Not quite as good as Mr Nightmare but I really enjoyed this book. It had a strong feel of Koontz to it and the characters were likeable and in the case of the ‘monsters’, some even familiar.
The plot was fast paced and interesting with a few surprises along the way.
Can’t wait for the next book by this author.

Mr. Lullaby by J.H.Markert is every bit as good as his first novel, The Nightmare Man.

The novel reads between “now” and “ before”, with alternating points of view, but the timeline is very short. I also didn’t think it entirely necessary to have before and after, as one relates to current events and townspeople, and the other relates to a murderer, but not separated by a dramatically clear event.

I loved the characters! All of them (including the ones that only feature for a chapter) are vital to the story in some manner, and added to the mystery surrounding the connections between each person. Some of them cross over between the two timelines, and then you really start to figure out what is happening. The connection between the coma patients was hair-raising!

The idea of Lalaland, a place dominated by (night)Mares, Elders and Seers, is intriguing and mystifying and I really do see this being explored in a subsequent novel. And with that ending, there simply must be another!!

Mr. Markert has taken his place firmly on my “automatically TBR” list of authors.

#Netgalley #MrLullaby #JHMarkert #CrookedLaneBooks

I went in really wanting to like this book, but it fell flat for me. The characters never felt fleshed out to me, instead just going where they needed to go. They often just accepted things because if they didn’t the plot wouldn’t happen. There are quite a lot of exposition dumps in the book with groups of people standing around and talking or with one character telling another character a story. Both Maddy and Teddy’s mom feel like characters literally just there to inform the other main characters about what was going on with Lalaland. Nothing about the plot ever really felt urgent, even in urgent situations and sometimes I wasn’t sure why a character would end up at the tunnel yet again when most people seemed to realize the tunnel was bad news. But it's another case of 'if the characters aren't there, the plot wouldn't move forward.'

There are flashbacks in the book that make it hard to clock how long its been in the current timeline and I was shocked that it had only been about a day since the beginning scenes of the book where Sully wakes up. Within maybe two days, two characters also apparently fall deeply in love. Another character is pretty much gutted, but doesn’t seem too bothered by it other than grimacing in pain and holding his stomach sometimes.

Finally, the ending was abrupt and unsatisfactory. I’m really not sure what was going through one of the characters minds during that.

A more minor thing, part of the summary on the book doesn’t even happen. The book makes it sound like Sully talks to his brother, Gideon, to give him an important message, when Gideon isn’t there when Sully wakes up and the message isn’t specifically for Gideon.

Mister Lullaby was incredibly enjoyable. The amount of shivers and terror i experienced is something unheard of as a seasoned horror fan. This is most certainly one that you should dive into blind, knowing as little as possible - and definitely pick out a weekend to read, since you won't be able to put it down. My only issue was the length, it sometimes felt drawn out for no real reason. But overall, a fantastic read.

I found this book hard to get into bec of the many different view points and the slow start to the book. I loved this authors previous book and was extremely excited for Mister Lullaby but it just wasn't for me. I will look for this authors work in the future bec i still believe he's great! Thank you so much to NetGalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy

I feel like I need to start this review by stating that Horror is not usually my genre. However this one drew to me. The cover, the storyline..

This plot is reminiscent of Peter Pan and It-- young people are drawn to an alternate universe in their dreams, some wake up again and others don't. There are Seers and Elders, and it is their job to protect the universe from the Mares (short for nightmares). The line between worlds is drawing ever-more thin... and it has to do with a small town in the middle of nowhere.

A crazy buildup with POV changes every chapter. You really don't know how it's going to wrap up... until the last 1/3rd of the book, when the story barrels to a finish. An unsatisfying finish, at that. My initial response to the ending was "WTF?" It felt like the writer walked away without a true wrapup.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In the vein of T. Kingfisher and Christopher Golden, the boundary protecting our world from the monsters on the other side is weakening—and Mister Lullaby is about to break through


In Harrod’s Reach, a small town with a lot of weird things happening, some of those monsters are about to reach out and touch some folks~

As Gideon comes home from war, his young brother, Sully, who has been in a coma for years, suddenly wakes up and begins reciting names.
Sully is a huge part of this story and you really never hear directly from him.
, but his anxiety seems to be about the abandoned railroad tunnel that the town bricked up long ago. But lately it has been opening up and very odd things are happening.

Mr. Lullaby is coming. He will be bringing all of the nightmare monsters along with him and people will die. Horribly.

Will the good guys be able to stop him?

This author really knows suspense. And horror. And we love it!



NetGalley/ Crooked Lane Books, NOvember 21, 2023

[Blub goes here]

In a quiet town, there's a tunnel. People are often found dead inside it, their missing limbs wounds cauterized. This has been happening for over a century. Sometimes, the tunnel is more active, meaning that more victims (or just their limbs) are found.

