Okay...here's my biggest issue with this story. Why did it not live up to the hype that the synopsis did for me? The story sounded amazing. A family of 4 trapped in their home during a storm, and they realize they're not the only ones being affected? Intrigue mixed with suspense, but it missed the mark for me. I expected a lot more!

Trapped in their home by a strange storm, a family soon started to lose their minds as their home falls apart around them.

The tension I felt while reading this book was off the scale, literally Edge of my seat tense. My only complaint is ending was a bit of a let down, and I felt I wanted more answers and more from the story, but still, this was a great read overall and would recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and Christopher Hawkins for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for this advance reader copy in exchange for my honest and free review. Well, that was horror at its finest, right up there with a Stephen King novel, to be honest. I was pulled right into this story with all emotions from one page to the next. Excellent novel, highly recommend.

This books was absolutely dark and twisted & thought provoking. This book kept me wondering until the end. There's so much to engage the mind here.

My ARC is messed up and I’ve tried but I’m giving up. A few of my Goodreads friends really enjoyed this and the cover is awesome so I’m going to track it down and buy it instead.

Downpour by Christopher Hawkins hooked me from the first page and wouldn't let go. The relentless rain isn't just a storm; it's a character in itself, trapping a family in their crumbling farmhouse and tearing at their already strained relationships. Hawkins doesn't hold back on the horrors that emerge from the downpour, leaving you on the edge of your seat wondering what's lurking next. The writing is clear and gripping, painting a stark picture of rural isolation and desperation. I tore through this book in one sitting, desperate to know how things would end. If you want a creepy, atmospheric read that will stay with you long after the credits roll, Downpour delivers..

Christopher Hawkins’ Downpour was a great psychological thriller. I really enjoyed the writing style and the suspense. Thus was definitely a strange story with a lot of tense moments.

One day a cloud appeared and his family will never be the same. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC REVIEW copy.

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for this advance copy for review.

I was a big fan of Hawkins' [book:Suburban Monsters|63267244] (see my review there), it was fantastic short horror fiction. So when I saw that he was taking his shot at a longer format, I was split: <i> what if he works best with shorter stories?</i> Nevertheless, I took a shot at it and was very pleased.

[book:Downpour|157051547]'s premise is simple: a large storm comes, but it brings more than the promise of great summer yields. People start to go crazy and a family finds themselves trapped indoors, as the rainwater slowly eats away at the foundations of their protection. The premise can almost be considered Sci-fi horror (<i>a la </i> War of the Worlds), but everything happens so quickly and you are not given much breathing space to stop and ponder what is going on. I believe the entire span of the book is a single day - so get ready to feel claustrophobic, readers!

There is more dread than horror in this book - dread of something as pristine|innocuous|lifegiving to life on earth as water.

There is a revalation near the end of the book that you do not see coming (the author tying one expected loose end) before the ending that

<b>KICKS.

YOU.

HARD.

IN.

THE.

STOMACH. </b>

More horror out there needs to take similar risks.

As for comp reads, I would say you would like this title of you enjoyed:
[book:The Mist|813214]
[book:The Handyman Method|62919902]
[book:Bird Box|44646576]
Evil Dead Rise (movie)
The Waters of Mars (Doctor Who Special)

My 50th and last book of 2023! I was planning on reading this long before the pub date but I just didn't got round to it until now - better late than never!
•
I thought this was well written albeit a little repetitive in some parts but I could easily overlook that. The scene setting was done well, there were so many moments where it felt so immersive, I kept feeling as if I was in the story with the characters— this was probably helped even more by the bad weather we've been having this week in the UK. I also really enjoyed every part of dialogue throughout this book, to me it made it all feel more realistic and enhanced the already good plot.
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When I say this kept me gripped with the tension, I'm not lying. All the way through I genuinely felt scared on behalf of the main characters. For me it was hard to predict what'll happen next which I thoroughly enjoyed; that's what you need from a horror book such as this one. Some parts were gory and I will say if you can't read books involving animal deaths, don't pick this one up, however, for me I thought the more gory scenes made the story what it is; they evoked such strong visceral reactions as I was reading and so elevated the story to a higher level.
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It's only really the ending that I'm still undecided about; while it made sense to end in the way it did, there had been a small part of me that hoped for a different, more satisfying end. The character of Scott I found intriguing as well as frustrating, I didn't agree with a lot of the things he did but I can also see how he was just trying to save his family.
•
Overall, this gave me very similar vibes to the movie Bird Box so if you enjoyed that, I'd definitely recommend this book. Downpour is a genuinely scary, thrilling and tense ride, all packed in just 200+ pages.

This book was a WILD ride, I hooked from chapter one and the ride continued until I finished., the story itself was scary and I found myself having to take breaks from reading at night!

The synopsis for this book has me so excited but the execution wasn’t there. It was repetitive and it took me a long while to get into this book. It was missing the tension and suspense I was anticipating.

