I really wanted to like this as the premise sounded fascinating and the beginning hooked me. However, once I started reading, I found the multiple characters and POVs confusing and distracting from the main plot Ultimately, I'm still interested in finding out what happens but I just can't finish the book now.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sadly due to some unfortunate events that took place I was unable to read this before the archive date. However I do look forward to purchasing the book because of course I still want to dive in to the story.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜—𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙈𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙇𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙗𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝.

Terrifying, mind-blowing, and highly disturbing, this book gave me major Stephen King vibes. I honestly requested this book majorly because the cover reminded me of IT by Stephen King.

I picked this book out throughout the day and let me just say, it’s not a good idea reading this at night. I got literal chills at times thinking about this nightmare realm called Lalaland.

I loved the sinister vibe in the narrative, and each character was so interesting. I also loved the different timeline, small-town setting, short chapters, and overall world-building. I had so much fun reading about this creepy story.

The book itself was super eerie and engaging. I honestly couldn’t put the book down and found the audiobook to be fantastic. My only issue was that the book felt a tiny bit too long and dragged at times, but overall the story was a solid, creepy read!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the review copy and Libro.Fm for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!

I am so bummed that this book was a DNF for me! I really enjoyed the author's previous novel, The Nightmare Man, so I was really excited for this one! I just could not get into this story. I wasn't sure what was going on half the time, and there were so many characters to keep track of! Sometimes, I couldn't even tell where they fit into the story.

This book has a 3.76 rating on Goodreads, and I saw a lot of positive reviews, so I definitely recommend giving it a try if you enjoy horror books.

Even though this one wasn't for me, I'll still be reading the next book the author puts out since I enjoyed The Nightmare Man so much.

Thank you, @netgalley and @crookedlanebooks, for the #gifted e-arc of this book!

3.5 rounded up.
First read with this author snd certainly not the last. This book truly scared me and I had to read it with the light on. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Harrod's Reach has been the home of many strange and tragic happenings, especially in the area of an old, abandoned train tunnel. After the tunnel is closed, many think the tragedies are behind them but something is awakening in the tunnel...and it is what nightmare's are made of!!

Both good and evil are fighting for control and they are all being drawn to Harrod's Reach! Who will prevail, everyone's worst nightmare or children struck into coma's while fighting the nightmares??

Mister Lullaby brings the fear factor!! J.H. Market takes everyone's worst nightmares and brings them to life with Mister Lullaby!! Recommended for anyone who enjoys horror combined with emphatic characters!

I read this author’s prior book, THE NIGHTMARE MAN, and really enjoyed it so was looking forward to MISTER LULLABY. I chose to listen to this on audio so not sure if that made a big difference in how I felt but this one was… fine. It was fine. (the narrator was fantastic, so no fault there!) I loved how it incorporated The Nightmare Man into the story and was very pleased with that aspect. And there are some decent creepy moments speckled within. However, I was left… wanting. The ending felt a little abrupt and I just don’t know… it didn’t quite do it for me like I had hoped that it would.

Win some, lose some.

I am looking forward to his next release, SLEEP TIGHT, so we’ll see then 😉.

This was such a fun read and I liked the tie in with The Nightmare Man. I did enjoy the first book more, but not by much. Such a solid read and I will continue to buy all of the authors books I can.

3.5 stars

Definitely something different! Mister Lullaby is the stuff of nightmares - quite literally. An old abandoned train tunnel has been a place of danger for years. Kids go in and never come out, or if they do, they’re in a coma. Limbs are severed, strange animals and plants come out of it; it’s a tunnel that brings your nightmares to life.

I love the idea behind this story. It’s like nothing I’ve read before, and I have to say, I was hooked from the beginning. My only qualm is that the ending seemed rushed. I felt a little let down. The build up had been phenomenal, and I was on the edge of my seat to find out how it would all come to an end. I’m hoping there might be more (as was hinted at in the acknowledgements) to give us another taste of Lalaland and the creatures from within.

It's rare that I ask for an ARC from an unknown, (to me), author. But the synopsis of this was so enticing I had to request it and I'm glad I did!