The story jumps from "Now" to "Before" too often. While "Now" is mainly focused on the townspeople, "Before" is focused on a serial killer and an impressive ensemble of lunatics he picks up on his way to the town.

There are many things happening in this novel, too many to let each one coalesce properly. While we get a clear picture of some characters, many will be in the background.

J. H. Markert wrote "The Nightmare Man" (3.9 stars on Goodreads) a while back, and for whatever reason, he decided to bring that lore into this novel, which explains some of the things happening to the townsfolk.

While the story turns into a convoluted mess, it's still creepy and has—unlike The Nightmare Man—lots of action and scares.

IMHO, this could have been a shorter novel and be the better for it. There are many unnecessary things in it, be it characters, plot lines, or events.

I enjoyed the read, but I'm sure I will not revisit it.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

Mister Lullaby surprised me with just how good it is! The author had to deal with several different characters, including an array of killers, and he pulled it off beautifully.

I can’t really share much without getting into spoilers. If you want a really good read about our world being threatened by another, though, this is the book you should read. And now, I can’t wait to read The Nightmare Man!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

Mister Lullaby is a standalone horror story by author, JR Markert. While standalone, this one does link slightly to his previous novel, The Nightmare Man. I’ve yet to read that one but it was based on the hype and popularity around that one that I eagerly picked up this one and now intend to go back and read The Nightmare Man. This creepy chilling small town supernatural horror mystery is an excellent read and one I couldn’t put down. The book is fairly fast paced and is told my multiple POVs. The style reminded me of Stephen King. I’m looking forward to reading more by this author.

I recently read a book that kept me engaged from beginning to end. It was not your typical thriller with twists and turns, but rather a tale of mind-bending horror. I wasn't quite sure what I was reading until the very last chapter, which left me with a sense of awe and bewilderment. The characters were so well-rounded and full of personality that they felt like real people I might interact with on a daily basis, yet they were set in a world that was reminiscent of Grimm's fairy tales.

The "now" and "then" labels at the beginning of some chapters threw me off a bit at first, as I assumed they were meant to establish a timeline for the story. However, as I got further into the book, I realized that they weren't as relevant to the story as I had initially thought.

The ending was quite abrupt and left me feeling like it was more of a middle chapter than the final one. I wanted more closure, and I couldn't help but wonder if there would be a follow-up book. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone who loves a good horror story with complex characters and a unique setting.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for letting me read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

JH Markert is the penname for James Markert who has been writing historical fiction since 2010 and promised in the endnotes of his previous novel The Nightmare Man that anything further which is “contemporary and horrifying” will be published under this pseudonym. Markert makes good on this promise, blending a serial killer thriller with both horror and fantasy elements, which is reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and The Talisman, co-authored by Peter Straub. The Nightmare Man was a highly accomplished debut horror/thriller, a complex read which threw everything at the reader including the kitchen sink, in which a horror writer loses touch with reality, beautifully blending in both dreams and nightmares.

Mr Lullaby is a standalone novel which has a very cool, but incredibly abrupt ending, which promises a sequel I would be particularly keen to read. There are several subtle and clever crossovers with The Nightmare Man and if there is another book in the works the connections will surely be explored in more depth. For the most part The Nightmare Man cleverly disguises whether there is anything supernatural going on or not, whereas in this new novel the unexplained occurs early in proceedings with the reader quickly realising this is far from a straight-forward police procedural thriller. As with its predecessor, the plot quickly picks up pace and develops into a solid page-turner which was easy to whizz through.

I am not going to explore what connects the books beyond noting that nightmares and dreams thread throughout both titles with the otherworldly aspect being much stronger in Mr Lullaby with mass coma victims being connected in some unexplained way. This book does have a rather slow start, but it is worth sticking with the slightly confusing ‘before’ and ‘now’ dual narratives before figuring out what is going on with the complex multiple character perspectives over the two periods.

The small town of Harrod’s Reach, where much of the action takes place, was an outstanding location to set Mr Lullaby and if you are after some small-town horror then this story ticks many of the required boxes. The town has a decrepit abandoned old train tunnel which has been associated with strange goings on for ever a century, ranging from disappearances, murders and unexplained sightings. Because it became a magnet for local kids daring each other to run through it, the town eventually had it bricked up, but the locals still felt dark presence. The story opens with the discovery of a bizarre double murder near the entrance of the tunnel, the first for a number of years, with the story moving ‘before’ and ‘now’ with the killings and the complex ripple effect of where the story (not where you might expect!) takes the reader.

