My first venture into the literary world of Amy Cross. It was a bizarre ride.
Cross appears to be an author with a prolific digital output and a minimal, almost non-existent personal presence on the web. A large number of her many titles are currently available as free downloads on Amazon. That's exactly where I came across American Coven, which was suggested to me as a recommendation - most likely as a result of having purchased quite a few dark horror novels with supernatural elements in my time. American Coven fits that description rather well.
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| American Coven - Amy Cross |
The story, which is told from the perspective of multiple narrators, revolves around three women, all tortured and held hostage in the basement of a solitary farm house. The house itself is possessed by an evil spirit directing the actions of their captor. The three hostages manage to escape thanks to their ability to jointly harness their supernatural powers. Initially, they go their separate ways after the escape, but are reunited when having to face evil again in an attempt to eradicate it once and for all. This is American Coven in a nutshell.
Readers of horror written by Richard Laymon or James Herbert may particularly enjoy Cross. If American Coven is anything to go by, characterisation, motivation or psychological exploration play a secondary role in Cross's writing. Instead, dark imagery, atmosphere and the description of gory scenes take centre stage. If this type of horror literature appeals to you, this could be a candidate for the 'to read' pile. For me, the story fell short of the necessary depth.
What's more, the book contained a number of unnecessary sub-stories, which detracted from the main plot, whilst entirely omitting the back story of why the house was haunted in the first place and why the women were tortured and repeatedly mutilated in a very specific fashion. Potentially these details were left out deliberately, perhaps to save up enough material for another instalment. Cross has authored a number of series as well as standalone novels, and there may well be a sequel in the making.
This brings me to the description of the more gory scenes in the story. (I won't go into detail about what happens in the ice bath and the bone scraping.) Suffice it to say and as already mentioned, American Coven falls into the category of dark supernatural horror and books in this genre are written to make readers recoil and feel uncomfortable. That's exactly what Cross achieves. So, if detailed descriptions of surgical mutilations are out of your literary comfort zone, do not read this book.
Initially, I underestimated the time it would take me to finish the novel. Reading got off to a good start and I got drawn in quickly, not least as I was intrigued to find out why the three had been kidnapped or the motive behind the torture routine. The story is told from the perspective of multiple narrators in both present and past, covering the women's captivity and interactions in the basement from their perspectives. Whilst this structure worked well overall, the descriptions of the dynamics within the group in connection with the torture ritual got a bit repetitive when being recounted from three different perspectives multiple times. This was done at the expense of plot development. As a consequence, my interest waned and the last third of the book became a long, hard slog towards a somewhat bland ending. All in all, this was not a bad read, but it fell short of the high expectations I had at the start.
Will I be reading Amy Cross again? - Probably. She has written a lot of books and I will give her another try, as there were elements of her writing I enjoyed.
Would I recommend this book? - Probably not.
