🪰A MASK OF FLIES🪰 by @cannibalghosts is about as twisty as it gets and even though there was a lot going on here causing me some confusion at times, overall I ended up enjoying the ride! Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publishers, @tornightfire and @macmillanaudio for the e and audio-ARCs.

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At first I felt like this book didn't know what it really wanted to be. It starts hot and heavy with a heist and taking a cop hostage but that storyline eventually fizzles out. I felt a little let down by that even though it was really just the appetizer to a larger story. I liked the "second story" even more but won't give details so as to not spoil it for ya. Let's just say it takes a supernatural turn.

The landscape descriptions were vivid and captivating but the character development and dialogue were a bit lacking for me. I would give this book a solid 3 stars.

Huge shout out to the audio narrator @saskiaaudio - her voice and cadence kept me in the story even when I was not fully engaged!

Crime horror, indeed. A wild ride from start to finish. This book packed many punches that had me cringing and surprised. I enjoyed that, plus the setting. Let me tell you, as a Native Coloradan and having family from the Valley, this book captured the isolation, the small towns, the eeriness that just exists there. I loved that! Truly, the downfall was the amount of plot lines and people in constant motion intertwined. I was struggle to follow sometimes.

The audiobook narrated by Saskia Maarleveld is wonderful! Her tone of voice was perfect for this story. She was also easily understood at faster speeds.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Nightfire, Macmillan Audio and author Matthew Lyons for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I had a hard time getting through this one but it's kind of hard for me to put my finger on why. I wasn't fond of the main character, she seemed a bit too much like the cliched bad girl with a good heart trope. I also felt the story dragged occasionally and could have been written as a much shorter novel. There were still definitely some fun moments, though.

The plot of this book is incredibly imaginative and intriguing, but I feel like it is trying to do too much in too few pages. I wanted to see more of the supernatural elements and some condensing of the on-the-ground sort of stuff.

Sadly this was a DNF for me - I just couldn't connect with it. Possibly the subject matter, as the writing is excellent, but it was very dark; maybe I've not been in the right mood for it.

I'll certainly be trying again in due course, so will update as and when. Apologies for now.

I don’t think I was prepared for how good this book is. I loved the supernatural elements it added to the suspense. I love a good crime novel and this one fit it perfectly

I love the variety of Lyons's books. The Night Will Find Us and A Black and Endless Sky were both super creepy in their own ways. I still check around the wood line at night when Watson is doing his business. Each book is something unique and here we have a crime/thriller/horror mashup complete with a botched bank heist, culty vibes, rural middle of nowhere setting for some isolation, and some good supernatural elements to keep it balanced. 

The thought that went into this is incredible. The complex layers in this story and the characters. Deeply flawed and at times very frustrating, it was fun being in Anne's head as she navigated the very unfortunate circumstances she found herself in. I think this could have been shortened a little - some repetitive parts but nothing to where I was ready to abandon the book. I love his books and will continue to pick up whatever he releases!

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review "A Mask of Flies." I loved the concept of an outlaw mixed with pure horror. It is a story full of constant action. A bit gory so I would recommend it for true horror fans.

I am so thankful to Tor Nightfire, Macmillan Audio, Matthew Lyons, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this galley before publication day. I really enjoyed the dialogue and plot of this book and can’t wait to chat this one up with my friends!

I genuinely don’t know why it took me so long to read this it was fantastic and at no point did I know what was going to happen next

The prologue for this is basically a perfect short horror story, but once the novel truly started it went downhill fast, at least for me. The writing is sometimes way less assured and strong than it is at other times, which led to a disjointed reading experience that wasn't particularly immersive.