On the night of the double murder Gideon Dupree returns home to Harrold’s Reach after a few years in the army and he is clearly a Prodigal Son of some kind as there are issues with his younger brother for whom he feels responsible. There is also tension between Deputy Sheriff Beth Gardner and Gideon, one of many story strands which is teased out slowly as we find out more about the tunnel which dominates the psych of the town folk.

The manner in which the dream element and the coma patients blended into the serial killer narrative and its connects to the tunnel was writing of the highest order. Some of the sequences when the coma victims connected together had the hair standing on the back of my neck both via sheer creepiness and the fact I was 150% behind young Sully when he starts to twitch.

Mr Lullaby was loaded with memorable characters, including chainsaw wielding ‘Simple’ Simon, the mentally challenged man who is much more than he seems and has especially strong connections to the dreamworld called Lalaland. And let us not forget the ‘Lullaby Express,’ a bus driven by Mr Lullaby, taking a bizarre set of oddballs and killers on a very particular quest. He was a great dream boogieman character and his narrative was one of the highlights of the book.

The blend of folklore, thriller, fantasy and horror was nicely balanced in Mr Lullaby and the slow build was more than matched by a big finish that leaves the reader desperate for more. This was a highly entertaining mix of small-town secrets, populated with entertaining characters which would leave even the great Mulder and Scully perplexed!

This was my first read by J.H. Markert and I can guarantee that it won’t be the last. The story was so unique, eerie and mesmerizing.

The story takes place in a small town called Harrod‘s Reach. There‘s nothing special about this town…except for the old train tunnel and the recurring cases of increased violence among the town‘s residents, each time leading to deaths. And now two more people have been found murdered at the tunnel’s entrance, each left with strange calling cards inscribed with old lullabies.
And then there’s Sully, a young boy who was found unconscious in the tunnel a few years ago and has been in a coma ever since. His mind has been imprisoned in Lalaland, a world full of evil mythical creatures. And Sully is not the only one trapped there. He and other coma patients are in great danger because Mister Lullaby wants them dead.

The story was absolutely fascinating. I was a bit confused at the beginning because of all the different names and POVs but once I really got into the story, I couldn’t put it down.
I‘ve always been a bit scared of dark train tunnels (or tunnels in general) and I know I‘ll never go inside one again. Although I would love to pay a visit to Lalaland.

This book felt like a nightmare. Every spooky creature you've ever dreamed of or thought you saw in the dark appears in the story. There were quite a few names I already knew but if was fun googling and finding out more about the other creatures and lullabies mentioned in the story.

The ending felt very rushed and wasn’t really an ending at all. I‘m really hoping for a sequel because so much was left unresolved.

By the way, this is one of the books that would be amazing as a movie.

I would definitely recommend picking this one up when it comes out in November if you‘re looking for a creepy read with an unique plot.

Mister Lullaby by J. H. Markert
Published by Crooked Lane Books
Release Date November 21, 2023

Holy moly, what a book. This reminded me a lot of the Insidious movie. You know, the one where the boy falls into a coma and the father must go into another world to wake him…… Except there was no train tunnel like in this book. It is not just any tunnel either. The towns people want it closed up after little Sully Dupree gets hurt and goes into a coma. Sully manages to come out of his coma but falls right back into one shortly afterwards.But not before he tells his brother something It is a list of names. Names that will be important to the train tunnel. But his older brother Gideon is the one everyone believes is responsible for Sully’s accident. The tunnel has a long history of bad things happening, people disappearing and…….yeah people going into a coma. This is one book that actually kept me up after reading it. Mister lullaby is coming and hopefully you will be ready. He wants to destroy the weak and those who are comatose. Can someone help the poor lost souls who are in a world called the lalaland?

While I enjoyed reading this book, I did feel that the author lagged a little with the characters. I would like to have had more of a back story and it not felt so rushed. Other than that it was a great story that was told in a way that the reader would be engrossed and captivated by the way the author sets up the scary story. I fell right in, right away and honestly just did not want to put it down.

4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley as well as the author and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my unbiased and honest review.

Mr Lullaby is a creepy story about a small town and a train tunnel. I liked this overall and it definitely had its moments, however for the most part it fell short of what I was hoping for. It had great elements to work with, but I think it may have needed more time to develop characters to make things really hit the way I wanted.

Note: arc provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for honest review

2.5 rounded up. From the cover to several key elements, this seemed to borrow heavily from Stephen King…with some Stephen Graham Jones thrown in. So many creepy elements…that never properly coalesced into a satisfying whole.

After the first few pages, I knew this was a book I wasn’t going to be able to put down, until I got to The End. If you like dark, absolutely unpredictable, twisted, raise-the-hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck type of suspense as much as I do, you can't go wrong with this book! A very well-written book with wonderfully-interesting characters. The suspense builds at just the right pace as the story unfolds. Worthy of your TBR list.

