A review by teamredmon
A Voice So Soft, by Patrick Lacey
4.0
Angie Everson is a pop princess and the hottest musical act in the country. She has just won the most significant talent competition on television and has the number one song on pop radio. Angie is everywhere, and you can't turn on the radio, television, youtube, or any other media without hearing her song, Forever With You. She's on top of the world and wants to celebrate with a concert in Salem, MA, her hometown. Angie's twin sister, Shawna, hates her sister and wants her to stay away.
Since Angie's song has been blasting the airwaves, a series of crazy murders have been happening when Angie's music plays. Finally, Shawna's not the only one that believes her sister is evil. Detective Mike Mallory believes that Angie's music has hidden subliminal messages that are inspiring listeners to commit brutal acts of violence. As the Halloween concert draws near, Shawna and Detective Mallory have to team up to put an end to Angie's demonic pop music for good. However, Angie's rabid, cult-like fan might have something to say about that.
Although I was slow to start, once I got going on this one, I flew through it. It reads quite fast, and Lacey's writing is crisp and creative. I thought the story was an inventive twist on the "music is the devil" idea that is usually associated with metal, rock n roll, or hip hop and applies it to pop music with its bright colors and glitter. Angie's fans are called Glitter Critters, and what could be less intimidating than that?
I had one problem with this novel, and it centered around one character. Esmerelda runs a witchcraft tourist shop in Salem. Esmerelda is described as extremely obese. While I do not have a problem with a character being very overweight in this case, the character's weight was central to everything about her. Every time she's on the page, she is eating fast food, talking about her cholesterol, being the butt of diabetes jokes, etc. She's described at every opportunity as disgusting to the point that it took me out of the plot. It just felt overdone and that this character that should've been pretty interesting deserved better than what she ending up with. The way this character is written is the reason this is not a five-star book for me. Other than Esmerelda, I found very little that I didn't enjoy.
Overall, this is a highly entertaining story. I enjoyed it a great deal as I have with everything that I've read from Patrick Lacey. I would recommend this book to horror readers that enjoy stories of dark magic, possession, cults, or folk horror.
Since Angie's song has been blasting the airwaves, a series of crazy murders have been happening when Angie's music plays. Finally, Shawna's not the only one that believes her sister is evil. Detective Mike Mallory believes that Angie's music has hidden subliminal messages that are inspiring listeners to commit brutal acts of violence. As the Halloween concert draws near, Shawna and Detective Mallory have to team up to put an end to Angie's demonic pop music for good. However, Angie's rabid, cult-like fan might have something to say about that.
Although I was slow to start, once I got going on this one, I flew through it. It reads quite fast, and Lacey's writing is crisp and creative. I thought the story was an inventive twist on the "music is the devil" idea that is usually associated with metal, rock n roll, or hip hop and applies it to pop music with its bright colors and glitter. Angie's fans are called Glitter Critters, and what could be less intimidating than that?
I had one problem with this novel, and it centered around one character. Esmerelda runs a witchcraft tourist shop in Salem. Esmerelda is described as extremely obese. While I do not have a problem with a character being very overweight in this case, the character's weight was central to everything about her. Every time she's on the page, she is eating fast food, talking about her cholesterol, being the butt of diabetes jokes, etc. She's described at every opportunity as disgusting to the point that it took me out of the plot. It just felt overdone and that this character that should've been pretty interesting deserved better than what she ending up with. The way this character is written is the reason this is not a five-star book for me. Other than Esmerelda, I found very little that I didn't enjoy.
Overall, this is a highly entertaining story. I enjoyed it a great deal as I have with everything that I've read from Patrick Lacey. I would recommend this book to horror readers that enjoy stories of dark magic, possession, cults, or folk horror.