Horror readers, this one’s for you! Full of action, this one kept me focused and unsure of what would happen next! Listening to Saskia Maarleveld is always a treat and she narrates this one flawlessly. The buzzing flies, multiple character voices, and and tense scenes dripped with terror and I loved every second!

Read this one if you love:

- Culty vibes
- Trust no one
- Character and plot driven stories
- Truly creepy horror
- Paranormal monsters
- Heists
- Criminals on the run
- Strong female MCs

A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons

This book was hella WEIRD!!!

Someone sold them out. The heist went terribly wrong and Anne barely escapes with Jessup bleeding so badly that the only place she can stop is the place where she lost her mother. He doesn’t survive his gunshot but apparently doesn't know how to stay dead either…

The supernatural themes in this one were really exciting!! Anne is a criminal and remembers virtually nothing from her childhood. She remembers what happened to her mother but no one believed her. She was on the verge of being annoying but she always starts to redeem herself so it was hard to hate her but she was such a hot head. Quick to anger and that really was irritating.

She ends up going back to the cabin where her mother was killed and in doing so lets something loose. She can’t outrun it and on her journeys she learns about why she doesn’t remember anything from her childhood. It's eerie and dark and really entertaining.

For the most part it was well paced but there was a lot I person think should have been cut out and then it would have been one hell of a book.

4 stars

Be warned. Mask of Flies was a very disturbing read. Horror lovers will love this book. You won’t regret it!

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* This was....different. I really thought i'd like this more than i did, it was a lot different than what i expected lol would reread in the future though

Matthew Lyons kills it with a crime/horror mashup in which each aspect is equally important to the story..

This book is serving up folk horror meets crime fiction. There is so much to unpack and a lot of plot that could be mentioned in a spoiler-y way, that I want to limit my review to pros and cons versus a full breakdown.

PROS:
🪰 The botched bank heist/career criminal vibes.
🪰 Anne – she has such an interesting backstory and is a total badass.
🪰 The setting – rural and secluded for the best atmospheric qualities.
🪰 Cult vibes!
🪰 There’s a cat!

CONS:
🪰 Repetitive – there is a lot that I think could have been paired down in this story to make it sleeker and faster paced.
🪰 Confusing at times – I won’t lie, I got a bit lost at points with this one, which I think is because I zoned out.

I received a copy of "Mask of Flies" by Matthew Lyons. Unfortunately, I found this book challenging to get through, mainly because it felt overly long for its content. However, since I generally enjoy spooky books, I'm definitely interested in exploring more of Lyons' work to get a better sense of his style and other narratives.

A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons is the first book I've read by this author so I went into it not knowing what to expect. This was a pretty alright book overall but I did struggle with feeling bored and losing interest several times. The language was overly descriptive and I think it made the story too long and slow. That aside, there were several things I did enjoy too. I honestly chose this book because it had a creepy cover. And it definitely delivered the creepy vibes I was craving. It was dark and gory in the best of ways. The audiobook's narration was done really well. The narrator did a fantastic job bringing the story to life. The concept was great but something about the execution just didn't work for me. But I do think I'll try something else by this author soon.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the audio ARC! Saskia Maarleveld did a great job and brought the story to life, giving the character voice kind of a Poker Face, Natasha Lyonne vibe.

After a traumatic experience as a child, in which she and her mother were forced to flee their little cabin, Anne turned to a life of crime to make ends meet. Always the professional, Anne had so far gotten away scot-free, only agreeing to one final score. However, after a bank robbery gone wrong, she may be forced back into things she’d been running from all her life.

This was a really unique blend of crime and supernatural. It really does feel like bits of It Follows, The Evil Dead, and even Smile meshed together with a criminal on the run. As Anne dodged police and public recognition, there is something eerie and slithering following her all throughout the background.

With an almost whiplash pacing, I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns in this one, only wondering how things would pan out when the climax seemed to happen too soon (it doesn’t). And of course with such a pace, it does go a bit too fast for the eerie suspense to build up, however the scenes the entity appears in were incredibly creepy, particularly the police station scene.

The only thing that stuck out for me was the police officer as a side character. Anne specifically shoots his partner in the knee, injuring him, but stating several times she did not kill him. But then the kidnapped officer says that no one will believe him that he wasn’t involved and therefore he decides to help her? It just seemed odd to me a kind of a really weak reason for him to be there. Although I did enjoy Anne being multilayered and pulling almost everyone that meets her into her orbit because she wasn’t wholly bad.

Overall, this is a very good one!

This is the story of Anne, a criminal with anger issues. When she and her fellow criminals rob a bank and it goes terribly wrong Anne has more to worry about than the police. Anne seeks refuge in her family’s abandoned cabin —she takes her wounded friend and a cop that she kidnapped from the scene of the crime with her. She is immediately forced to confront her past which includes a supernatural entity that wants Anne and will devour and tear apart anyone standing in its way.