*I received a complimentary ARC of this book in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.

This book hit the spot. I was really impressed by the ending of this book and that it was super creepy. First things first, I loved getting to know the characters and getting some of their backstories. I have read the horror genre before, but with this book, there was a sense of urgency. I loved the slow build!! It kind of reminded me of a Stephen King book where you get a lot of information that is relevant and much needed when you get to the end of the book. I will have to see what this author comes out with next!!

A small town’s old train tunnel, coma patients, murders, and strange occurrences are components in a rapidly developing convergence of nightmarish events in J. H. Markert’s Mister Lullaby.
When the man those in Harrod’s Reach refer to as Simple Simon reports through his drawings two dead bodies outside the town’s old train tunnel to the deputy sheriff, Beth, a string of strange events with lullabies left at the scene kicks off, supporting Beth’s ongoing personal investigation into periodic spikes of violent crime. The tunnel has long been a center for macabre, with injuries, disappearances, and severed limbs but after young Sully was injured and left in a coma after a tunnel incident years ago he suddenly, but briefly, wakes up and recites a list of names on the night of his brother Gideon’s return from serving in the Army. As strange things seem to be making their way out of the tunnel, such as seashells and fish despite no water around, some newcomers to town shed some light on what’s happening. An awakened coma patient, Maddy, arrives in town with a goal of gathering more coma patients and with a message from Sully in Lalaland, a colorful yet horrific world filled with dangerous mythical creatures, about the tunnel and their need to prevent horrors from coming through; meanwhile Teddy, has been hearing a voice in his head he’s called Mr. Lullaby has begun acting on what he’s been told – killing coma patients – and begins to make his way to Harrod’s Reach in a bus, named the Lullaby Express, filled with other killers. With the town experiencing the effects of what’s leaked through so far, and brutal deaths parsed out by those aboard the Lullaby Express, a battle with life-or-death stakes ensues.
With a wide cast of characters concentrated in and converging upon a small town, an intriguing, absorbing, and imaginative story as depicted through their perspectives develops in strange, supernatural, and brutal ways. There’s incorporation of some details and mentions of things from The Nightmare Man that link these two stories that center around dreams, nightmares, and the important impact of imagination together within the same world while remaining distinct entities that can be read and understood separately. The narrative slowly builds for a majority of the novel with a rapid succession of chaotic action and revelations, though some of the bigger revelations were made plainly clear through context early on, in the last few pages that leaves many loose ends in an abrupt ending, which is a bit dissatisfying to not know the full outcome of what took place; however, doing so does encourage readers to extrapolate from and fill in from their imagination, a staple of Lalaland.
Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Gideon returns home from overseas to find his hometown and family still suspicious and awkward around him. They have been ever since his younger brother, Sully, suffered an accident which left him in a coma - an accident everyone considers to be Gideon’s fault. Before Gideon can even attempt to readjust to life at home, things start happening. Multiple murder victims turn up in his hometown within days. Sully, along with other coma patients, are showing signs of consciousness, and a great sense of urgency. It becomes clear that Gideon and his loved ones will have to fight to keep the sleeping world at bay and the waking world safe from the dreaded Mr. Lullaby.

I have been in a real reading slump, and when I do finish a book it’s usually an audiobook. I just haven’t had the time or the mental energy to stick with an ebook lately! But I had this ARC and I decided to give it a shot. Imagine my surprise and delight when I actually wanted to continue to pick this book back up night after night, and managed to finish it in a week. It broke the dry spell!

It’s an easy one to stick with given the various character perspectives and shifting timelines. Shorter sections make it easy to read just one more, until you’ve read like ten more on accident. Thankfully, the meat of the story starts early on, so there is little dreary exposition to trudge through. Also, honestly, this book feels like a movie. I could absolutely envision the apocalyptic scenes unfolding before me as the last third of the book raced by. It could definitely be the next big HBO miniseries!

I felt like, even though there was a lot of plot to get through, the author was still able to give each character so much depth. It really made me care more about what happened to them. Sometimes, with horror, I’m a lot more concerned about my own pending nightmares than anything happening to the characters!

But the ending - oh boy, the ending. If there hadn’t been an Acknowledgements section on the same page as the end of the book, I might have thought something was missing from this digital copy. I audibly said “WHAT, IT’S OVER?” because there were really so many questions left to be answered. Maybe there will be another book…but I really would have appreciated a few more chapters to wrap things up a little bit!

Overall, this is a creepy, unique novel with a folklore aspect which is sure to delight fans of dark legend. While I might complain about the ending, I still must highly recommend it.