The Atrocities is a novella that hooks you in from the moment you begin reading. Ms. Danna Valadez has been given very peculiar instructions to arrive at her new job as a tutor for a wealthy family. She walks alone through a maze of atrocious sculptures and somehow arrives safe and sound at the Evers’ home. But, Mr. and Mrs. Evers are just as bizarre as their front lawn and the rest of their home. When Mrs. Evers introduces Danna to her new pupil, Isabella, there is no one there. Mrs. Evers tells Danna that Isabella died recently, but her spirit remains and wishes to go on as usual. Reluctantly, Danna tries to play along, but then strange inexplicable things begin to happen.
The beginning of The Atrocities reminded me a little of Jane Eyre’s tour of Thornfield Hall. Like Jane, Danna is perceptive and knows that there is something not quite right about Stockton House, but she cannot place her finger on it. Every night, she drifts into strange dreams of the memories of her past combined with the strange gruesome artwork of Stockton. Eventually, there is very little distinction between dream and reality.
It was a strange experience to read The Atrocities. It is very detail oriented with a quick plotline. From the moment I began this story until its end, I felt as if I were gazing at a distorted abstract painting or walking through a funhouse full of mirrors doubling as a haunted house. As soon as you start to think “okay, so maybe Isabella is actually a ghost,” the story will quickly spiral into the strange and unusual. Basically, my thoughts were, “I’m not sure what’s going on anymore, but I like it.”
The gothic elements really shined through in The Atrocities. It has been a while since I read a convincing modern gothic story.
I would recommend The Atrocities to anyone with a fondness for the gothic (ghosts, mansions, labyrinths).
*I received an advanced copy of The Atrocities from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. *

This is one of my most anticipated books this year and lately I've been seeing it everywhere. So I was thrilled when I received an ARC from Netgalley and Tor.com in exchange for an honest review. "The Atrocities" tells the story of Danna Valdez who is hired by a somewhat eccentric couple, Mr. and Mrs. Evers, to tutor their daughter Isabella. When she arrives, she first has to navigate the maze depicted on the cover which is staged with scary and horrific statues - The Atrocities. Danna soon catches on that things might not be as they originally seemed with the family and honestly, with all the characters acting so odd, it was pretty much an obvious conclusion. During the tale, Danna explores what is real and what is imaginary and often the line between becomes quite blurred.

I really enjoyed "The Atrocities." It has a very Gothic feel and the mood and atmosphere is intensified by Shipp's writing. As a reader, I was never quite sure where the story was headed but enjoyed finding out. I liked Danna, as well as the house staff which helped her navigate the home and her new position, even if everyone did seem "off" from the beginning. In fact, I sort of felt as if I was watching a dream sequence while reading.

My main complaint with the book is actually one of the reasons I picked it up so quickly - its length. "The Atrocities" is just a novella and like a lot of novellas, I found myself wanting more. I would have liked to have had a little more story because one I figured out what was going on, I felt things wrapped up too quickly. In addition, I would have loved to know more about why some characters behaved as they did. Plus, Danna has a backstory which contributes to the tale, but I think more could have been said.

Despite my issues, I still really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and eerie story and I will definitely keep my eye open for more books by Shipp as I am anxious to further explore his writing and storytelling.

This is a very weird little book that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. It tells the story of Ms Valdez who arrives to tutor a young girl, only to discover that the girl has died, but the parents still want her to be tutored. The setting is great - a gothic mansion house with hedge monsters (the atrocities) that are somewhat reminiscent of The Shining and a couple of odd servants. The characters are well-drawn, but often a little bit stereotypical with very questionable motivations at times. My main issue was with the dialogue, which is often stilted and doesn't read that well for me. Overall, this is a good story with some great spooky images, but I don't think it is one that will stick with me for any length of time.

