A review by ecofriendly_bookworm
Dark Country by Monique Snyman
3.0
"The occult is a pseudoscience not easily explained in layman's terms. It changes often, is misunderstood, and accurate information is impossible to find."
Overview
Esme is an occult-crime specialist who studies all occult crimes and criminals. She works for SIRCIS, a company specializing in murder investigations, occult training, and everything paranormal. Sometimes they also lend their expertise to the African Police Service.
When a woman is found mutilated, Esme is called for her analysis. Soon, this case turns into a gruesome murder spree, with people being murdered with no rhyme or reason, and the killer with paranormal powers is now directly taunting her and the police.
Setting, Plot, World- building: The setting, the environment, or the tone of the book is very eerie, a kind of dark. This helps in elevating the murder plots. As the author stated, this book is a fictional tale with one foot in reality. This book felt exactly like that. It is set in South Africa, where people have been known to have dabbled in different kinds of magic. The world is both interesting and gruesome.
This is not a heart-pounding chase between a detective and a killer; I felt it was more close to reality, with a few clues, some false leads, and some gritty details. We follow Esme in her day-to-day life, both personally and professionally. I loved all the gritty details of this world.
"I expect monsters to do the things they're accused of doing, not regular human beings."
We get dual POVs, which is very interesting. The killer's character is what jumped out to me. Author has done an amazing job in getting us inside their mind and way of thinking. It also added a lot to the story and the setting.
Pace and writing: It took me some time to get engrossed in this. The pacing of the book is quite complex. When we are in a moment, then the pacing is medium, but when we go from one chapter to the next, sometimes we have very large jumps. Also, the thing that didn't work for me personally was that sometimes a person's first name was used for a few pages and then suddenly they were addressed using their last or middle names. These things left me quite confused, but not enough to take me out of the story.
Characters: We are introduced to multiple characters who work in different capacities on this case. Getting to know these characters a bit left me intrigued to find out more about them. As I understand, this is going to be a series, so hopefully we will get to see more of them. I particularly loved Esme's grandfather.
Esme's view of the occult is very relatable. She is not the one who blindly believes in magic, but she is also not the one who completely disregards it. Having worked on multiple paranormal cases, Esme acknowledges these things with a grain of salt.
The thing which left me a bit disappointed was my expectations of Esme and her capabilities. I did not agree with some of the decisions she took and, as I highlighted, I expected a bit more from her. Having said that, since this is the first book in the series, I hope she will get stronger, smarter, and more logical.
Please read through trigger warnings before picking this up.
I was kindly sent an ARC for an honest review.
Overview
Esme is an occult-crime specialist who studies all occult crimes and criminals. She works for SIRCIS, a company specializing in murder investigations, occult training, and everything paranormal. Sometimes they also lend their expertise to the African Police Service.
When a woman is found mutilated, Esme is called for her analysis. Soon, this case turns into a gruesome murder spree, with people being murdered with no rhyme or reason, and the killer with paranormal powers is now directly taunting her and the police.
Setting, Plot, World- building: The setting, the environment, or the tone of the book is very eerie, a kind of dark. This helps in elevating the murder plots. As the author stated, this book is a fictional tale with one foot in reality. This book felt exactly like that. It is set in South Africa, where people have been known to have dabbled in different kinds of magic. The world is both interesting and gruesome.
This is not a heart-pounding chase between a detective and a killer; I felt it was more close to reality, with a few clues, some false leads, and some gritty details. We follow Esme in her day-to-day life, both personally and professionally. I loved all the gritty details of this world.
"I expect monsters to do the things they're accused of doing, not regular human beings."
We get dual POVs, which is very interesting. The killer's character is what jumped out to me. Author has done an amazing job in getting us inside their mind and way of thinking. It also added a lot to the story and the setting.
Pace and writing: It took me some time to get engrossed in this. The pacing of the book is quite complex. When we are in a moment, then the pacing is medium, but when we go from one chapter to the next, sometimes we have very large jumps. Also, the thing that didn't work for me personally was that sometimes a person's first name was used for a few pages and then suddenly they were addressed using their last or middle names. These things left me quite confused, but not enough to take me out of the story.
Characters: We are introduced to multiple characters who work in different capacities on this case. Getting to know these characters a bit left me intrigued to find out more about them. As I understand, this is going to be a series, so hopefully we will get to see more of them. I particularly loved Esme's grandfather.
Esme's view of the occult is very relatable. She is not the one who blindly believes in magic, but she is also not the one who completely disregards it. Having worked on multiple paranormal cases, Esme acknowledges these things with a grain of salt.
The thing which left me a bit disappointed was my expectations of Esme and her capabilities. I did not agree with some of the decisions she took and, as I highlighted, I expected a bit more from her. Having said that, since this is the first book in the series, I hope she will get stronger, smarter, and more logical.
Please read through trigger warnings before picking this up.
I was kindly sent an ARC for an honest review.