Whisper Down the Lane is a dark and oftentimes rage-inducing tale of identity, guilt, and pain. Richard, an art teacher in Virginia comes across a gutted school rabbit that appears to have ritualistic connotations. It shouts out at him and can’t help but wonder if it was carried out in his name. This is a story often not healthy for the reader's continuation of life – but isn’t that the best kind of novel? It’s edgy and frank and it doesn’t care for your feelings…it doesn’t care one bit.

Whisper Down the Lane is hard-hitting – think of a mallet pounding into your temple. With that visual in mind, it will give you a more realistic view of how this book made me feel. Chapman’s intricate motivation for his research pays off, I felt more than once throwing the book across the room. I ached for characters and I wanted to thoroughly shake more than one of them.

We are given two alternating POVs from 5-year-old Sean in 1983 and thirty-something Richard in 2013. Sean is a timid little boy who has never quite found his place amongst friends or at school. He’s essentially a pleaser and wants everyone to be happy. If that’s telling the adults what they want to hear, so be it. He moves to Greenfield, Virginia with his mum. His mum doesn’t have much, and it comes across as if she is constantly running from something. She’s a vacant and emotionally distant parental figure and from here I think that Sean perpetually wants to please everyone. He’s never fully got the love from his mother and he craves it…he needs it. All is going well in his new school, until of course, it isn’t.

Whispers Down the Lane is impeccable at examining the intricacies of the pressures and strains and the deck of cards type impact of serious allegations. One white lie is all it takes to set off a disastrous chain of events for all involved. Careers and families are destroyed for many years to come. We meet Richard an art teacher who lives with his wife Tamara and her five-year-old son. He wants to have a great relationship with him and talks to him about his adoptive past. Today’s events start spiraling and he quickly loses control. Guilt is a powerful emotion, and this was probably the best example of it that I have ever read.

The story is so fucking complex, and my eyes ended up stinging from how intensely I was staring at the words. Nothing was as black and white as it was being out to be. A story so superbly imaginative but realistic in the same breath. I loved the portrayal of satanism thrown into the mix because nothing winds people up more is the thought of children mixed up in satanic ritual. It’s a horror story of how humanity can be turned and that’s the real horror – humans can be the real horror.

Whisper Down the Lane is no trope rehash – it's original and a genuine page-turner. Authentically chilling.

“I never believed in the Devil. Until the Devil began believing in me.”

If you’re at all interested in the satanic panic, then this one is for you. It’s a fictionalized story of what it would have been like to be at the center of it all. I can see this one becoming a movie, especially since Elijah Wood interviewed the author.

I kind of called what was going to happen, but the execution of it was nonetheless flawless. And then the last few pages…👏🏻👏🏻 What a way to finish. I highly recommend this for those interested in thrillers, true crime, and Gyllian Flynn/Karin Slaughter.

So the first thing that drew me to this book was definitely the cover!! I did not realise until after I had finished reading that it was based on true crime!

Told in alternating chapters of Sean(1983) and Richard(2013) who are the same person this is done well and didn't at any point become confusing and then their stories eventually become intertwined.

Based on Satanic Panic of the 80's this book has some dark and pretty creepy scenes! It was a really gripping read and definitely psychological horror as you see the lies and how Sean was pushed by the adults who were supposed to be protecting him and at the same time watch Richard becomes an unreliable narrator as his mental health declines! Just imagine a white lie you told as a child spiralled and spiralled so far that your whole life would never be the same again!

One thing that annoyed me was.... If Richard as an adult had just owned up and came clean to the other adults in his life he would have saved a whole lot of hassle 🤷🏻🤣

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdoXsUpLeVl/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I couldn’t read this title due to the poor formatting on the eBook. I tried to read via kindle app on my iPhone, browser, and my actual kindle. I redownloaded with no help either. I’m going to read the physical book but, for positive reviews please please format this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quirk Books for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. This was a novel I feel like I've been waiting to read for years. I've always had an underlying fascination with the satanic panic era of history and this book takes that era of history and explores it in a fictional (but slightly too true) way. It bases some of its main storyline on the McMartin preschool trial which is a true thing that happened and I encourage you to research a bit about that before jumping into this if you are not already familiar. This book is sporadic in a good way. I could never get a good grasp on the main character's thoughts despite some of the book being written in first person because as a reader you aren't supposed to know what to trust. The unreliable narrator trope is one I usually love but it is not usually done as well as it is in this novel. One thing I don't usually love in books is small time jumps because I like to sit with characters in the more dull moments and in their thoughts but it somehow worked for this novel. I would've loved it to be longer, but the shorter novel length with skips where not too much plot was occurring works. If you are looking for classic horror without fancy bells and whistles, this is for you. The simple writing style made it super easy to read and kept me engaged the entire time. It also had one of the best opening scenes of a horror novel I have ever read. I never wanted to put the book down and flew through its faster pacing. This would make a fantastic horror movie and now I really want to see it done. Can't wait to check out other works by this author.