I really liked the sound of The Atrocities right up front; I did expect something horror/Gothic ish in tone, but kind of expected something maybe less dramatic than this turned out to be. It starts out with great atmosphere and that uncanny feeling, but even after thinking it over for a few days, I'm not entirely sure what I make of it as a whole. Once things started being explained, it didn't feel quite satisfactory to me, and by the end I was a little confused about what was real. The main character is probably meant to be unreliable, given the recounting of her dreams as almost seamlessly integrated into the text, but it didn't quite work for me -- it just felt confusing as in I couldn't figure out what was going on, not in not being able to figure out what's true, if you see the difference there. It started feeling rather rushed, too.

However, I'm generally not a horror fan, so it's very likely I've missed some aspects of the shape of the narrative -- the ending felt familiar from seeing the ends of a few horror movies over my wife's shoulder, at least. So it might be that someone more into the genre would appreciate it more. I did love the atmosphere and the whole first scene, with the entrance to the estate, was perfectly uncanny and discomforting.

Not wholly bad, but quite disappointing. What little atmosphere there is -- in a novella touted by the publisher as "a haunting gothic fantasy of a young ghost's education" -- gets quickly squandered here.

To start, we have the trope of the troubled person entering the spooky mansion, in the form of Danna Valdez, a teacher/private tutor who suffers from some unexplained form of PTSD. It is never clear what the deal is with her, nor is it believable how and why she has come to take this new job, beyond Because The Plot Needs This To Happen. The child in need of Danna's tutelage is... not what she seems. This could all be good, but the spookiness of the mansion is lost in overkill. There are absurd, nightmarish statues everywhere, which Danna takes in stride rather than commenting upon much. The same goes for the random animals and toys. Danna's own nightmare visions are worse than the horrors surrounding her. The intrusion of too much modernity too, in the form of cell phones and such, doesn't do much for the plausibility of the situation, the behavior of the house staff, or the supposed Big Reveal, which came off as rather silly.

Perhaps if this has been a full-length novel, there would have been more space to develop many of these elements and thus put together a satisfying, and satisfyingly complex, read. In its current form, it just seems like an early draft.

This started out so well, building a world and raising so many questions. What's going on with the disturbing statues? Why are the characters acting so strangely? What's the mysterious backstory of the main character? Well, keep asking, because all the questions are either answered in an unsatisfying way, or not answered at all. It seems a waste of a good idea.

Ms. Valdez has taken a new job as a governess for Isabella. So far her experience has been...weird. After navigating a maze outside of the house where she was confronted with grotesque statues she was finally able to enter the home but has not yet been able to meet Isabella. No one will tell her much about the girl other than that she was in an accident and now needs help. Is this the job that she signed up for?

This one left me guessing the entire time. I was sure that I knew what the answers were going to be as I was reading and being introduced to each new character, but of course not. Shipp did a great job of taking some of the weirdest concepts and combining them with the traditional story of a new governess meeting a strange family. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and can definitely recommend it!

The nitty-gritty: A surreal, Gothic nightmare of a story that beautifully explores the depths of grief and loss.

I didn’t know I was in the mood for a creepy, Gothic horror story until I picked up The Atrocities, and boy did it deliver! This is one strange story, but it’s so well written and has so many emotional layers that I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind their stories on the weird side.

The story is narrated by Danna Valdez, a woman who has just taken on a governess position at a bleak, crumbling mansion, as teacher to a young girl named Isabella. Immediately the reader is thrown into the strangeness of Stockton House, as it’s referred to, as Danna must navigate a horrific hedge maze filled with gruesome statues in order to get to the main house. Once there, she is met by the household staff: a maid named Robin, Raul the gardener, and the owners of the house, Mr. and Mrs. Evers.

It isn’t long before Danna realizes that her new charge, Isabella, isn’t quite like other little girls. As she struggles to fit into the weird and surreal world of Stockton House, the mystery of Isabella and her odd relationship with her parents is slowly revealed. But Stockton House is hiding some horrible secrets, and Danna is about to discover them, like it or not.