In the town of Harrod's Reach, there is a tunnel. The entire town knows something is wrong in that tunnel. Sometimes people go in and never come out. Dead bodies tend to be found there, and sometimes there are only parts of bodies. Just as Gideon returns to his hometown from his overseas service, the tunnel starts acting up again. This time around though, people are on to it. Will the folks of Harrod's Reach survive the terrors of the tunnel? You'll have to read this to find out!

My brief synopsis can't contain everything going on in this book. The returning Gideon faces his hometown friends and family, his feelings of guilt surrounding his brother, and his feelings of smallness, being thought of locally as a coward. His childhood friends Jax and Beth remain, but even Jax doesn't think much of Gideon. There are layers of guilt in this book and I've always thought that both guilt and grief are excellent emotions on which to base a horror story.

But there is still so much else going on in this town. Here, as in Salem's Lot, the town itself becomes a character. And speaking of characters, this book has some original and super-creepy villains. A Black Widow. A man growing horns out of his head. Horn man's evil mother. The Nanny.
All of these villains combine into a group and descend on the town like a swarm. What fun!

Narrated by David Bendena and Lauren Ezzo, who both did a terrific job, this audio had me hooked,, but it did take a bit of time to grow on me. I slowly became more curious, then curiouser, then total addiction. I think I devoured this audio in just a few days and now I've become an instant fan of this author.

Highly recommended, especially to those horror fans that can't help but be sucked in to one of my favorite horror tropes-evil in a small town!

*Thanks to Dreamscape Media, NetGalley and the author for the free audio download in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*

Gideon Dupree was ambivalent about returning home after his wartime service, still feeling guilty about his younger brother Sully being in a coma after trying to run through the tunnel. When he got back to Harrod’s Reach, though, he discovered that, while some things had changed drastically, like his mother’s attire, some things were way too familiar. His love for Beth, his birthday twin, born almost at the same time on the same night, gnawed at him, especially knowing she’d married Jax and they had a son.

After a horrific attack by The Horseshoe Rapist, Maddy Boyle came out of her coma after a week. While in the coma, Maddy traveled to a magical, brightly-colored place called Lalaland, where everyone there was like her, in some kind of altered state. When Maddy awakened, she had a list of names, of people she needed to find and protect somehow.

Teddy was on a mission to release as many dead-heads as possible, and he also had a list, very similar to Maddy’s. While Maddy’s aim was to protect, Teddy’s was to kill. Towards that end, he bought a bus, painted it red, called it The Lullaby Express, and began collecting people along the way to help him be successful. Everything centered around that abandoned tunnel in Harrod’s Reach, and Teddy was heeding the call.

There’s definitely a lot going on in sleepy little Harrod’s Reach, and the tunnel is super creepy. Black deer with orange antlers who gore people for fun? Black roses and yellow grass and seashells washing up in the middle of a field? This was an interesting story with a great deal of action, killing of the bad guys and paranormal creatures, but there was also a lot of love, friendship, and loyalty.

Strange things happen inside the tunnel in the town of Harrod's Reach. Mysterious murders, people found in comas, and a man becomes obsessed with the sound and voices he hears in a seashell found in the landlocked area. The door between another world and our own is weakening and monsters are trying to get through.

Mister Lullaby has an interesting premise that mixes the fantastical and horrific. Despite intriguing odd occurrences happening in and around the tunnel and the possibility of a serial killer the first half of the novel is a bit disjointed and a slog. Several points of view leads to a delayed investment into the characters and their stories. Around the 50% point the stories start to converge in a satisfying way leading to a fight of good versus evil that is quite enjoyable.

I would recommend this novel to those that might enjoy a mix of horror, thriller, and fantasy.

Mister Lullaby is the type of easy-going horror that make for a quick, enjoyable read. It is filled with international lullabies and their folklore roots. These make for engaging ways to tell stories because there is a “dreamworld” that opens many story-telling possibilities. These nightmares that come to life keep the tensions going until its conclusion. My favorite part is the use of an abandoned train tunnel as the source of horror that haunts the town. This gave the nostalgic vibes that brings to mind the coming of age horror of Stephen King like It, Silver Bullet and The Body.

