This dark thriller kept me guessing on every page. The deeply disturbing plot/storyline, flawed (read: psychopathic?) characters, and detailed writing kept me up late into the night. An impressive debut about a scarred and traumautized woman confronting an atrocious crime committed against her family.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2776554106

I'm not usually one for creepy ghost stories, but OH, this book! Very surprising that it's a debut novel as I believe it rivals some of Stephen King's in terms of the "creep factor." Protagonist Dixie was a toddler when her father interrupted the family breakfast by butchering his wife, his young sons, and then slitting his own throat. Now, twenty-five years later, Dixie feels compelled to buy her old house that is up for sale as she feels there are answers awaiting her. Of course her boyfriend, Garrett is horrified by this decision and refuses to live there with her. And so begins her tale as the house appears to be haunted by her dead family; she hears unusual sounds, music, and personal items turn up where she least expects them. I would suggest not reading this at night; I did and it intensified the creepiness more than I imagined. Yes, it's bloody, gory, and really gruesome, but the storyline is worth it all! I look forward to reading more by Vandelly!

Theme Music is a nerve-wracking, twisted thriller. I had to put down the book a couple times due to the sheer goriness...but, the story was quite fantastic. Vandelly did a great job leaving the reader on edge and breathless through much of the book. I had a hard time falling asleep last night after I had begun reading! Theme Music seemed to get increasingly darker with each chapter. The atmosphere rushed out of the book like a haunting shadow. I could feel the ice prickles across the back of my neck and could almost smell the mustiness and decay that was worded within the pages. If you can handle gore and enjoy thrillers with a dark twist, you should give this a read!

Dixie was only 1 when her father butchered her entire family and then turned the knife on himself. Throughout her life, Dixie has always wondered why a seemingly normal man could turn into an axe murderer. As an adult now, she finds that her family's house is up for sale and she can't resist buying it. Her curiosity and want to know what happened all those years ago lead her down a dark journey. After moving in, she gathered all her family's old furniture from her Aunt's house. Setting everything the way it would have looked 25 years ago, the house looked like an eerie replica. Soon, the ghosts from her past return with a vengeance and Dixie is caught in something that could cost her her life. When dark secrets begin to reveal themselves, Dixie is caught in a loop of the past and danger in the present.

Theme Music is a creepy book that will have you questioning sounds and shadows in your own home. Great thriller with a twisted conclusion.

Thank you to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for this ARC.

This was a seriously twisted book - mostly in a good way - and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even when I was reading with one hand over my eyes as though to shield my brain from what I was seeing...

Dixie should be a difficult protagonist to relate to or like, but somehow I found myself doing both things almost from the get-go. She is broken. Indelibly broken. There's a very good reason for it, but Vandelly does a very nice job of never letting you forget that this is a girl on the edge and that her motives and actions are therefore not entirely to be trusted... At least, I felt that way right up until the Big Reveal , when it felt as though all of that previous edgy brokenness was somehow swept under the carpet and she was the sanest person in the room. I found that a bit jarring and discordant with the previous 95% of the story, but it was still interesting to see how it all played out. I think that's a testament to the author's ability to tell a good story. Even when things didn't feel quite right, they were still very engaging and I couldn't turn pages fast enough to figure out what would happen next.

From the first pages I had no idea where the author was going with this one, in a very good way. It is indeed gruesome - there are no punches pulled and the violence is slathered on like butter on bread. For all that, it's a very entertaining story with a lot of lies and secrets and twists and red herrings, and I found the journeys into Dixie's mind to be some of the most fascinating bits of all. She's a great darkly funny, wry and sarcastic protagonist, and I loved how she had either a fainter or much broader grasp of reality than everyone around her at various points in the book. It made her a very interesting character and very enjoyable to read.

It would have been a 4-star read for me, but for the weirdly tidy way everything got pulled together. That felt rushed and off pace with the vast majority of the book. It was a satisfying enough conclusion, don't get me wrong, it just felt like it all came together too fast and too tidily and that's the only thing that kept it from being a 4-star read for me. The writing is very good throughout, with more description than you'll want and a snarky tone that I thought was a graleat foil for all of the bloody violence.

I will look for more from this author, although like other reviewers I hope it will be slightly less gruesome LOL, as this one nearly put me off breakfast with my family forever... :-)

I was attracted to this book by the cover, the title, and the description although the description also repelled me with it's mentions of throat slashing, a mother and her sons butchered by the husband/father, slaughter by axe, and other things gave me doubts if I could handle reading this book. In the end, I know I will be reading another T. Marie Vandelly book but I do hope that she writes about something with less gore, slaughter, and butchery. My "blood bucket" (a term the author uses to describe how much more violence a person can stand), was full before the prologue was over.

Twenty-seven year old Dixie Wheeler is the sole survivor of a family massacre. Her dad used a huge axe to butcher her mom and three brothers during breakfast and then her dad slit his own throat. For reasons unknown, two year old Dixie was left unharmed, sitting in her high chair. Dixie than spends her life wondering why she was spared and thinking that living on without her family is the worst thing that could happen to a person.

When Dixie sees that her old family home, the site of the slaughter, is for sale, she jumps at the chance to buy it. Not only that, Dixie moves in every piece of furniture and household goods that her late uncle had stored and places everything exactly where it had been before, based on crime scene and old family photos. Dixie is not mentally or emotionally stable, a state that she attributes to having a family murdering father. Prepare yourself for an unreliable narrator in Dixie, who drinks heavily, has blackouts at very suspicious times, and feels that her father lives through her sometimes. Dixie lies to herself so she definitely lies to others when it fits her needs.

This book has a lot liars, a lot of secrets, and yet I couldn't help laughing at the thoughts of Dixie. She has such a sarcastic, dry humor which she employs while speaking and thinking and my favorite parts of the book were when Mr Cullens, the former investigator on the Wheeler family murder case, is with Dixie. He never misses her play on words, enjoying them as much as I did. Other than Mr Cullens, everyone seems suspicious to me and I was afraid for everyone's lives. Dixie thinks that her dad may not have killed her family and if that is so, the murderer is probably still among the living.

I liked the epilogue of the book but I just want to say that Dixie is not okay in my mind. There are a lot of excuses, blame placed on others, and deflecting in this book and there is a part of Dixie that I don't think can ever be fixed. Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for this ARC.