Matthew Lyons

Road trips are a common theme in literature, and one of my favorite variations is the road trip that goes wrong.In A Black and Endless Sky, it doesn’t just go wrong, it goes remarkably awry.

Nell and Jonah, each unlikable, are estranged siblings who decide to take a road trip to reconnect after Jonah’s divorce. Nell decides to pull off and stop at what turns out to be a biker bar, where they end up in a major brawl with consequences. They get away, but the enraged bikers decide to pursue them. Then, for some inexplicable reason, Nell pulls off the road somewhere in the desert, and ends up being possessed by what turns out to be a demon. Add in a sin eater named Anna, who wants to exorcise the demon from Nell, and the trip truly becomes bad.

The audio version of A Black and Endless Sky is excellent, one of the best I’ve ever listened to. The multiple points of view are read by multiple narrators, who are all tremendous. They really brought the scary moments to life, and made the time fly by.

My thanks to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for providing an ALC of this excellent novel.… (mehr)

I read this just after finishing Lyons’ A Black and Endless Sky, and they’re extremely similar, practically the same book. A male and female cousin (or a brother and sister), one (or both) deeply flawed and pretty unlikeable, one of whom kills someone, which triggers a cascading series of catastrophic events involving chthonic, eldritch horrors. The characters sustain innumerable grisly injuries, to the point that I’d be interested in hearing from a medical professional whether it’s remotely possible to survive such trauma, let alone remain conscious, much less engage in the grueling physical exertion the characters do. Nevertheless, Lyons has a way with words, and his descriptions render his scenes practically tangible (but I hope never to have the occasion to use “shrike” as a verb).… (mehr)