Reading The Atrocities felt like jumping down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. Shipp throws readers right into the weirdness on the first page and that weirdness never really lets up. I loved the descriptions of Stockton House, with its ornately carved banisters and dark hallways, its portraits of bleeding and twisted bodies adorning the walls, and right in the middle of all the horror, the occupants of the house go about their business as if it were all normal. The oddness of the house is attributed to Mr. Evers’ eccentricities, but even the house staff are pretty weird. Raul is tasked with keeping track of Isabella’s tutu-wearing pet guinea pig, who may or may not be real (seriously, I wasn’t sure), and even some of Isabella’s toys seemed to move on their own at times. Because the reader is never really told the truth about what’s going on, I decided to draw my own conclusions about these strange happenings.

What really made this story special, however, were the emotional themes that Shipp explored through his characters. I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but it's hard because one of my favorite parts of this story is the way each character deals with their own particular loss. Let's just say that both Danna and Mr. and Mrs. Evers have recently suffered tragedies and are trying to deal with them, and I loved that the house acts as such a perfect setting for all the sadness swirling around.

The story takes an even darker turn at the end, if you can believe it, so if you’re a fan of visceral horror, you won’t be disappointed. I think my rating would have been even higher if the ending had made more sense, but to be honest I’m not exactly sure what happened. (Some crazy shit, that’s for sure!) The action felt rushed near the end, which could be why that part of the story just didn't come together for me.

Shipp has a talent for making the reader think one thing, and then presenting a completely different scenario that makes sense as well. I recommend this to lovers of Gothic and emotionally wrought horror who don’t mind some ambiguity in their fiction, and I can't wait to read something else by this talented writer.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

Jeremy C. Shipp has a fair bit of horror and dark fiction to his name on the market and has been published in a significant number of quality horror publications, but for whatever reason this was my first foray into his work. I was immediately immersed into this neat 112-page novella, published by Tor, and had a lot of fun in the couple of hours it took me to speed through.

Gothic in style, this haunting (maybe) ghost story had many fine moments and gleefully led the reader up the garden path with its dark haunting descriptions, ominous atmosphere, morbid setting, restrained (and nutty) characters with a quality central plot thrust which (almost) keeps it going to the end.

The novella opens with the Ms Danna Valdez on her way to Stockton House a remote country estate, where she is to be employed as the new governess to a little girl called Isabella. The blub gives away too many facts to my liking (avoid it if possible), but we quickly realise Isabella may not be a normal child. I don’t want to give away any more spoilers than that. I read the novella knowing very little about the plot and was all the better for starting it completely cold.

Expect strangeness straight from the start… Ms Valdez finds a wallet whilst approaching Stockton House and hands it to her hosts, unknowingly this is a test of her honesty and is part of her job ‘interview’ process! This is a very weird family. Her bosses Mr and Mrs Evers are an odd couple, Mrs Evers neurotic, nervous and protective of Isabelle, and her husband a reclusive painter who gives off odd vibes, hiding himself away most of the time. Throw into the mix a housekeeper who expects Ms Valdez not to see out her first day you have an intriguing premise which will have you rapidly turning the pages.

The setting of Stockton House is particularly effective and the ‘Atrocities’ of the title are grotesque figures and misshapen statues which dominate the buildings and surroundings. They are so unpleasant they seem to even seep into the unconscious psych. To the extent that the housekeeper tells Ms Valdez to watch light comedy before bed, that way nightmares involving the Atrocities are less likely to invade your dreams. It’s not surprising as many of these grotesques depict humans suffering creatively appalling deaths and Mr Evers seems to revel in the darkness.

The novella has some great sequences as Valdez begins to fracture, the Evers get odder, and strange surreal occurrences seem to be normal in the house. Shipp has crafted a tightly constructed tale that uses every page and image for maximum impact and is an excellent take on the classic haunted house story. Because it is so short, some of the events are deliberately questionable on what was real and what was not, another aspect which worked well.

The weak link of the novel was unfortunately the ending which I felt was weak, happened abruptly, and killed a fair bit of the atmosphere from earlier in the story. It had this great build up which seemed to run out of steam in the last ten percent and I went “Is that it?” I will be surprised if many readers find the ending satisfactory. The fact that the novella concluded at 94% of my Kindle only added an extra grumble as I was gearing up for a big finish which never happened.

What a strange little book this is.