This was crazy!! It was non stop action from the beginning to the end. This is not for the squeamish. It is loaded with violence and gore. I thought it was great!! I loved the atmosphere and the story. The characters were flawed, dark and broken. This was a horror novel but written with great detail and had great character development.

The narration for the audiobook was done really well and added to the story!!

5 ⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review .

Heyyyy spooky season is coming up and if anyone out there is looking for a new crime horror to add to there reading list next month, this is the one for you with an actual criminal protagonist. Or would it be antagonist then, who knows? Following a criminal and the cop she’s taken hostage as they must find their way to safety- perused by threats both human and supernatural. One of the big selling points for me is it mentions the story having a pinch of evil dead which I can now say with certainty is true. Definitely a lot more gore and suspense then I expected!

This book made me feel squeamish and feverish but in a good way. The body horror was excellent. If you’re not a fan of winged insects and that annoying buzzing sound you’ll have fun with this one.

The story was almost 2 stories in one. A bank heist gone terribly wrong, with a police shoot out and holing up in a remote cabin; and a cult body horror story with religious fervor, human monsters and one big shape shifter.

Narration was great. All the characters sounded unique.

This book starts off with a bank robbery that goes wrong in every single way so it seemed promising throw in some supernatural elements and you get a supernatural thriller/horror. I think the plot sounded interesting but it felt like this book could have been cut down a bit. I just think maybe this one wasn’t for me. The narrator was fantastic and sounded like what I’d expect Anna to sound like but the story itself didn’t hold my attention like I had hoped.

Anne Heller is on the run after a bank robbery gone wrong and on her heels is a pile of don’t ask. In this supernatural crime novel, you’ll catch yourself holding your breath more than once as Anne’s life goes from bad to worse.
This book has so much creep and gore going for it. It’s extremely violent. I was full on cringing towards the end! The writing is exceptional. The way the author wove the supernatural into an almost Wild West like bank heist was fantastic.
I didn’t give it 5 stars for one reason only. I would have liked more explanation as to what it was all about. At the end I was still asking what that was and what caused it.
I received this in audiobook format. The narrator, Saskia Maarleveld, did a fantastic job! I’ve had other books from this narrator before and she is top notch. One of my favorites.
Thank you to McMillan Audio and NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

I was also accepted for a Storygram Tour for this book.

🦷"The Past Has Teeth"🦷

🥀Another day, another great book tour/review. Today's book tour is for A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons. Buckle up and get ready for a bank robbery turned gore infused joyride from Hell!

🪰SYNOPSIS🪰

THE PAST HAS TEETH

In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family’s cabin – a secluded shack in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death.

Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne’s badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics from her mother’s past and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.
Then Jessup goes missing, only to turn up dead. Anne and Dutch bury her friend, but that night, he comes back and knocks at the cabin door.

Not a dream, not a hallucination, but not exactly Jessup, either. Something else. Something wearing her friend’s face. Something hungry...

🧠My Thoughts🧠

I did not expect this book to turn into some weird cult thing, but alas, here we are. I do not usually enjoy cult books, nor do I enjoy heist situations, and this book had both... and I didn't hate it. I probably should have read the synopsis more thoroughly, but in my defense, the cover distracted me. This will probably sound weird, but I think if you liked Stolen Tongues, then you might enjoy this one.

⛧A huge thank you to @tornightfire and @cannibalghosts for sending this book my way! And thank you to @storygramtours for hosting! Even though the book was gifted, all thoughts are my own.

Check my comment below for a link to buy the book!

💬ⓆⓄⓉⒹ: How do you feel about cults/cult books?

🏷#books #booknerdigans #bookstagram #read #horrorreader #bookworm #bibliophile #horrorcommunity #bookish #bookhaul #audiobook #spooky #spookyseason #horror #halloween #themacabrelibrary #halloweendecorations #allthingsspooky #darkbookstagram #creepsgetlit #CodeOrange #amaskofflies #tornightfire #storygramtours #culthorror #cults

This was a solid audio production. I always enjoy Saskia Maarleveld's narration. Sadly, the content of this sort of flopped for me, so it's hard to say more about the audio because of that. My full thoughts on the story can be found below:

**2.5-stars rounded up**

After a failed bank heist, Anne Hiller is forced to go on the run, along with her wounded partner, Jessup, and the policeman she has taken hostage. Anne goes to the closest place she can think of where they can safely take refuge, her family's abandoned cabin. This place should hold a lot of memories for Anne, but her entire childhood is hazy at best. She does remember that the cabin was the site of her mother's untimely death though.