Sometimes it benefits readers going blind into reading a new novel - this isn't the case with Whisper Down the Lane.

Given its basis on a true story, this would have made it more of a cohesive read (certainly early on).

We flit between two-time frames, a 5-year old who becomes involved in a satanic panic case at his school and Richard, a thirty-something who has recently married a woman who also has a young boy.

This makes for a jarring read given there doesn't seem to be too much connective tissue until around halfway through the story.

From here on out Whispers Down The Lane becomes a really engrossing read and doesn't hold back from going to some dark places.

As I say, do a little bit of background before you start and you will be guaranteed to really enjoy this story.

DNF.
I was excited to read this one, but the ARC I have received is completely unreadable, worst formatting I have ever seen.
Will purchase instead.

Thanks to NetGalley for an e-arc of this in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In some ways, this book just wasn't for me. In other ways, it's objectively bland. I came into this expecting for some kind of demonic/satanic horror story. Sure, that's there, but the book is also openly advertised as true-crime based horror. I prefer fantasy-supernatural stories, but this isn't that. I don't think it being that made it objectively bad. Although, it was the first bit of disappointment. Too often, thriller books like to play at being horror when they are so blatantly not horror (cough cough, Riley Sager), and it seriously undercuts the effectiveness of the book for me as a horror reader. To Chapman's credit, this was 100% horror. The creep was there, even terror at times. Even knowing this was all make believe, it was disturbing. Nevertheless, I don't understand the desire to undercut your book from the get go, but completely dismissing the mere possibility that maybe this is something more going on (it's fiction after all). In some ways, it excels. In others, it's its own worse any enemy.

Then there are the more fundamental problems with the book. The story, while interesting, and objectively compelling, is full of caricatures. It's almost laughable how much of this story is built on stereotypes. It's cringe at time. "I heard sandy hook was a hoax by the Dems to push gun control." *Then proceeds a generic back and forth meant to highlight he absurdity of such people. Don't get me wrong, everything in this is based on real things that have happened, but it lacks nuance. It makes the book be nothing more than an entertaining ride. Entertaining isn't bad; although it can be lazy IMO.

Speaking of lazy, much of the story is built on convenient mental illness. Even our main character, as traumatic as his childhood was, seems perfectly fine (mostly) in his adulthood, until he is not. Again, don't get me wrong, many of the choices in the book seem reasonable in concept, but the execution is sub par. The reliance on mental health feels lazy and poorly handled. Chapman had a great opportunity to really dig into the themes explored in this book, but he failed to do that. The entire book is built on a child being coerced into making wildly insane and untrue claims. I don't think sufficient effort was put into acknowledging his role as a victim, considering he was a child.

I know I'm focusing on the bad, but isn't all bad. It's resoundingly fine.

3/5 stars

Unfortunately, I was not a fan of this book. There was so much potential but I don't feel like it really got there. It felt very redundent and predictable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this.

Well........that's all I have to say to start off with. I very much enjoyed this book but feel weird saying that. The writing, story, characters, all of it is there. It's great.....but the story itself had me physically cringing through the whole thing. This is a work of fiction based on a real life event (uh hum McMartin preschool trials) which makes it even cringier. Even knowing that it was all fabricated, it still leaves that bad taste in your mouth. Satanic Panic in the 80's has always intrigued me. So, this novel is right up my road. If you have the stomach for it, dive on in, the story is great!

One of the things that I enjoyed the most was the dual timelines and the character(s) of Sean and Richard. I felt that mystery and intrigue all the way through. My heart bled for both and I was rooting for them while also shaking my head at them. Anyone intrigued by psychology (especially child psychology) would love this. The author did his research and I found it refreshing that he included that in his book. It's clearly about Satanic Panic while also not throwing it in your face. Don't get me wrong, what's there is THERE and hard to stomach but it shows how subtly things got out of control. And how something small lead to the damage of so many lives that lived on for many years, even if you only get a glimpse of a few.

Another cringey thing that I have a love/hate relationship with authors/books is when they make the characters "lose their minds" in an unreliable way. It's that writing that makes you question if the character is going crazy or if everything they're experiencing is real and we're missing context. Those type of books always read like thrillers to me even when they're not.