It might sound weird, but this book was so fun. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the tension throughout.

TW: Language, PTSD, guns, toxic family relationships, cancer, death by suicide (mention), animal deaths (off screen), rape, torture, gory scenes

<b><big>*****SPOILERS*****</b></big>
<b>About the book:</b>
The small town of Harrod’s Reach has seen its fair share of the macabre, especially inside the decrepit old train tunnel around which the town was built. After a young boy, Sully Dupree, is injured in the abandoned tunnel and left in a coma, the townspeople are determined to wall it up. Deputy sheriff Beth Gardner is reluctant to buy into the superstitions until she finds two corpses at the tunnel’s entrance, each left with strange calling cards inscribed with old lullabies. Soon after, Sully Dupree briefly awakens from his coma.

Before falling back into his slumber, Sully manages to give his older brother a message. Sully's mind, since the accident, has been imprisoned on the other side of the tunnel in Lalaland, a grotesque and unfamiliar world inhabited by evil mythical creatures of sleep. Sully is trapped there with hundreds of other coma patients, all desperately fighting to keep the evils of the dream world from escaping into the waking world.

Elsewhere, a man troubled by his painful youth has for years been hearing a voice in his head he calls Mr. Lullaby, and he has finally started to act on what that voice is telling him—to kill any coma patient he can find, quickly.

Something is waking up in the tunnel—something is trying to get through. And Mr. Lullaby is coming.
<b>Release Date:</b> November 21st, 2023
<b>Genre:</b> Horror
<b>Pages:</b> 309
<b>Rating:</b> ⭐ ⭐

<b>What I Liked:</b>
1. Love the cover
2. The plot sounded good

<b>What I Didn't Like:</b>
1. Too many pov's
2. Different timelines
3. Repetitive
4. Bored

<b>Overall Thoughts:</b>
<i><blockquote>"The most peculiar thing about Happy Jack’s murder wasn’t that we never found his legs, but rather that he was somehow still smiling when we entered the train tunnel and stumbled upon his torso."</blockquote><i>

Off to a great start - what an opening line.

And then it dropped down to this slow repetitive story that likes to keep telling us about the guy in the tunnel who is missing his body parts. I'm about 150 pages into this book and I have read this about five times already. I get it.

<b>Final Thoughts:</b>
I did not like the author's previous book and this one felt like I was even less interested in it. I dnfed his other book and this book has gone the same way. It's a shame because I was looking forward to this book but this is the last book I read from him - he's just not for me.

This book felt <i>too</i> similar to The Nightmare Man and after reading the acknowledgements the author said he stopped writing this book with 50 pages left to finish The Nightmare Man. You can definitely see it. The book reads too much like the other one even having the same tone of a monster type character.

In the end though his books aren't for me.

<font face="times new roman" size="12pt"><i><b>Thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

What a spooky story! It's got all the requirements for a horror novel---creepy town, kids, tortured pasts, other worlds. I really enjoyed Mister Lullaby by JH Markert. The story started out slow for me but once I was "in the world" of the book I was hooked. Definitely give this author a try. This is my second book I've read by him and he is very good at creepy and sinister tales! Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Spooky, thematic and an absolutely compelling premise!

There's so much going for this book and I'm so happy to see the reviews from others talking about just how terrifying it was for them. Unfortunately for me, as much as I enjoyed the set up and build - I just never seemed to connect with the story as much! Entirely a personal thing and maybe just to do with my own headspace, but I do plan to revisit next October to give it a reread in the season it's perfect for!

in his novels, James intriguingly always reveals the murderer early into the book - which the first time i found a bit strange - i thought it defeated the point of guessing the murderer as the reader. but james makes it work SO well. it’s always so fascinating reading from the perspective of the villain, James always creates such intricate backstories for all the characters in his novels. ⠀
⠀
He also always manages to bring out the history nerd in me - in this one it was about a tunnel with plenty of mystery surrounding it - even creating a whole history of a railway town and murders/tragedies associated with it.⠀
⠀
thank you @netgalley for my e-copy of this 🌙 it’s out 10th august everyone! <3 ⠀

It’s no secret that this was a year packed full of new horror releases, but 2023 seems to have saved me one of the best for last. J.H. Markert’s Mister Lullaby is a haunting novel that truly surprised me, delivering a seamless blend of visceral darkness and supernatural horror that left me feeling both discomfited but eager to read more.

