While I understand the author's intentions for this book it all fell flat for me. In fact the best part sadly was the blurb. The characters were unlikable but also felt hollow and read more like extras than people with histories and traumas of their own. There is also a high gore level that I felt went overboard.

This book was way better than I expected. Super suspenseful and tons of jump scares. A cross between the movies The Hills Have Eyes (cannibalism), Saw (traps), and teen slasher films from the 80s, but with a supernatural twist. It's scary and extremely gruesome, like stomach turningly so. But so much scary fun.
But what the heck with that ending? I feel like I'm missing a few chapters or something. Left me hanging with no proper conclusion. Did the author even finish the book? Possibly the worst ending of any book I've ever read, which resulted in me removing a star.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crossroad Press for this eARC.

2/5
Unfortunately, this wasn't for me. The premise of this book sounded good but it didn't deliver. The story is supposed to be thrilling or spooky and it didn't give any of those feelings. The six main characters were unlikable and half of the time, i was really confused by their actions.
The writing wasn't for me either. I think at times, the plot was all over the place and it didn't make sense.
Overall i wouldn't recommend this one.

Typical teenagers looking for a fun time at Halloween but it doesn't quite go as planned is the premise of this book. The characters were well-written and the plot flowed well up until the ending. The ending for me was very anti-climatic and disappointing because it wasn't a cliff hanger nor was it all tied up with a nice bow so it just kind of was there. I voluntarily reviewed an advance readers copy of this book.

Six teens head out to the boonies for some Halloween fun at a haunted junkyard attraction called the Spook Trail. The place looks like something out of a bad horror movie, complete with a creepy little person running the ticket booth.

It's all fun until they enter a spinning, circular room, where they are separated into pairs. As they work their way through different mazes, they discover they are being stalked by creatures much darker than anything they could have imagined, and those creatures are craving flesh.

Will any of them survive the Spook Trail?

This was fiendishly fantastic and I just want more more more from Kerry’s messed up mind!

What a concept… who thought a haunted house attraction could be so ‘deadly’ and I will never never look at a junkyard or a ‘little person’ the same again!

Gore, violence, humour, romance, teenage angst, witty literary tropes and supernatural mayhem this book has it all. I honestly felt like I went into that spinning circular room with them and came out to a total mind-bending festival of horrific and violent proportions that genuinely left me thinking wtf did I just read …. But I LOVED IT! Writing and characterisation could do with a little polishing but otherwise a delicious wee read for diehard gory horror fans that don’t take themselves too seriously!

#books #reading #bookreviewsbymrsc #spooktrail #vickerry #horrorfiction #bookstagram #instabooks #bookreviews #honestbookreviews #horrorbookreviews

I like this book, It is your typical teen slasher type story, a group of teen go to a Halloween theme maze, and things quickly turn deadly.

I always like reading about a new creature or type of villain, the ones in this are based off a Native American legend, I found the writing a bit inconsistent at times, with a few obscure words here and there, making me think the author got one of those ‘word a day’ calendars, lol, but it didn’t affect the flow of the story, the characters were a bit flat and not that likeable and the ending was very abrupt, so much so, I checked that there wasn’t another chapter.

All in all, the book felt a bit rushed and it probably could have used another going over before publishing, but I enjoyed it I give it 3.5 out of 5.

I recommend this to anyone who wants a b-grade slasher type read.

*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.*

For better or worse, Spook Trail is a 90s B horror movie in book form. You can decide whether that’s a good thing or not. Sadly I can’t say that any of the characters are all that likable, with a few them being flat out A holes. Of course I’m pretty sure that’s actually how they are meant to be portrayed, but it did mean that I never really connected with the characters. As for the story, it isn’t that bad, it’s just a bit cliché. I could easily see this being a syfy channel movie of the week. It’s a fairly quick but ultimately forgettable story. Not horrible but not great. 2.5 stars out of 5 (rounded up to 3)
Thanks to Crossroad Press, Macabre Ink, and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an eARC of Spook Trail.

I liked the idea a lot. Funhouses are the best, mostly at Halloween time, but I felt it was a little repetitive about some stuff. I didn’t connect with the characters (as they were not very likeable) nor the story itself, but I consider the main plot very original. It’s unfortunate, but I didn’t enjoyed Spook Trail as I expected.

Unfortunately I did not get a chance to get to this book Unfortunately. I will check it out online. Thank you for accepting me though. Happy pub day

Overall, Spook Trail lives up to its title. It’s spooky, it’s gory, and it’s fast-paced and easy to read. The action starts very early in to keep readers hooked. This wasn’t totally my thing, but I enjoyed the read nonetheless.

This was a REALLY tough read. None of the characters are like able and I can usually get over that if the story/writing is good but this was not the case. All the guys in this book were written as misogynistic bullies and the girls were written as sluts or angry. Particularly Mitch…the jock who purposely cheated on his girlfriend for sport I suppose. These characters are horrible. Not to mention the cultural appropriation sprinkled in at the end, definitely shocking and not at all ok.