This book drew me in from the start and kept my attention until the very last page. Very supernatural and sci-fi sort of like a Stephen King novel meets Birdbox in a way. Overall it was a good and weird book.

I had to add this book to my “did not finish list”. It was really hard to get into to begin with. It also talks way too much about what’s happening with the dog, and what happened to a dog previous. I made it about 26% of the way through the book before I had to put it down.

This book took a little too long for me to feel much about it. Honestly, in terms of the horror genre, Downpour was just too little, too late for me. The whole story had a lot of promise. It gave off similar vibes to Stephen King’s The Mist, but again, it just wasn’t enough.

Scott, transfixed on his own childhood trauma, refused to leave the home he grew up in. Because of this his marriage suffered, he suffered, and unfortunately his children also suffered. Unable to cope with her husband’s lack of motivation to move forward in life, Scott’s wife, Dana, gave into a moment of infidelity that would destroy whatever was left of Scott’s trust or hope in life. Beginning so show signs of fully giving in, giving up, Scott is completely upended by the sudden presence of a looming rain cloud. Noticing before many others that this cloud will bring only terrible things, Scott’s newfound motivation is to protect his family at all costs. The rain slowly takes his family, one member at a time, when all that is left is him and his four year old daughter, Tallie, surrounded by the horrors that this rain has brought. In a moment of desperation to protect his baby, Scott runs head first into the rain, discovering that the horrors of his past are far worse than what he had even imagined. But none of that matters anymore. Not with the rain.

I wanted to love this book, but it just did not land with me. I found the writing frustratingly repetitive and that the story as a whole moved too slowly. It had some redeeming moments of that promised thrill to get your heart pumping, however those moments felt quickly severed but the unnecessary intrusion of a splinter in Scott’s palm that just would not go away.

This was a really great creepy story! This is a very dark story but it's exceptionally written and I would recommend it! Special Thank You to Christopher Hawkins, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

A down on their luck family has their lives upended by a singular dark cloud that turns out to be more malicious than anticipated. Questions start to arise: What is wrong with that cloud? Why won’t the rain stop? Why are those who were touched by the rain, acting differently?


The first few chapters of this book were reminiscent of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Living on a rural farm trying to get by while working through family drama. Soon we begin to see the father’s past demons infiltrating the present; once again reminding me of another great novel, Ania Ahlborn’s Seed. I was captivated by the father’s inner dialogue and the genuine love each family member had with each other.


Unfortunately, I found the book to be repetitive and slow moving. I was contemplating not finishing the story, but I stuck with it. Around the 60% mark, the story picked up pace. Overall, the story had dark and disturbing moments, but it never felt scary. 


Tremendous thanks to the author, Christopher Hawkins and NetGalley for allowing me to rate and review this book.

A sudden storm appears above an isolated farmhouse in rural Illinois, bringing with it a relentless and unnatural rain, a rain that eats away at everything it touches, a rain that turns people into monsters.

This was a good horror novel. Lots of creepy imagery and a sense of claustrophobia. Well done!

This book is one of the most heartbreaking stories I have read in my life, it is up there with early Stephen King books such as A Long Walk, and Cujo, and The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
It is outstanding, and it is going to stay with me for a while, It is also one of the very few books that I need to take time afterword’s to process it.

The writing is exceptional, with complex and relatable characters that you really feel for, it was tense and emotional and very hard to put down.

If you like to feel like a book has punched you in the gut, then I highly recommend this book.
*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.*

A quick, fun, thrilling read. Very tense. I highly recommend this for fans of thrillers or light horror.

(Posted to Goodreads)
A huge THANK YOU to NetGalley & Christopher Hawkins for my copy in exchange for this review! My copy was unedited and not finalized, so might differ from the released copy.

Downpour was just an “Okay” read for me. As an initial idea on vibe, I would describe this story as feeling very lowkey Stephen King/Jordan Peele/M. Night Shyamalan though sadly not on par. I was vibing with the introduction, but was almost immediately not vibing with the characters and the plotline sort of tanked from there. I think this highly disconnected me to the story and therefore, despite it being a quick read, it took me almost a month to push through it.

Frankly I think part of the disconnect is how shallow every character is. Scott is supposed to be our deepest, most complicated character. However, I’m not very sure who he is outside of his childhood traumatic experience(s) mentioned, and his current issue(s) with his wife/children. His character felt insufferable at times. While his attitude towards his family is justified to a slight degree, his complexes felt unjustified in relation to the few things we knew about him. Both Scott and Dana felt annoying, but since we live inside Scotts head through this story, we get mostly his POV on everything. I was seriously not buying all their drama despite what Dana might have done to deserve it in his eyes. Though honestly, I didn’t blame her for how she treated him. Scott just feels like a man-child. Scott logic is complaining the kids never listen to him, are scared of what he’s doing/how he’s acting, breaking their trust, etc. and then proceeds to not communicate what’s going on, yell at them to not do things with no explanation, and then call them ungrateful (in his head). If that’s how he was meant to come off, we as the reader needed more “in” on it. It wasn’t clear enough by the writing to know if all the characters were supposed to be unlikeable.

