This novel felt like AI wrote it.
The characters were very 1 diomensional, and felt like they had been pulled off a crime procedural show on TV.

It also felt like someone went through with a thesaurus to change out words and the ones they chose don't always make sense or fit the moment or the writing style.

Hard to get through. Could have been interesting based off the plot, but is very underdeveloped.

This one was fairly enjoyable, but not entirely to my taste (can't pinpoint exactly why, though). Still a three star.

3.5/5

Welcome To Cemetery was a decent book. It was good, but not my absolute favorite. It kept me interested, had lots of action, and an interesting plot. However, it just didn't captivate me? If your looking for a happy ending and heros prevailing, this is not the book for you. Lots of people died, and I could have done without the random romance in the book. It felt out of place and didn't give much to the story in my opinion. I was slightly disappointed in the ending. I wish there was more details and it left me with questions. Although, I believe this is the beginning of a series, hopefully things connect more in the next book. It was good, I just felt there could've been more information throughout, especially with the ending. I would still recommend you give it a read!!

Thank you to BestGhost Books publishing for providing me an ARC copy via Netgalley in exchange for my review.

This book features heavy dialogue, a queer romance, and a supernatural theme intertwined with crime, all of which I enjoyed. However, I felt that the ending was rushed, leaving some questions unanswered. I gave it 3.5 stars. I appreciated the author's effort in crafting a narrative that explores the trauma, anxiety, and shyness experienced by Detective Abby, a female in a predominantly male police station. Despite the book's strengths, the rushed conclusion detracted from my overall reading experience.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this ebook!

Welcome to Cemetery by C.J. Daly leans more into thriller territory than horror, but it's high body count and fast-paced action made it impossible to stop reading. About a third of the way in, I knew this was an action-packed mystery rather than a true horror novel—but that didn’t stop me. I was hooked, fully invested in unraveling the dark secrets buried within this story.

Set in a small town where the dead turn up in increasingly grotesque states—drained of blood, stripped of organs, hacked apart like a butcher's leftovers—the local detectives find themselves tangled in a case that defies explanation. The pathologist is baffled. The police are clueless. And as more bodies pile up, the web of conspiracies stretches wider, implicating nearly everyone in town.

That’s where things started to unravel for me. The sheer scale of the conspiracy requires a massive suspension of disbelief. When the mastermind is revealed, their motives feel flimsy, almost absurd given the reach of their influence. And the final act? It plunges headfirst into chaos, shredding any last grasp on reality.

It’s bloody. It’s fast-paced. It has moments of skin-crawling tension. Now the thing I wanted more of was dread, and lingering unease, a high-speed thriller with an over-the-top premise. If that’s your thing, you’ll have fun with it. But if you’re hunting for a story that will haunt you after dark, you might want to keep looking.


Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

First of all thank you to NetGalley and publisher for early arc of this book! Great characters with strong female protagonist who I was behind the whole time, fast paced and packed with action. I really liked it! Fun story with some really cool scenes!

Ｅｂｏｏｋ Ｒｅｖｉｅｗ
3 ☆

Abby Williams is an almost-thirty-year-old detective in a strangely named town, Cemetery, NY. Along with her partner, Ed Reyes, a car accident one fateful night leads to a search for two missing bodies. Before long, a string of missing persons becomes a collection of bloodless bodies that has even the police pathologist stumped.

This is labeled as a horror thriller, but I think it's just a thriller. It doesn't give me horror vibes! I wanted to love this book, but it was just "meh." I'm happy I read it, but I wouldn't read it again. I did like that it was fast-paced and straightforward, and the author didn't drag the book to 350+ pages. I don't know, I just wanted more.

Thank you, Netgellay, and BestGhosted Books for the ebook in exchange for my honest review.

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

I read the prologue and thought it was promising, but it actually wasn’t. The narrative is boring—too much telling and not enough showing. There is also too much redundancy. I kept waiting for the writing to get better, but it didn’t.

The most annoying part is the characters. The female lead has a classic “woman written by a man” characterization, and the male characters are overly focused on the classic stereotypes. They just turned me off.

I received an e-ARC and am giving my honest review
I was so into this for the first quarter or so, but then it became repetitive. A lot of grammar and punctuation mistakes and the increasing feeling that this was not, in fact, actual horror, but rather just a thriller. And I do enjoy thrillers, but I had wanted to read this because I was in the mood for horror and was pretty disappointed. The narrative felt incredibly repetitive and it bordered on boring at the end. I kept waiting for there to be some massive twist, but everything I had assumed were red herons were actually just exactly what was happening. Or close to it. This book left me disappointed and, frankly, annoyed. There’s been.a new trend in horror.thrillers where they give a ton of hints and then end up with “yeah it was actually literally nothing!” Truly one of my biggest pet peeves

I’m not really sure how to rate the book. Welcome to Cemetary was pretty fast paced and it seemed like there was always something happening. There weren’t many lulls in the story and it was easy to read.

It reminded me of an SVU, Criminal Minds-type TV show. And for some reason, it also reminded me of Dexter. Not the serial killer part, but just the police. Maybe it was the names. There was an Officer Doakes, and there’s someone with that same name in the series, Dexter. All the police officer and detective names sounded like names from different TV shows put into one book.

