I’m not sure where to start here……An unlikeable former Veterans with PTSD, now Private investigator , Patrick (her husband) or dad. Really, the hard part is finding a likable character. I had no idea of what I was in for, but typically this genre of books satisfies my sweet tooth.
Missing girls, with a father wanting to know details of the disappearance, and so the story begins. Cults, man beasts, rapes, bestiality, deformities and anything else you can think of it’s probably here. Curiosity pushed me on to the end, and I am open to read another book by this author
Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Amanda Lane thinks her life is on track but things show her otherwise. When she investigates missing girls 8n her hometown things about her childhood come back. Amanda has all kinds of monsters to face. Amazing characters pulls you in.

Wow. I really enjoyed this novel by Kristin Dearborn. First time reading her. This story had a great plot, and great pacing. Always wanted to keep reading, and not stop. The characters were also well developed and enjoyable. Will definitely be looking for more from Kristin Dearborn. #FaithofDawn #NetGalley

3 Stars

I have never been particularly drawn to the legends of Bigfoot and always felt the beast was the least interesting of the cryptids. That being said, i am a sucker for a good monster story now matter what form the best may take, so I was instantly taken by the cover of Faith of Dawn by Kristin Dearborn. Having some familiarity with the author and publisher helped as well, so I dove into this one hoping for a monstrous read.



Amanda Lane’s old life, as well as her leg, were blown up by an IED in Afghanistan. She seemed to be getting her life back together before a failed marriage led her back toward a downward spiral. Now working as a private investigator, she takes a job to find a missing college student near her hometown in Florida as a way to get away and, just maybe, get back to her roots. She quickly learns that this trip back home was no vacation. In fact, it will only make things worse.



Amanda’s trip soon turns into a nightmare as the secrets of the small town begin to emerge. She was never fond of the town, but she had no idea of the evils that hid in the swamp. The mystery of the missing teens takes a turn when she learns the mythical skunk apes, a cousin of the more famous Bigfoot, are real and involved in the disappearance. Even more disturbing, however, is the role of the people involved as well. People she had known since her childhood take on a dark new role and no one can be trusted. Not even her own father, who she learns sent her away as a teen to protect her from the town’s evil. It may be too late for Amanda to save the missing teens, but she has found an entirely new mission: getting out of the town alive.



There is a good kernel of a story in Faith of Dawn and this kept me glued to the pages throughout the novel. The monsters in the story, the skunk apes, take a back seat to the human monsters that have formed a cult around the cryptids. The monsters are lurking in the swamps surrounding the Florida town, but they largely remain in the background. The story instead focuses on the group of twisted people who have clutched the small town in their grip and control the lives of those around them through fear. Dearborn makes the atmosphere of the story even stronger by not getting too deep into the religion and whether it is real or not. She maintains a mix of the supernatural and real-world horror and plays it off admirably. Much like the main character, the reader is not really sure what to fear, and this makes it all the more horrifying. There is a lot to like about the way the story unfolds and the horror in the novel lies mostly in the atmosphere being almost as heavy as the unrelenting heat and humidity of the swamp.



What keeps this novel from moving beyond interesting to being a very good horror novel is that the main character, Amanda Lane, is just not a very good character at all. Her constant dwelling on her prosthetic leg and her failing marriage, whose failure seems to lie mostly on her shoulders, is annoying at best and grating at worst. It seems like this is intended to make her more sympathetic, and maybe even heroic as she is trying to overcome yet another obstacle, but it almost feels like it is a part of a different story and adds little to this one. The novel could have been made much stronger, and probably about 20 pages shorter, without the constant reminders of the missing leg. The other issue with the story is that many of the passages that seem intended to make the story more shocking just seem gratuitous at best. Instead of focusing on the story, Dearborn seems almost compelled to through in extraneous details that do not add anything to the story at all. Faith of Dawn is a quick and entertaining read, but it feels as if it could have been much more. While I enjoyed the novel for pure entertainment value, it is not one of Dearborn’s best works and feels as if it could have been much better.



I would like to thank Cemetery Dance Publications and NetGalley for this review copy. Faith of Dawn is scheduled to be released on February 23, 2024.

I want to thank NetGalley, the fantastic folks at Cemetary Dance, for the e-arc of “Dawn of Faith.”

This novel starts like any missing-person detective story. Our detective is Amanda Lane, who lost her leg overseas during military duty. She gets hired by the powerful father of a college student who went missing in the area of Florida where Amanda spent her youth. It is a backward rural area, fully equipped with its own religious fanatics, local lore, and a cast of characters that will have you shaking your head throughout the 316 pages.

“Dawn of Faith” is an uncomfortable ride through the real horrors that exist in the forgotten back roads of America—cults, desperate folks who will do the unimaginable to survive, and that’s before monsters even enter the picture.

There are more trigger warnings than there are letters of the alphabet. If you can get past that, there is a deserving-to-be-read tale of horror here. The author brilliantly ties everything together at the end, something I didn’t see coming. I loved it.

I read horror to experience the uncomfortable. I want the narrator to shove me out of my comfort zone. In that regard, “Dawn of Faith” is a solid four out of five stars.

It's a good and entertaining story with multidimensional characters and cool twists. I enjoyed reading it and appreciate the well-thought-out plot and the author's ability to keep the reader engaged. Worth a shot.

Nah… this one just wasn’t it.

Hated the characters (especially Amanda), way too many things added for shock value instead of actually enhancing the plot, and so much more.

