Coming Soon Tuesdays #1: Erebus by Debi Chestnut ARC courtesy of Netgalley
Title: Erebus
Author: Debi Chestnut
Expected Release Date: September 13, 2022
IZABELA THORNTON is a young woman with a mysterious past and a plethora of psychic gifts who took a leave of absence from her job as head of the Paranormal Department for the Institute of Scientific Anomalies (ISA). She’s content to live in the small town of Morgan’s Crossing, Michigan to write a book on her experiences.
However, her peaceful bliss is soon shattered when Sheriff Matt Faraday, Mayor Dixon and a Professor of Archeology, Simon Winthrop call on Izabela to help them stop an alleged hellhound that is roaming the countryside. This creature is killing and sucking the blood out of livestock.
When the professor is murdered and valuable artifacts are stolen from his lab, the Sheriff and Alexis have to team up to find the killer. Among the artifacts stolen is the Ring of Solomon which has the power to summon angels and demons. The creature that is killing the livestock is bound to protect the Keeper of the Ring and the ring itself.
Can Izabela stop the hellhound and find the killer before she becomes the next victim?
SPOILERS! BEWARE!
I'm going to give this 2.5-star rating out of 5. I did really enjoy a lot of the writing style in this one, and the plot ideas were interesting, if poorly executed. The whole story seems to take about a week or so. In the beginning, when the Mayor, Sheriff, and Professor show up, Izabela asks for a few days to think about it before joining the search on what type of animal has been killing livestock in the area, but she seems to immediately start investigating that day and every time someone asks for a day or so they get back to her with full details only a few hours later with no mention of her or them getting something done faster than expected. I think the murder of the professor should have been the thing that spurred Izabela into agreeing to look into the hellhound instead of the weird jump where she's all, let me think about it, and just starts doing the investigation right that afternoon. Also, after the initial meeting, the mayor is no longer involved in the story past the back story of Sheriff Matt's love life issues.
This story seemed to have three major plotlines: the appearance and terrorization of the town's livestock by a hellhound, the murder of the professor that originally wanted to hire Izabela for the hellhound along with his missing relics, and Izabela dealing with a demon that attacked her before the main story. There might have been too many threads because if she was focusing on one, then she seemed to completely forget about the others, or they become an afterthought though it's important. Like when she's worried that the killer is after, but let's forget about that while we deal with this demon. The hellhound attacked every two days once that was established, and they went out and found it on the second night, it seemed like no one cared about the hellhound feeding anymore, no other livestock was said to have been attacked after that, and no one in town asked about it anymore even though it was still a threat she was dealing with. At one point, she even berates herself for not focusing on solving the murder, which isn't even her job. She was supposed to be looking into the hellhound, sure they are connected, but it’s not her job to worry about solving it.
There were a few times where the narration moved to Sheriff Matt, which I believe should have been used more, it was used at least twice, and one of those times ended up switching focus back to Izabela abruptly. The whole relationship between Izabela and Matt seemed weird. There wasn't any overt indication when they first met that there was this undeniable attraction. Seriously it was strange how they went from Izabela worried she messed up their first date, which was supposed to be a work dinner about the hellhound to Matt saying he's her boyfriend not even three days later. Oh, and when they supposedly first slept together, the chapter was so vague about it, I was having a hard time following what happened, I seriously just thought she asked him to stay and they fall asleep on the couch together because there was no mention of moving into the bedroom and I really only got it because she was worried it would be awkward which I think is really against the character. Another thing when it comes to Matt, Izabela makes a big deal about opening her own car door as she doesn't need a man *hard eyeroll* clearly she doesn't understand the importance of letting a guy open a door for you and only reluctantly lets him do it for her later on again making an internal comment against it, but when he offers to pick up dinner for her which I believe is in the same vain as opening a door which is doing something nice, she praises him for being such a great man. She really can't have it both ways.
I wish the murder was a little different. Izabela narrows down the suspects to three guys without much explanation of the reason why it has to be one of these three guys. I was actually hoping it was done by her neighbor/friend Kathy as Kathy seemed to show up and help her do research on what was going on and seemed very interested in the fact that Izabela knew where the relics were. She helped her research the hellhound and read that they leave smoking footprints and walk with flaming feet and that wasn't mentioned in the story until after she read that. It seriously made me think that maybe Kathy was somehow involved with the hellhound and later with the missing relics. Kathy is MIA through most of the book as she ditches Izabela after being scared off by Izabela's supernatural involvement but coming back after hearing the rumor about the relics. I just think that would have been a better twist than the killer in the book.
I got the advanced copy of this on Netgalley. It was still in need of a few more rounds of editing before it's published but based on the copy I got I would recommend this to fantasy and mystery fans. Overall it is a simple read that could be enjoyable to read.
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