A Black and Endless Sky by Matthew Lyons

I liked the narrators for the most part, but the story itself was uninteresting for me. I don’t think this being an audiobook made this bad to read. Some kind of cult attitude that was missing too much backstory.

And Anna … well, I didn’t really get what her deal was. I liked Terry at first, but once he went off the rails, his motivations ceased to be plausible. It’s one thing to be unlikeable and another entirely to treat Jonah the way she did, just because she has this misguided compass to what she thinks is best for him.

Nell kind of sucks, and I did not like her in the beginning. Jonah was fine, even if he was a bit understandably down in the dumps. A bar fight, a gun fight on the road, a knife fight in a warehouse, a desperate fight in a house, and always with Nell and Jonah coming out on top with a new wound to deal with in a different motel. There were way too many brawl scenes in this that always seemed to follow the same path. I needed more creepy events and cave stuff, less fist fights. Instead I was left disappointed by how repetitive this was in both action and downtime. If not done well, they can be rather tedious, so I always expect a lot to happen to keep things entertaining along the drive. So, needless to say I’m not happy it was a blink and miss it kind of thing instead. I honestly thought the story would be more centered on the caves and what was dug up, especially with that fabulous prologue building the tension right off the bat. And it was too repetitive and predictable to be suspenseful. Aside from some body horror here and there, it didn’t really give me any chills. The synopsis describes this as a white-knuckle horror-thriller and I struggle to classify this as either. But there are far worse things lurking in the desert ahead… some of them just beneath the skin. Pursued by a mysterious stranger who knows far more about Nell’s worsening condition than they let on, the siblings race to find a way to help Nell and escape the desert before they’re met with a violent, bloody end.

As their journey through the desolate American Southwest reveals the grotesque change happening within his sister, one thing becomes clear to Jonah: It’s not only Nell in there anymore. Now, in the wake of Jonah’s divorce, they embark on a cross-country road trip back to their hometown of Albuquerque, hoping to mend their broken relationship along the way.īut when a strange accident befalls Nell at an abandoned industrial site somewhere in the Nevada desert, she begins experiencing ghastly visions and exhibiting terrifying, otherworldly symptoms. Siblings Jonah and Nell Talbot used to be inseparable, but ever since Jonah suddenly blew town twelve years ago, they couldn’t be more distant.

A Black and Endless Sky by Matthew Lyons