Set against the backdrop of a creepy little town named Harrod’s Reach, the story first directs our attention to an abandoned train tunnel that locals around the area all know well. Strange things have been occurring there for as long as anyone can remember, ranging from the eerie to the gruesome. A few who have ventured inside have never returned. Severed limbs have also been mysteriously recovered from within its depths. And one year, a child named Sully Dupree suffered an unfortunate accident while inside the tunnel, leaving him in a coma. Despite calls from the frightened townsfolk to have the tunnel’s entrance walled up, authorities have been reluctant, unwilling to give into superstitions. Regardless, any attempt at sealing it would inevitably fail, as the bricks would crumble and fall apart for seemingly no reason at all. Then one day, two bodies are discovered at the tunnel, with messages with references to lullabies left upon them.

Following a long stint in the military, Sully Dupree’s older brother Gideon returns home to Harrod’s Reach, just in time for his kid brother to briefly awaken from his coma and impart a message, hinting at the existence of a twisted, unseen world beyond our own. Enlisting the help of his childhood friend Beth Gardner, now the Deputy Sheriff, Gideon seeks to uncover the mystery behind this nightmarish realm called LaLaLand, where Sully’s mind is trapped alongside those of other children whose physical bodies are also frozen in slumber. Fighting a silent war, they are working together to keep the evil from this dream world from breaking through to the other side. However, in the waking world, a troubled man starts to hear voices in his head from an entity he calls Mr. Lullaby, and following his directions, begins hunting down and killing any coma patient he can find.

Readers who enjoy sinister tales that push the boundaries will have a great time with this one, especially if you have a penchant for supernatural horror that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. Mister Lullaby is also my first book by J.H. Markert and it certainly won’t be the last. The author’s skill lies in creating a unique and frightening mythology that shines through brightly in this novel’s plot which unfolds through multiple perspectives, forming an overall picture of fear and suspense. Both the real world and the nightmarish LaLaLand were vividly brought to life, the juxtaposition between these two different realities resulting in an added layer of complexity.

While it’s true that the narrative starts slow, it is never boring, as the momentum eventually builds to an urgency that keeps propelling us towards the climactic ending. One of the novel’s strongest aspects is the exploration of its characters—their past and present, as well as their knotty and complicated relationships forged through shared trauma. Backstories and personal struggles are revealed in tandem with revelations surrounding the old train tunnel, with the town’s grisly history serving as both a backdrop and a character in its own right. As secrets are unearthed and the stakes get higher, I found myself both captivated and appalled by the visceral horrors that unfold. All I can say about this is, Mister Lullaby is definitely not for the faint of heart.

And if the allusions of the cover aren’t immediately obvious, there are also strong echoes of Stephen King’s influence here, but also of Joe Hill’s NOS4R2, though at the end of the day, Markert’s voice is distinct. If you relish the weird, the uncanny, and the macabre, do yourself a favor and pick up Mister Lullaby, a darkly imaginative tale of horror which will burrow into your thoughts and stay there for a long time.

I must not have been paying attention when I requested this book. I was reading it and thinking it seemed very familiar. True, there were elements of many other horror writers in here. But it was more than that. There seemed to be a connection but my brain wasn’t quite making it until a little more than half way through. It was then that I checked out the author and realized that I had read a previous novel and there were similarities and an interwoven mythology. Once again, I enjoyed this book as the pure horror that it was. I realize it is not a sequel in any sense to The Nightmare Man. But it is definitely in the same universe. I’d love to see them meet at some point.