity of the human species on full display. This was incredibly well written and presented, even if the themes made it impossible for me to read this one before bed. I was only able to read it during the day. It uses several different perspectives to share the full story and you have to stay on your toes to ensure you know who’s perspective you’re reading from as it switches seamlessly throughout the entire book.
The curtains breath, in and out. The window behind them is open. And while darkness drapes the room, light, gaining ascendancy outside, imbues the gently swaying lengths of material with color.
Satan’s Fan Club, Mark Kirkbride
The overall book description leaves much to the imagination as to what you’re about to walk into, so with this book expect full depravity and adoption of evil to be at it’s core. It focuses on a family headed by the Pastor of the local Doomsday Church and seemingly has the perfect family. But the things that go on within the walls of this home are a representation of human evilness. The oldest children, identical twins James and Louise, have finished school and entered the working world, but have given into their darkest desires under the roof of their home. The youngest, Harriet is talking to unseen strangers in the home and the parents have their own secrets as well.
As the story unfolds there are constant revelations and lessons for each character as they evaluate the happenings of their own family. There is an odd sense of growth in the twins, James and Louise throughout the book as their sins unfold. As much as you might want to despise them and scream at them to stop, it’s when you stop and understand the context of the environment they’ve been raised within, it brings you to a very different perspective on how people turn out in certain ways and can justify their actions based on the society and community around them.
Honestly, I was blown away by this book and would say that the level of psychological terror that exists within it’s pages rattled me to the core in a way that a book hasn’t done in a really long time. While the horror elements are handled extremely well, I was most impressed by the psychology of this book. Looking at a family that appears to be “rooted in the words of God” and how they’ve all fallen into despair, shows just how far the human psyche can stretch to find absolution in their own evil acts.
GET IT HERE:
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Rebellious twins James and Louise meet a man while out for a night of fun who invites them to join a dangerous and exciting club.
While they yearn to join Nick’s club and escape their staunchly religious upbringing, entrance requires they commit a crime tailored just for them. The twins find themselves trapped in a shadowy world they only half-believe is real and contemplating horrible acts that no sane person would consider.
But sometimes the most fertile breeding ground for evil is innocence…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Kirkbride lives in Shepperton, England. He is the author of The Plot Against Heaven, Game Changers of the Apocalypse and Satan’s Fan Club, originally published by Omnium Gatherum and re-released by Crossroad Press. Game Changers of the Apocalypse was a semi-finalist in the Kindle Book Awards 2019. His stories have appeared in Under the Bed, Sci Phi Journal, Disclaimer Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Titanic Terastructures and So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. Poetry credits include Neon, the London Reader, the Big Issue, the Daily Mirror, Sein und Werden and Horror Writers Association chapbooks. He was shortlisted in the AONB Landscape category of the Ginkgo Prize 2021.
Looking for book recs…
Adventures in Literature 
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