I tend to request titles without studying reviews, as I don’t want spoilers or any bias affecting my reading. I might not have requested it, had I seen the poor reviews. This was certainly not a terrible book…it just wasn’t particularly good, either. Nice creepy premise that seemed to lose its way quickly…too much back and forth (same innocuous settings), too little promised “haunt” environment, too much gore (repeated descriptions of the same grisly details):

Would you go into a maze called sook trail on Halloween? This is all we know when going into Vick Kerry's horror book. It was enough to get my attention.

Set on Halloween, a rather unlikely group of friends go to the spook trail and get way more than they bargained for.

I really liked this idea and enjoyed the references to classic horror movies and haunted attractions at the start of the book. Our characters start off unfazed by them so we know their opinion on horror.

I did wonder how all these characters were friends. Dwight was a dick and a bully, nothing else to him. Lydia seemed nice but went with the flow to easily. Harrison I really liked, he seemed the only one I would've got along with. He's slightly nerdy and mature. Jake, I didn't like until the end. His character really comes through as you get to know him. Miriam frustrated me. Keneitra I thought was cool, she was realistic and nice.

These characters seem so unlikely to be friends and I'm not sure how they all got dragged into this, nome of them were strong enough to say no. However, we wouldn't have a story otherwise would we?

As they go through the maze we quickly realize this is not an ordinary maze. Things get hostile, bleak and deadly. Broken down into multiple points of views the story sets a nice pace.

As we go deeper into the story there is a twist. I did enjoy this twist and thought it terrifying. As our characters struggle to stay alive, the writing drags you in and your trying to figure out what they could do to survive. I did struggle with how the characters reacted to certain things. I really think they should have reacted different rather than how they did. However, this was not enough to stop.me reading.

The ending though! I thought it was really good. This is certainly nothing like I have read before.

Thank you to Net Galley for my review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A family emergency prevented me from downloading this book prior to the archive date. I am still very interested in reviewing this book if there is a way I can obtain an ARC. Thank you.

Hmmm....this was not what I expected. I expected more of a "teens trapped in an evil escape room surrounded by creatures" kind of thing. What I got was the written form of a B movie teen slasher film from back in the days when people thought would pay 5 cents to go to a "freak show" at the local fair. I got turned off by the overuse of stereotypes (pick 6 teen slasher stereotypes, 3 boys and 3 girls and insert here). I think that the author has a good concept, but lacked the imagination to pull it off so instead of writing in creepiness, foreboding, ambience for a psychological horror piece he went the slasher route. The use of "murderous midgets" (not my terminology) was offensive to me. I do thank #netgalley for the opportunity to read #SpookTrail though. It just wasn't for me.

I’m the first to rate and review this book. You’d think there’d be more readership, considering the time of the season. Come on, people, time to get spooky.
This was originally going to be my October 31s read, but I ended up getting to it sooner. It was acquired for the purposes of trying to get in the proper October mood and served its purpose to an extent.
To be fair, teen slashers aren’t exactly my jam, and so it stands to be mentioned first and foremost that for a teen slasher this was actually quite good. The teens were nowhere near as annoying as they tend to be and the slashing was creative enough…but then it got to be too much, the slashing not the teens.
The basic idea here is a crazy spooky maze created based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, the man who was all about crazy and spooky, though it’s difficult to imagine him traipsing through mazes in abandoned junkyards.
But for a bunch of teens, three couples to be precise, it’s a wildly appealing idea. Until it isn’t…which is pretty much almost immediately upon arriving there. The entire thing, as it turns out, is operated by murderous midgets (I know that isn’t the currently PC mandated designation, but can’t resist the alliteration, sorry) with a strong penchant for cannibalism.
Throw is some Native American mythology and some Saw-like Poe inspired chambers of death and it’s all kinds of gory bloody fun.
The only thing is I’m not a huge gore and guts fan, preferring the more psychological scares, and so eventually the book for me just got to be too much. And the ending of it was so oddly abrupt, it makes you triple check to make sure nothing was skipped.
But other than that, it was a pretty decent scary read, very October themed and fun, especially if you’re into that sort of thing. Quite decently written too and so I’m doing that once in a blue moon thing where I uprate the title. There you go, world, book reviewed. Now you know. Enjoy accordingly. Thanks Netgalley.

This is just as bad as they come.

Admittedly it is difficult to translate what amounts to a slasher movie into novel form. But this? This ain’t it.

It’s a pretty basic setup. You have a lot of teen stereotypes that travel together to a haunted trail. When they arrive, it turns out it is just an elaborate game to murder and eat them. For what it is worth, the teens inform us many times over that it doesn’t make any sense. They are right.

The characters are both disposable and intolerable. You simply don’t care if they die, but the more they talk the more you want something terrible to happen to them just to shut them up. These are just awful characters, I can’t express that enough. I’m not looking for Donna Tartt levels of development in a horror book, but man, something redeemable or likeable wouldn’t hurt.