I didn’t dislike the book, but it’s not memorable to me. The ending seemed very rushed, and it technically did make sense…I guess, but I was a little disappointed. It wasn’t really what I thought it was going to be, maybe? It was classified as horror, mystery and thriller. I wouldn’t really classify it as horror at all. Maybe police true crime.

I guess I am just kind of neutral about it. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this ARC.

This book is right in my wheelhouse. Or at least it should be. Crime, creepy stuff, pretty believable characters, a queer romance, I’m all in on all of these things.

It took me about 40% of my way through this book to figure out what was bothering me about it.

As quickly as this should have read for the interesting ideas, it just didn’t. I finally figured out that it doesn’t feel like it’s written to be read. It feels like it’s written to become a movie, or a series. And it would be great for that. But it lends to a rough read at times. As a novel, a solid 1/3 of the words could be edited out and it would probably help. But if it ever ends up on HBO I can’t wait to watch it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Abby Williams is a detective in Cemetery, New York, investigating a string of murders that has plagued her town since the start of October. No matter what she or her partner do, they can't seem to make headway on an investigation that is becoming increasingly strange. Victims are found drained of their blood, oddly decomposed for how long they've been dead, and often missing organs. Stranger still, all the victims have had two small wounds around their collar bones, almost like needle pricks... or bite marks?

Okay, this book is extremely fast paced and easy to read. It keeps you captivated from the get go. The characters are all flawed and complicated making it difficult to figure out who you think is guilty when everyone has something to hide. I also loved how this book felt spooky and Halloweeny, often playing with classic horror tropes. Finally, this book contains a queer romance which is always a plus for me.

That being said, the dialog in this book was often overwritten, unnatural, or cringy. If you don't mind something like a Marvel movie, I don't think you'll mind this either--it's heavy on the snarky one liners. There were multiple times that I would stop reading and think "people don't talk like this in real life". Again, this may not be a problem for you, but I found it super distracting. My other qualm was that the police work and the capacity for the human body to tolerate injuries described in this book was a little fantastical. This is another issue that I found really distracting but might be fine for other readers. But there were multiple times when I thought someone was way too strong, or when I thought that everything they were doing was horribly illegal.

Overall this book was a miss for me, but with how fast and entertaining it was, I'm not mad about having read it.

I truly am one of those people that judges a book by its cover. But I’ve definitely learned recently that I need to be more careful. I was not impressed with this cover, but I enjoyed the idea of the plot. It sucked me in quickly, and I felt it was going somewhere good. Until it really didn’t. The book had the setup to be a lot bettt than it was. The suspects were too easily guessed early on, which made it feel like a longer read than necessary. My other recommendation would b to stop using long titles of people. Once we were introduced to “Super Senior Detective Ed Reyes”, he could have just been referred to as Reyes. On a good note, tho author has the ability to be even better than they currently are.

I'll start with the admission Welcome to Cemetery did NOT go in the direction I thought it would after the first few chapters. Then, as I realized the direction of the investigation had turned, there were parts of the eventual climax I saw coming well before the end. That's not a bad thing. It's certainly action packed. There are moments when you will have to suspend disbelief. Detectives Williams and Reyes were an interesting pair. To be honest, I liked the latter more than the former. A lot more. Their recuperative powers had me raising an eye brow more than once. But, hey, it's a work of fiction. Cemetery is one messed up town. Every reader will agree upon that. Thank you to BestGhost Books and NetGalley for the advance reading copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

On the whole I enjoyed this book. I don’t agree with the categorisation as a horror. - crime and mystery for sure but there were no horror aspects.

In early chapters I thought it was going to be a horror, predicting vampires, but then nothing came of this. The storyline around this felt a little confused. It didn’t have the x files feel of attempting to explain away all supernatural ideas as mundane, but rather just had an underdeveloped plot. Perhaps this is to be a book of a series where the storyline will develop.

I think the final chapters are a bit messy, but I did enjoy the character development.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this ebook.
I really enjoyed this book until about the last 20% where the ending was completely rushed and left a lot of unanswered questions. The plot was very fast paced and kept me very engaged. I would have given it 5 stars, except I’m really unsatisfied with the ending. I believe the author wanted to give some mystery surrounding it, intentionally leaving some questions unanswered, but there were some plot lines with no resolution.

.William and reyes are the detective of cemetery. When a one accident investigation leads to finding the a crime leads to many crimes in the city. This book will make you sit at the edge whole time till the last chapter while reading it. Every time they are closer to finding the suspect it will again go the starting point. One of the best mystery horror book read it in a while. It's worth the amount time I spend reading this book

I enjoyed this book from the moment I started reading it. I like the characters and how the story unfolds. I did get a little lost at times but found my way back.

As a NYer I am always thrilled to find books that take place here. When I saw Welcome to Cemetery was set in the Hudson Valley I was excited and requested a copy right away. The book is categorized as horror, thriller, mystery and crime. I would not agree that it is a horror novel nor a thriller. It would definitely be a mystery and crime novel. Some things in the novel suggest that the author did not know where they were completely going with the book. There is a lot of action in the novel and the author explores many possible suspects of who was behind the chaos of this small town. Several times the author even hints at the supernatural (vampires was my biggest guess), but nothing ever comes of it. The book overall does not stand out and will not be comparable to an author such as Stephen King or Joe Hill. The story line needs to be cleaned up and polished.