The old house waited. For years there had been rumors that the owner, Lilith Martin, had been part of an unholy cult. People spoke of blasphemous rituals, black rites filled with blood, sex…and sacrifices. Then Lilith died and the house sat empty. Until now.

Lilith’s nephew, Chris, and his wife, Ellie, are moving in. Ellie isn’t happy about living in such a dark, foreboding place, but she wants to get pregnant and this house has a lot more room to raise a baby than their apartment. Unfortunately, she and Chris will soon learn that Lilith has other plans.

My thanks to Flame Tree Press for my review copy and to Anne Cater at Random Things for the chance to join the blog tour.

I think there must come a point in every horror book or film where the viewer/reader asks “why don’t they just leave this place?”  In The Darkest Lullaby I think I reached this point around the time my Kindle told me I had read 40% of the story.

Clearly Jonathan Janz also appreciated his characters should have been getting the Hell out of Dodge as he worked in a couple of nice twists to ensure Chris and Ellie (our couple in peril) have to remain in their creepy house in the woods. No escape for Ellie from her husband’s odd and threatening behaviour. No escape for Chris from the strange woman he is compelled to follow into the woods. No escape from the strange things in the old run down house.  Uh oh.

I have read a few of Jonathan Janz’s books and he is great at building up the tension, has no qualms about bumping off characters in grizzly and disturbing ways and you cannot be sure if the good guys will survive (or if they even are the good guys).  For fans of a good-old horror tale you can’t go far wrong with Janz’s books.

In The Darkest Lullaby we have an entity who wants to use her nephew to find a way to return from the grave…if she even made it to her grave! Chris and Ellie move into Chris’s aunt’s old home in the hope of finding peace and a nice place to start a family.  However soon after they arrive Chris starts to behave oddly and Ellie becomes increasingly alarmed by strange goings on in the house.

As the story unfolds we learn that Lillith, Chris’s aunt, had an unhealthy obsession with her nephew and a really strong dislike of Ellie. That really can’t be a good combination!

The Darkest Lullaby is one for the horror fans. Bloody, unsettling and with strong adult themes. A late night page turner which kept me reading…mainly so I could find out which characters survived!

The Darkest Lullaby is published by Flame Tree Press and is available in digital and paperback format here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Darkest-Lullaby-Fiction-Without-Frontiers/dp/178758271X/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=jonathan+janz&qid=1565820624&s=gateway&sr=8-16