The only thing that I found lacking was certain story lines or characters that I didn't think were needed or explained. I'm a sucker for closed stories and want to know where everyone "ends up" and there were some things that just left me unsatisfied.

Overall, I would recommend this for readers of horror. While this is clearly a book that is related to satanism and there are definitely going to be TW, I want to highlight that there is writing on Child Abuse, Pedophilia, and Animal Abuse/Death (briefly). There are more but these are the ones that I found the most triggering but I don't think was written in an unnecessary or shocking way. It added to the story and moved right along and doesn't go overboard on details.

Thank you NetGalley and Quirk Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If the cover does not already speak for itself, this book is CREEPY.

I also loved every minute of it .

Whisper Down the Lane is a story of a child who falsely testified against one of his teachers that started a widespread hysteria in the 1980s for the "Satanic Panic" . This is Richard's story, previously known as "Sean". Told from dual narratives flashing back from childhood to present day.

Richard, was not born "Richard" , it is as if he is a boy without a past. Living under a new name, attempting to hide from the secrets of his past. Richard is married and also the happy parent of a little boy, Elijah. When a ritualistic killing of a rabbit is found on school property, Richard knows this is for him.

Someone is out to make Richard (Sean) pay for what had happened all those years ago. Someone knows of the lies that little Sean had told back in the day. That same someone wants to make Richard pay.

This is an insane cat and mouse book. My anxiety levels were through the roof at each turn of the page. I caught myself holding my breath numerous times not knowing what was going to come next.

I highly recommend Whisper Down the Lane and I have become a huge fan of Clay McLeod Chapman. I absolutely can not wait to see what this author comes out with next. This was an easy 5 star read.

Read this book if you like: True crime based books, feeling totally creeped out by a book

This book was inspired by the McMartin preschool trials and the Satanic Panic of the ‘80s. I didn't even know this was a thing. I was born in 1987. This book shocked me.

Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, a first chance at fatherhood to her son Elijah, and a quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah’s elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn’t have a birthday but Sean does.

Sean is a five-year-old boy who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother. Like most mothers of the 1980s, she’s worried about bills, childcare, putting food on the table and an encroaching threat to American life that can take the face of anyone: a politician, a friendly neighbor, or even a teacher. When Sean’s school sends a letter to the parents revealing that Sean’s favorite teacher is under investigation, a white lie from Sean lights a fire that engulfs the entire nation with Sean and his mother are left holding the match.

Now, thirty years later, someone is here to remind Richard that they remember what Sean did. Though Sean doesn’t exist anymore, someone needs to pay the price for his lies.

This book is creepy. It's gripping and shocking with the realism. This is how some people really are. They are so quick to believe conspiracies. The way this showed the world so quickly turning on each other. Wow. This book paints a terrifying picture.

This is my first read by him and won't be my last. It's so well written. Definitely recommend it. Check the triggers as there are many*

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Quirk books for the ARC!

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me.
For a relatively small book I found the first 30-40% quite a slog to get through. There was very little to suggest it as a horror for a significant portion of the book also.
There were also too many character POVs for me to really grasp on to any one in particular, perhaps the time jumps also contributed to this. I didn't feel they were written with a huge amount of depth, unfortunately, which just made it difficult for me to be invested as plot unfolded.

Although this writing style wasn't to my personal taste, I'd still recommend to readers who enjoy or don't mind slower paced horror and who perhaps enjoy Stephen King's sometimes meandering style of narration.

What a creepy and scary story! The connections to the McMartin Preschool trial were immediately apparent as we the reader got to sit in the mind of one of the children lead into false testimony against their teachers. If you have never watched some of those interviews then this entire thing will seem completely unbelievable. But those so-called counselors were really this bad. And if you have ever wondered what would become of those children (only a few have spoken about it) this is one take on that, too.

The tension is built as the story springs back and forth between Sean in 1983 and Richard in 2013 as we see their two tales mirror each other. The author doesn’t really hide anything from the reader, it more seems that Richard is hiding from himself. We can see what is happening and are only half as in the dark as is the man who never got the help her needed as a boy.

It may be a controversial opinion, or at least not completely agreed upon, but I loved the ending. The confusion in Richard and the confusion in Sean are part of the appeal as the story screams to a crescendo. I do wish a few characters had been a little more fleshed out, but this was a quick read story and not an epic tale. It could have been written as either. Thanks to NetGalley, Clay McLeod Chapman, and Quirk Books for the ARC. I’ll be looking into more from this author in the future.