Dana’s believability was by far the worst. This was one of those books where I could tell the writer was a male within the first few pages. I kept waiting for something unnecessarily weird situationally to happen with her character with no real in world contextual reason (usually sexual), and for a moment I thought maybe he wasn’t going to fall into that. But he did by chapter 3. Her reasons for creating Drama in the plot were so unbelievable. I do not believe that a mother as attentive as her would ever give a shit about how old her car was or not being able to decorate a house. How superficial is that rational, that she’d create high stakes drama inside her family and jeopardize her relationships? And why does Scott put her on a pedestal all the same? <spoiler> To add to this, tell me why in a million years, she would decide stripping down to nothing in her yard with her kids just inside the living room (with access to windows) is ever something a mother would do? You have a pre-teen son and a 4 year old daughter. You know they’re right on the other side of the wall, listening to you hash your bullshit drama out with your husband, and your go to is to… strip? So that you can fight more about the rain or so we can get Scotts horny internal dialogue about her, yet again? I think it was supposed to be whatever the rain was doing to her, but once again, we as the readers were left in the dark. We have no concept of what the rain does yet, or how quickly people change. It just made it seem like she was being an idiot.</spoiler> It was pretty wild to read and I think I was actually slack jawed. She felt like a completely unrealistic female character, within the context of every other personal aspect attributed to her. What seemed to matter most was how much Scott missed “the old Dana” and being sexually intimate with her. I could see how, after finishing the book, Dana might make that choice. But I spend a long time still reeling from it. There had to be a better way to make it plot relevant, or make it make sense.

Another thing that factors into this unfounded drama is: No one talks to one another. Scott will be like “Rain is bad”, and Dana will immediately shut him down. “It’s just rain!”. And we do this, for 50% of the book or more. Scott has his internal dialogue reasons for not liking the rain, or complaining about something, etc. He’s piecing it together, and the son Jacob is the first to announce how weird it all is and provide actual content as to why. But even so, later in the book, Jacob is fighting to go outside into it despite everyone clearly seeing and knowing what it does. Jacob, of all people in this scene, should be the absolute last person to want to go out there. What is happening? What’s wrong with these people? Why isn’t Scott speaking up? He could have said “Didn’t you see what happened here? What it’s doing? Don’t you see/understand that X, Y, and Z happened because of it?” He never ever rationalizes why he’s doing anything, then gets butthurt when people are fighting him or scared of him. It just a bunch of yelling without any communication. I’ll admit though, he got very paranoid very quickly over no evidence that the storm was anything more than your typical rainstorm. If I was his family, and with his level of communication, I’d probably want to prove him wrong out of spite too. Side note: As stereotypical as Scott is, he didn’t know where to find batteries & thought about asking his wife where they were. If there’s things in the house guys usually know the location of, its tools and batteries. I just had a small chuckle at how unnecessary it was to add.

I eventually started to skim. There was so much stupidity in the way all the characters behaved and interacted with each other. It was frustrating. It made the plot very weak, and I didn’t care what happened to any of them besides maybe the kids, as innocents. There was also too much circulation in thoughts. Sometimes it would be whole pages of internal thoughts Scott was having about the same things he’d just been ruminating on pages before, but with no course of action or external dialogue. It felt like nothing was happening, and I was just reliving the same things I’d already learned about or the 1 childhood trauma from his past. There was nothing else to give weight to anything. Skimming was very efficient and needed often to progress in the actual plot. Nothing seemed lost by doing so.

The ending was hugely disappointing to me. I liked the revelation we got with Scotts main issue (I didn’t see that coming at all). However it felt like it lost its “oomph” in the specific situation he was in. I was confused during Scott and Jacobs argument. It wasn’t well articulated and there was no clarification who held the blame until Scott’s internal dialoguing later. I just plain didn’t like how it all concluded. It felt like I got 0 payoff for sticking around, and all the stupid arguments had no weight/meaning. <spoiler>Scott could have at least tried to do for himself what he did for Tallie. He could have tried literally anything. Maybe a board from his kitchen table? An old door, to sheild himself from the rain? Why in your right mind, after working so hard to preserve everything, would you knowingly attempt that without coverage or a plan for Tallie? What is a 4 year old going to do without you if she does survive? I think the point is that there was no point. That Scott was a troubled man and he couldn't escape his past, and let it eat him alive? Which is a fine concept. It just didn't work here.</spoiler>

So overall, 3 Stars for me. Some will definitely like it and be able to overlook my complaints with it. For me, character believability is huge and it was so hard for me to believe a lot of their reactions to each other and reasons for behaving how they did. It just wasn't realistic. I know, "it's science fiction it doesn't have to be realistic". Yeah, but it has to be understandable behaviors/sequences and it just wasn't. I am glad to have given it a shot but I am also glad to move on lol.