If there is something I’ve learned this October it is that good horror is hard to write and even harder to find. Spook Trail is just a terrible, irredeemable book. Much like the kids in this book, don’t be stupid enough to walk down this path.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher/author for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for my honest review.

I was very intrigued by the synopsis of this book but it just didn't meet up to my expectations. I was really wanting more. I felt the story could have been very strong but just wasn't laid out properly. I felt like there were just things missing and at times hard to follow. I wanted to love it but just didn't. I did look the author of on Goodreads and I do show that he has other works out so I may check rating on his other works and see if any seem like some I would want to give another try.

I requested this book because the premise sounded interesting. Unfortunately for me, the story didn't live up to the description. Half the characters were unlikable and/or evoked no feelings of sympathy towards them. The writing was inconsistent, as at times the characters ranged from sounded scholarly and above their age to sounding downright juvenile, like a teenager wrote the story. And the "crazy" element behind the villains too often ventured into just silliness. I hate to give a low rating to a book I received for free, but I just didn't like it.

I’m so shocked and annoyed that I’m not even sure where to start this. A quick overview of the novel as a whole: A quick-pace slasher that seems like a rip-off of the movie Haunt (2019), except it was badly executed with one-dimensional characters, stiff dialogue, constant word repetition and desperately needing a rewrite. I’ll be sure to stay far far far away from anything Vic Kerry has ever written or writes in the future and I recommend you to do the same.

ATTENTION - THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON

The characters are not only the clichê archetypes present in every slasher, but also written in a way that was forced, misogynistic, racist, and all-around offensive. The (literal) monsters were a family of little people that hunted the teenagers in order to eat them as if that wasn’t bad enough, the reader finds out later that they’re actually Hecesiiteihii. The Hecesiiteihii come from an Arapaho legend and are, essentially (as described by Google) “cannibal dwarfs”, so add ripping off your “monsters” from Native American culture to the list of awful things contained in a single novel. Now we move on to the main characters and even more offensive content.

The Angry Black Girl: Keneitra is implied to have had a rough life, mentioning how many times she’d had to physically fight others, is always in confrontational mode even before they’d entered the Spook Trail Maze, was the only one that disagreed with the group later on in the story and had to be convinced by the Good Virgin Girl to keep going and was also the only one to refer to the little people as midgets. Keneitra was Harrison’s blind date to the Spook Trail Maze, meaning the author couldn’t even be bothered to put the only black character in the core friend group which also resulted in her having the least amount of backstory.

The Asshole Boyfriend/Drug User: Dwight is Mirian’s boyfriend and his favorite pastime is cheating on her with as many girls as he possibly can, he is a major douchebag, sexist, and bullies all of his friends (who, for some unknown reason continue to hang out with him, even though they all hate Dwight). He’s the one that “drags” the group to the Spook Trail maze, he also takes LCD before driving to the maze, in case the reader hadn’t already picked up on the fact that he doesn’t care about anyone except himself. Dwight is also, thankfully, the first to die and we are spared from having to read chapters in his POV.

The Good Virgin Girl: Mirian’s Dwight girlfriend and has been with him for a while, even though she is aware that he is constantly cheating on her and treats her like garbage. For absolutely no good reason she decides to tag along to the Spook Trail, which makes no sense because she doesn’t like anything horror and dumped him during dinner before they arrived at the attraction. She is described as being positive and loving, always worried about other people, but also determined and emotionally strong, as if she wasn’t enough of a cliche already. She is also always being protected by Jake, without whom she wouldn’t have lasted five seconds.

The Condescending Nerd: Harrison is, surprise surprise, another misogynistic asshole, but the author clearly didn’t intend the reader to see him that way since he survives almost until the end and Kerry’s logic was pretty much killing them from the biggest POS to the nicest one (Mirian). Nonetheless, he has been set up on several blind dates by his friend Lydia (The Whore) and he hated all of them because all of the girls were “shallow” and only talked about their “petty dramas” and even had the nerve to get angry and throw their drinks in his face when he started to blatantly ignore him. According to him, the problem was that Lydia kept setting him up with pretty girls when what he wanted was a girl with “substance” that could “maintain an interesting enough conversation” to “keep his mind from wandering.”

The Whore: Lydia is constructed to be Dwight’s female version, supposedly not good enough for Jake because you guessed it, she was too shallow and a whore that gets bored of boys easily. Mind you, this girl is never mentioned to have cheated on him and what made her superficial was buying a new outfit to go into the maze, due to the fact that she didn’t own anything appropriate for that kind of activity. Oh yes, she also “swore like a sailor”, which apparently is enough to mark her as a “bad girl.”

The Nice Guy: Jake is supposed to be Mirian’s ideal romantic partner, they are both in relationships that they don’t want to be in with people that are not nice and “worthy” of their companionship. In Jake’s words, Lydia and Dwight deserved to be together due to how awful they were, however, he hasn’t broken up with her, even though he has no respect for Lydia. He hears Miran swear in one of the scenes and is shocked because he sees her as a “good girl”, whereas his girlfriend “swore like a sailor”, but “Jake he’d never thought of her as a good girl.”