Richard is a quiet elementary art teacher in Virginia. He’s got a new wife and the opportunity to be a good dad, but when a ritualistically killed rabbit shows up on the lawn of his school, the past comes flooding back. He doesn’t have a past, or rather, he doesn’t think about it. As a child, Richard was called Sean and played a part of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, coached by law enforcement and encouraged by his mom, Richard testified against his teachers, revealing details about occult rituals that happened in his elementary school. Richard’s past is about to come back to haunt him, and it may really be happening this time.

Ever since The Remaking, I’ll read anything Chapman writes, and in fact, I’m looking forward to another upcoming book. While I didn’t love this one as much as Remaking, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I read it in no time. I’m low-key obsessed with cults and cccult-type stuff, so this was right up my alley. I’m also fascinated with the Satanic Panic and how so many people could throw reason out the window in favor of a child’s coach recounting of such ridiculous things.

The thing I loved about this book is that it humanized that time in our history. It showed step by step how so many people went down the rabbit hole, and despite how ludicrous it sounds today, it makes more sense in context of this story. I completely dug it. It’s not perfect, and I wouldn’t say it falls apart at the end, but it is just a little disappointing. Overall, though, solid work of horror, and I recommend it for fans of occult horror. It’s out. It’s been out. I’m so behind, haha! Anyway, get it wherever you get your books now.

This is a well-written book that really disturbed me! The subject matter was compelling and worrying, not only as the book is based on a true story that I knew a little about, but in that it reflects modern-day gaslighting, alternative facts and fake news, all of which are detrimental to society, I think. A great read and an excellent choice for a reading group with a taste for challenging subjects. Thank you for allowing me to read and review.

When Satanic Panic rears its ugly head, back for revenge. I remember the era well, the news stories, so that made this fun and nostalgic in some ways. However, this gets pretty dark. There is some inappropriate behavior with children which should be pre warned. The scary children were fantastic. Total creep factor. I had guessed early on what was going on but the ride was still pretty decent.

1983. Five year old Sean is an outsider, a scholarship boy with a single (and hard-up) mother. Bullied at school, he's anxious to please, desperate in fact to work out what the adults want of him and to give it to them. No match for a manipulative storm of accusations, quack therapists and - as is soon clear - self-righteous witch hunters wedded to increasingly bizarre and heinous conspiracy theories. Sean's compliance with all this will destroy his world, consume the innocent and mark him for life.

2013. Elementary school art teacher Richard has married "office Goth" Tamara and is on course to adopt her son, Eli. Then a horrible crime is committed, and he begins to feel targeted by someone who knows far more than they ought to about his past. Increasingly paranoid, Richard sees things go from bad to worse and realises that events are repeating themselves.

I should start this review with a warning - the book features a couple of nasty instances of cruelty to animals, one of them right at the beginning.

It introduces the reader to a series of events I was unfamiliar with - a moral panic in the early 80s USA when accusations of improbable and bizarre ritual practices were levelled at respectable members of the community . Stirred up by dubious therapists and members of fringe quasi Christian organisations, a feverish atmosphere of conspiracy built up. I would like to say this was a one-off, but it's clear from history (and more recent events) that apparently rational people can be moved to such nonsense when the conditions are right.

In transcripts of interviews with the young boy Sean, we see how suggestions are planted and how a lonely and confused boy is made to support pretty much whatever his interrogator wishes. And we see tragic consequences from that. Cutting between 1983 and 2013, we also see Richard, who has rebuilt his life and erased Sean, being reminded - as he goes about his daily business with Eli, Tamara and the kids in his class - of what happened before.

It's very subtlely done, with the reader unclear whether some of the events might be coincidences that Richard's working into a pattern; whether he might be being targeted (but how and by whom?), whether he is, in those moments of "vacancy", himself acting out what Sean claimed to have seen, whether there is a real element of the supernatural here - or whether something else altogether is going on.

There are also hints that the febrile atmosphere of the 80s could return (the school renaming Hallowe'en "Character Day", for example) and social tensions: Danvers is rapidly gentrifying, with a consciously hip demographic moving in, but some of the residents are still "old Danvers", liable to be swayed by anti gun-control conspiracy theories - and Tamara must be careful to keep her tattoos hidden from both pupils and the Principal.