Danna Valdez is summoned to Stockton House to home school young Isabella. Upon arrival she finds she has to navigate her way through a labyrinth of Atrocities. These are hideous sculptures of depraved images. When she is finally greeted at the front door and is shown around the mansion she can't help but feel eyes upon her. The artwork through out the house is just as sinister as the Atrocities she met outside. These images have the ability to cause horrific nightmares. When she finally meets Mr. & Mrs. Evers her feelings are only magnified by this eccentric couple. The thing they forgot to mention to Ms. Valdez is that their daughter, Isabella, is actually dead yet roaming the halls still.

This book is very dark and disturbing. Mr. Shipp can certainly set the scene. If you are a fan of horror and the bizarre then this is definitely a book to check out. At just over 100 pages I was able to bang this out in just a couple hours this morning. It was a nice change of pace to my typical thrillers I tend to devour.

I'm not ashamed to admit that the beautiful cover of this novella is actually what grabbed my attention. It's perfect!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor.com for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is short. I knew when I started reading it that it was short but there was just some things that didn't tie together. In the end, I wanted to shout at one of the characters 'why did you do this?'

Ms. Valdez is brought in to the exceptionally creepy Stockton House filled with misshapen statues to become a tutor for the family's young daughter; only to find out that the daughter is dead and she is meant to teach her spirit. Things continue to get weirder and creepier from there. Shipp has crafted a tightly wound novella that uses every page and image for maximum impact. I made the mistake of reading this before bed; not for the faint of heart but an excellent take on the classic haunted house story.

The concept for The Atrocities had a lot of potential, but ultimately it feels undercooked and in need of refinement.

While I applaud the author's willingness to drop us into the story already amidst the madness, an uncommon approach to a genre that usually relies on slow boil, it leaves the story without much of a Big Reveal.

Additionally, most of the "atrocities" come off more as absurdist than truly frightening, as does our villain. Cap that with the fact that Danna's previous problems are never explained, and the entire plot is just too open-ended to make a decent novella.

If I had to narrow down The Atrocities to just a few words, I would choose: surreal, beautiful and grotesque.

This is such an odd little book. It’s got the dread of Shirley Jackson mixed with the funhouse terror of Hieronymus Bosch.

From the moment our main character steps into a maze reminiscent of Italy’s Parco dei Mostri (park of the monsters), it’s clear that there’s something very wrong here.

The overtones are gothic, though the story is modern – and it’s very, very chilling.

It seems a little strange for me to describe this as beautiful. Everything in it is so terrifyingly distorted – this is visceral horror – but the author’s deft hand with description and atmosphere lift this beyond your usual horror fare.

The book is well-titled. There are atrocities on so many levels here, but it’s also lyrical, beautiful storytelling.

This one stays with you long after the last page is done.

DNF at 36%. This is a short read, but despite that I just cannot get into it and cannot fathom spending the next hour trying to finish it. This is just flat-out boring. I’ve got way too many freaking books in Mount TBR and this one is doing absolutely nothing for me. There’s no hook to engage me or hold my interest, and it’s far too plodding for my tastes. I give up.

One would think that with all the fiction with clear reasons why one should flee from this kind of job description, that characters would run screaming in the opposite direction when offered a job with weird instructions. at a remote country estate teaching children. And yet, Danna Valdez accepts just such an offer at the outset of The Atrocities, by Jeremy C. Shipp. Valdez experiences a full share of horror in her brief stay in this very short novelette. It’s a wonder anyone makes it out of the book alive.

The Atrocities of the title are the sculptures in the maze around and inside Stockton House. These grotesques depict humans suffering creatively appalling deaths. If it had been me, I would have noped out of the job offer immediately. Valdez is made of sterner stuff, guided by her need to help people. She wants to help Isabelle Evers however she can. Isabelle is, for some unexplained reason, unable to go to school with other children. The isolation is causing her to act out, Valdez is told.

Valdez gets another opportunity to escape Stockton House when she learns what’s really going on. She decides to tough it out. Her disturbing dreams and hints of something that might have gone wrong in her past help explain why, but I still marveled at what Valdez decides to take on because things are very, very wrong at Stockton House.