As she waits for help from other members of her crew, Anne ends up discovering some old relics of her mother's. Could these items help her piece together the missing bits of her past. She'd love some closure. Her mission to delve into the past is interrupted when the injured Jessup goes missing. They end up finding his dead body. They decide to bury him, thinking that'll be the end, but when the dead man returns, knocking at the door in the night, they realize, this is only the beginning.

A Mask of Flies is the third book that I've read from Matthew Lyons. On paper, this should have worked really well for me. A Horror-Crime Thriller blend with people returning from the dead and a woman on the run for her life. What's not to love about that?

Sadly, this didn't end up being a good fit for me. I've enjoyed both of the other novels I've read from this author, but this ended up being a miss for me. I never became fully invested. Anne was very meh, as were the characters surrounding her. The only person who ever really interested me was Dutch, just because of the circumstances he found himself in, but it still wasn't enough for me to actually feel truly engaged with his plight.

With this being said, it's not all negative. The writing is great and the ideas are solid. It just failed to capture my attention. That doesn't mean it won't work for others, however, including you, so please take my opinion with a grain of salt. I did read this directly after reading Blood Like Mine, another new release Crime Horror novel that I absolutely loved. Perhaps reading them back-to-back was detrimental to my experience with this one. It disappointed in comparison.

I will also say, Lyons creates his landscapes really well. I've noticed this throughout his work that I've read. I can always picture these beautifully-stark landscapes the characters travel through. This one, as with A Black and Endless Sky, gave me slight Desperation mixed with Revival vibes, which I even mentioned in my review for that previous novel. There's something very Fundamentalist Religious group meets Tak about all this. IYKYK. At the end of the day, even though this wasn't the most fun experience for me, I still believe Matthew Lyons is one heck of a writer. He takes risks and is creative with his storylines. I'm definitely planning to pick up whatever he writes next.

Thank you to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. There's a book for every Reader and a Reader for every book. Just because this wasn't great for me personally, doesn't mean it won't be amazing for you.

I was really disappointed by this book. I wanted to like this i really really did but I just didn't. It felt flat and slow. The pacing was off and it just wasn't for me.

I loved this as an audiobook! It was a perfect and unique mashup of horror and crime/heist thriller. Narrator was excellent!

Sometimes when there's a lot going on in a book it's easy to be overwhelmed, and the thing this book does well is NOT overwhelm you with all of the things going on. Very easy to follow and understand and not like get lost in the "what the fuck is happening here?" of it all. Perfect for fans of crime novels, books with very likeable main characters and most importantly a badass cat. All the hearts for Murph.
Happy to finally have a rec for folks coming into the store looking for a whopper of a shapeshifter story.

If an action packed bloodbath that reads like it could be the love child of Quentin Tarantino and Stephen King sounds like your thing, you’re going to want to add A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons to your TBR list right now.

I kind of wish I hadn’t hastily added it to mine, though.

I did not dislike A Mask of Flies, but it doesn’t have me chasing after Lyons’ previous novels either. I don’t avoid gore at all costs, but I prefer not to encounter too much of it. If I find a story deeply engaging, it’s easier to tolerate the bloody violence. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this one enough to give it a pass. I can see, however, how this complicated horror will hit the right notes for many other readers.

Before I express my other gripes, let me first applaud the author for making his morally gray main character female. How often do we see bank heists with multiple women flexing their criminal muscles? Anne was tough and sometimes challenging to like, but we are shown some nuance. She cared deeply about some of the people in her life. Plus, she loved her cat, and that, in my opinion, is a very important quality in a character. There was a whole Ripley and Jonesy vibe going on with the way she protected that cat. I liked it a lot.

Lyons created a very busy tale here, and that might be completely engrossing for some, but I’m going to argue that he tackled too much at once. Consequently, certain aspects were poorly developed. The thing I found particularly frustrating was the storyline surrounding the cop Anne takes hostage. This is part of the synopsis’s setup, and I expected great tension between the two of them as they tried to survive the pursuit of supernatural terror. Instead, the author took the easy way out with this, and it seemed highly implausible. This hostage situation was an unnecessary addition to the story. It did nothing for it, other than disappoint.

I also found it extremely difficult to believe in certain sacrifices made on Anne’s behalf, as well as the willingness of certain characters to keep quiet about this criminal in their presence. An explanation one individual presented for the latter behavior near the end of the book sounded completely ludicrous to me.

And I wondered - why add a love story? Sure, it’s just a spark here and there, but it felt weirdly out of place, especially in a story that already had so much going on. The only positive I can add regarding this is that I did like the way the author concluded things, and I suppose he couldn’t have done it so favorably without a pinch of romance.

I am immensely grateful to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.