And over all, a profound sense of unease, of his personality having been wounded and not healed after being forced to bear the responsibility for the consequences of things done by adults. I actually got angry at what had happened to Sean (as well as to others here). W B Yeat's poem "The Second Coming" is often quoted in connection with the working out of the perplexing and frightening events of the modern age and two verses in particular are well known -

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"

For me, though, it's the following words which chime perfectly with the atmosphere of Whisper Down the Lane

"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned"

The book seems to me to, scarily and perfectly, capture the childish (ie immature, self-indulgent and shallow) as opposed to child-like (innocent, accepting and open) behaviour of certain adults who, unempathatic and lacking self-knowledge, refuse to shoulder their own responsibilities or to truly protect those for whom they are responsible. That makes Whisper Down the Lane a hard read, at times. There were points when I had to stop to gather myself before reading what I feared might come next. Clay McLeod Chapman does though draw the reader in and there was no way that I could not go on with this book, to discover whether Sean - and Richard - would eventually find peace with themselves.

It's traumatic at times but I would strongly recommend.

This is a super interesting premise based off of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's ! I was an 80's kid but my parents did not discuss this at home and I was not aware. ( Mc.Martin Preschool trials is something to check out! )

Whisper is a psychological horror-lite novel told through two points of view. We meeth Sean, a 5 year old boy living with his single mom in the 80's and also Richard,, an art teacher living in 2010 with his family. It takes a bit, but eventually the stories mirror one another and connect.

The beginning really grabbed me, but some of the middle dragged a bit. I think this is surely a novel you will learn from and definitely enjoy if you like horror-lite and 80's reminiscing. The book itself reminded me of 80;s horror movies actually! If you like horror, and are interested in new premises for fear - this is a book for you!
#quirkbooks #netgalley #netgalleyreads

TW: Animal murder, blood, use of gay words in derogatory way, child abuse, child sexual abuse, family drama,

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Inspired by the McMartin preschool trials and the Satanic Panic of the ‘80s, the critically acclaimed author of The Remaking delivers another pulse pounding, true-crime-based horror novel. Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, a first chance at fatherhood to her son Elijah, and a quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah’s elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn’t have a birthday—but Sean does . . .Sean is a five-year-old boy who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother. Like most mothers of the 1980s, she’s worried about bills, childcare, putting food on the table . . . and an encroaching threat to American life that can take the face of anyone: a politician, a friendly neighbor, or even a teacher. When Sean’s school sends a letter to the parents revealing that Sean’s favorite teacher is under investigation, a white lie from Sean lights a fire that engulfs the entire nation—and Sean and his mother are left holding the match. Now, thirty years later, someone is here to remind Richard that they remember what Sean did. And though Sean doesn’t exist anymore, someone needs to pay the price for his lies.
Release Date: April 6th, 2021
Genre: Occult Horror
Pages: 304
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

What I Liked:
• Such a creepy story that's based in facts
• The cover is super pretty
• The story is written in a way that is interesting

What I Didn't Like:
• Sometimes with the author's writing style it's easy to get confused on what they are saying.
• Knowing the who did it person made the story feel drawn out.

Overall Thoughts: I found this story pretty interesting. Take a true story and turn it into a kind of horror story. Chapman's last story The Remaking was just okay to me. The author has a habit of turning true or inspired true stories into horror novels. For me this one felt a little odd as it is a true story about child saying they were molested and that didn't sit very well. I had never heard of this story so I'll definitely read up on it more past the horror/retelling side of it.

There is a lot of uncomfortable talks about children playing horsey naked with the teacher and drawing the picture of the teachers penis that made me side eye the horror novel I choose. Definitely not a book if you can't read about that subject matter.

It's a fast read and the writing style draws you in. About the 20% mark you pretty much figure out the person behind it all so from that point on you're pretty much waiting for Sean Richard to figure it all out. I skipped the part where Weegee is killed. It's very graphic and I can't stomach animal abuse. So that part for me was a huge no. I know it's fake but just the thought of someone hurting an animal even in writing breaks my heart.

There is this weird part where Sean finds a made for TV movie of the satanic ritual in his vcr. It felt like the author was trying to tie The Remaking together because he even says "This remake by another storyteller." But it's weird because now there's a movie based on Sean's trial and in The Remaking it tells the story of them remaking a true story.

I feel like the ending came off rushed and lackluster. I was seriously confused why Jenna would have sex with Sean when she hated him so much for ruining her life. Yep nothing says revenge to the person you hate the most like an orgasam for them. I guess though plot twist gotta twist.

Final Thoughts: Definitely worth a read if you're looking for a book that can keep you interested. Even more points if you can make it to the ending without knowing who did it. I didn't care for The Remaking so it was a nice surprise to give the author another chance. You never know when a book can change your mind.

Thanks to Netgalley and Quirk Books for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.