Because it is so short and so full of vivid events that made me question what was real and what wasn’t, The Atrocities is a thrilling ride. I was worried that if I put it down, I would lose the ominous atmosphere that the book created. I admit that I was also worried about Valdez. I didn’t want to pause my reading until I knew if she would be okay. This book would be a great read for readers looking for a genuinely scary horror story.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration. It will be released 17 April 2018.

I don’t quite know what I just read but it wasn’t any good.

Actual rating: 2.5

Turn left at the screaming woman with a collapsing face. Turn right at the kneeling man with bleeding sores the size of teacups.


I'm not sure what I expected while picking this title. Probably some nightmarish thrill and lovely creepiness. In a way, that's what I got.

Isabella's parents are determined to ensure her ongoing education even after her tragic death. The new governess wasn't informed about Isabella's condition, and when Ms. Valdez arrives at the estate, having forced herself through a surreal nightmare maze of twisted human-like statues, she discovers that there is no girl to tutor.

Or is there...?

Some parts of the book were scary and nicely written. There were moments that felt grotesque and genuinely creepy. But they were few.

On the other hand, Ms. Valdez is rather dull as a voice of the story. She had her share of trauma in the past and it seems she's going through PTSD episodes. That's something that allows getting deep into emotions. If only the character had any. Sadly, she acts in a stiff way and it's really difficult to connect with her.

The plot is resolved too conveniently and not all questions are answered.

In the end, it's a decent read with some unique imagery. It's short and quick to read. However, the characters were rather dull and unrelatable.

Netgalley provided me with free digital access to this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

Review: THE ATROCITIES by Jeremy C. Shipp

A Gallery of Grotesqueries, a House of Possession and Utter Madness, a Merging of Twin Realities. If Agatha Christie had fallen through a Lovecraftian Portal, and then penned a locked room mystery, with illustrations by William Blake, the result might resemble the vast estate, "The Atrocities," and its family, in this stunning Gothic panorama. (Or consider "The Fall of the House of Usher," if a collaboration by Lovecraft and Mary Shelley.

A haunting, grotesquely beautiful, atmospheric work of Gothic horror, The Atrocities didn't play out quite as I expected, but it's those final twists that elevated it from memorable to unforgettable.

Jeremy C. Shipp throws a lot at the reader in the opening pages, with the walk through the hedge maze more surreal than some stories in their entirety, but that's just setting the stage.

Turn right at the woman sliced into twelve pieces. Please don’t touch the statues. Please don’t litter.

Inside the house, things are just as creepy and unsettled, with the people just as odd as their surroundings. Part of what makes it so compelling is the quiet, understated narration of Ms. Danna Valdez, who never judges, never condemns, and never critiques. It's not that she's innocent or blind, she just has the mild, reserved personality of a proper governess.

Where the story begins to get really weird - and this is as much as I will say about the plot - is with the introduction of Isabella, the troubled young girl she is there to teach and guide.

“You can’t see her, can you? I was afraid you wouldn’t. Most people can’t. You see, um. You see, Isabella passed away in February."

That is a serious what-the-hell moment there, but the way it's handled is brilliant. Shipp plays the story close to the chest, holding back the truth about Isabella until the very end. Is she a ghost? Did she ever really exist? Is she truly dead? Those are just a few of the questions we ask ourselves, especially as Danna's nightmares cause us to question just how reliable a narrator she is, and as the quirks of the family and the staff have us wondering just how much they know.

Beneath all of the Gothic trappings, however, this is a poignant story about the heavy, suffocating burden of grief. Death, loss, and mourning define everything about this, from The Atrocities in the garden, to the house itself, to Mr. and Mrs. Evers, and even to Danna, who we slowly come to understand has her own grief to haunt her.

I knew that Mrs. Evers was sick with grief, but now she seems away with the fairies, as they say.

While I thought I knew where this was all headed, just as I was patting myself on the back for being so clever, Shipp triggered a trap door, revealing yet another layer to the horror. An absolutely brilliant ending, and one that haunts you even more, the longer you think about it.