I really think the MC needed to be likeable and tone down on the disgusting/graphic aspects to make this a better read (adventure thriller focussed instead).

Thank you to NetGalley, the author & Cemetery Dance Publications for a copy.

Firstly, I need you to know that I hated every second of this book. I wanted to DNF it so badly but I continued out of spite to write a full review. I read this so you don't have to. Good Lord there were so many issues.

1. Using the R slur repeatedly when referring to disabled people (it doesn’t matter if you follow it up with 'I know you’re not supposed to use these days' or subbing in the word "touched"). The author quite literally acknowledges this is wrong and yet continues to refer to disabled people in derogatory ways. I don't care if the book is set in a small town and you want 'realism', it adds nothing and is utterly disgusting. There were so many better ways to have this detail for an extremely obvious plot point without using slurs and derogatory language. Yes, I wanted to throw my phone away because of it.
2. The main character, Amanda, has a prosthetic leg following an injury in Afghanistan. How do I know? It's mentioned on every fucking page. 'She held open the door with her 'plastic' leg', 'she stepped out of the car with her normal leg first then her prosthetic', etc etc. it was mentioned constantly. If it was a drinking game, I'd be dead (and I've drank an entire bottle of vodka straight in one night so please grasp the significance of this lmao). It honestly was hardly ever relevant, and felt extremely gross. One of the reasons I continued the book was to see if this became relevant to the story. It did not. It was used lazily in the Big Event at the end but otherwise was just mentioned constantly for shits and giggles I guess? She reflects on her time in Afghanistan occasionally and is typically very surface level at best, but otherwise it seemed to be used to fill up words on the page and give her an excuse to be a dickhead with a gun. She does meet a very minor character who also has a prosthetic leg. Of course this character was fat so obviously was lost due to diabetes. The point of this? No idea. So Amanda could be a judgemental bitch maybe?
3. The judgements didn't stop there. Everyone who was not white was not described well, including frequently referring to Native Americans as Indians (which to my understanding, saying that word alone is offensive but I could be wrong), using derogatory language towards/about sex workers, fatphobia, and just about insulting every demographic possible (except the whites). There's also a nice dash of victim blaming to go with it.
4. There's just a lot of nonsense, filler, grammatical errors, and sentences that don't make sense. Half the book could've been deleted because it didn't add anything. Genuinely felt like padding for a word count. Many phrases were repeated (if I had to read Amanda repeating herself and clarifying that she hates her southern accent coming out again, I would've lost it). Also, every time a chapter was from another POV, it was titled 'interlude' WHEN THATS NOT WHAT THAT MEANS. A simple google search will explain what an interlude is. I don't know how this is getting published.
5. So, I'm gonna assume the book uses offensive language under the guise of realism, and yet SO MANY UNREALISTIC THINGS HAPPEN. To avoid spoilers, I will keep this vague but Amanda doesn’t act like a veteran, lots of stupid choices, and the ending was obviously unrealistic with what it featured. People flipflopped, mental leaps, but also sheer stupidity occurred throughout the book. I'm fine with unlikable characters if you atleast keep them consistent. Also, how can you have an expert on something that many believe isn't real? Like to the degree of 'knowledge' they had? Idk this was kind of the least of my worries.
6. TW for rape, beastiality (I guess), murder, infant death, pregnancy and birth (including perinatal death), paedophilia, drug use/addiction, racism, ableism, slurs, etc for the whole book but also this point. Why the FUCK are you talking about the size of an infants penis?
7. TW for domestic violence. Amanda is abusive and there is reference to domestic violence for which she is not remorseful. She calls and visits her ex when he has set clear boundaries and states he is scared of her. She asks to see his children and is upset when he says no. She whines about missing him and having nothing without him throughout the book, wanting to call him all the time, etc. This was grating and like we get it! She's awful! Can we move on?
8. The plot just fucking sucks honestly. There's no payoff to the mystery, very few answers, and it was just so not worth it.


TLDR: this book is full of awful writing, with regards to both plot and in using offensive and derogatory terms throughout. Check trigger warnings before reading. I hope this doesn’t actually get published.

Thank you to netgalley for the arc.

This was a lot of fun!

This book centres on our troubled private investigator being drawn back to her home town in search of two missing girls. Amanda Lane is an Afghanistan veteran who is on the verge of a divorce so this investigation gives her something to hang onto. But once Amanda heads back home this book quickly turns into a creature horror.

This book is gruesome, and I mean gruesome! at times I had to put it down for a second to take a deep breath🤭 I LOVED it.

It was a great horror with fantastic characters who really rooted for (and some you hate with a passion🤭)

A fantastic creature feature that had me hooked from the start.

I just reviewed Faith of Dawn by Kristin Deaborn. #FaithofDawn #NetGalley

This was a brilliant read and the turn of events was like taking a sharp u in a free way. Never the less I did enjoy this creature feature but definitely the book format given to me did not make it a pleasant read at all. I would recommend changing to epub format for much user friendly read.

My thanks to the Author publisher's and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
This book starts off as a totally absorbing missing person's mystery, with our troubled private investigator returning to her childhood home to search for two missing teenage girls. Amanda Lane one legged Afghanistan veteran is ballsy brave clever and feisty, but in the blink of an eye, the book becomes a creature feature, a far fetched gruesome at times horror story, not my normal read at all, but I was completely and totally hooked. Well written with superb characters throughout especially our heroine, please tell me there will be more books to come.
I can think of no higher praise than this could have been penned by Stephen King.

Completely and utterly recommended.