We’ve got a good one here, friends. Mask of Flies is a super cool mix of genres. There’s a crime story about a bank robbery gone wrong, and our main character is on the run from the cops. You also add in a mix of supernatural, Lovecraftian elements and cult horror with the present story, and the main character’s back story, and I thought it was something that’s really fresh and new. The characters were really well written and drawn out & the action sequences were really well done. Overall, this one gets an enthusiastic 4.5 ⭐️ from this horror cult worshipper. 😵

Some comparable stories would be Todd Keisling’s “Devil’s Creek” & Daryl Gregory’s “Revelator” - a specific subset of horror - cultish, folksy, & otherworldly horror that I just adore.

A Mask of Flies was a wild ride reminiscent of a slasher movie with attempts of heartfelt reflections on grief woven throughout. Anne, the protagonist of the story, is a career criminal who finds herself at her long abandoned childhood home when a bank heist goes horribly wrong. But a return home means a return to the darkness she has long left behind, a darkness turned monster that makes getting caught by the police sound not too shabby.

The fast paced nature of this book is what kept me going, but there was so much going on that the moments Lyons attempts to add tenderness and romance fall incredibly flat and feel too far removed from all the action. I appreciated the ending and how things wrapped up, but continue to be at a loss for the why and how of all the monstrosity.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

This book is like a crime thriller mixed with some paranormal aspects. We follow Anne after a bank heist goes wrong and she is forced to face her childhood because she is hiding out in her families cabin.

This book just had too much going on for me and I hated how violent it was! I don't need all of the bloody descriptions. I didn't like Anne as a character and I just had a hard time with this one. I also think it was just too long of a book.

I hope others love this one but it wasn't for me.

Effective mix of crime and horror that does stretch on a bit too long near the end. But I really enjoyed this one, all in all. Anne Heller, part of a crew of bank robbers, flees a heist gone bad with another member of her crew and a police officer she abducted in the heat of the moment. They all wind up at an old cabin in rural San Luis Valley, Colorado, the site of her mother's death many years ago. When her friend, Jessop, injured in the robbery, goes missing in the night, only to turn up dead, she and the police officer bury him. But then he returns the next evening. This was a fast-moving book, with lots of violence, some cult-horror, even a bit of cosmic, Lovecraftian horror.

A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons is a creepy and gripping horror novel that pulls you into a world of strange happenings and dark secrets. The story centers around a small town with a disturbing history, and as the main character digs deeper, things take a terrifying turn.

Lyons does a great job creating a spooky atmosphere—there are plenty of eerie moments and unsettling imagery that kept me on edge. The tension builds steadily, and I found myself really drawn into the mystery behind the town's dark past. The writing is vivid, making it easy to picture the strange and sometimes frightening scenes.

I went into this book pretty blind know there was a bit of haunting/paranormal and I thought it would be a swampy setting. To my surprise this was more midwest/desert setting and there was a WHOLE lot more to this story then I expected. The main thing I took away while reading this book is I was able to just feel how long that horrible time felt for Anne, how it probably only all took place a short amount of time a week or so but the feeling that this lasted forever taking beating after beating. How she survived is beyond me because I could feel her pain.

You have a bit of action in this story starting off with a bank hoist gone wrong which will lead you to the cabin and the paranormal introduction. I think Matthew did such a great job with each character in this book each of them distinct and I was able to easily follow along with the twists and turns and changes that occurred. There are so many moving points and I never felt lost.

The imagery he painted with his worse at times I even had to pause and because there are some brutal brutal scenes throughout.
I really enjoyed this story and found it entertaining and unique.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

It's a little difficult to write this review because at times I loved it and other times I was struggling to continue. It starts off with a bang. I thoroughly enjoyed the bank robbery/getaway side of the story. It was fast paced and entertaining as heck. But I struggled with the supernatural side of this story. They just didn't seem to gel together the way they were meant to. It was better towards the end of the book, but by then I just wanted it to be over. The supernatural parts were just too repetitive and overal, just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I would have enjoyed the story a lot more if it was strictly based around the robbery and the getaway.

Incredibly thrilling, grotesque, and a book that kept me up for many, many, MANY nights in a row. Thank you!

This was a very interesting book. I love that it is inspired by Lord of the flies and the major themes present and the novel.