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Review: It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames

Emily M — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 18:00:59 +0000

It Looks Like Us is a sinistrous nightmare. Trust nothing and beware everything.

Alison Ames became an author I had my eye keenly fixed on after the fiendish To Break a Covenant. She cements her status with this insidious, intense, and claustrophobic story, combining cutting social commentary with a story with shades of the staple of horror films: The Thing.

This is a deeply unsettling, psychologically horrendous book. Ames stalks your mind just as the monster stalks our central characters. The central premise of this book makes it impossible to trust anyone or anything you see on the page. This is an incredibly oppressive and baleful atmosphere, driven by mistrust and fear. The isolated nature of the setting adds to the unnerving, particularly that fear of the unknown and the undefined. Nature is an eternal mystery, offering so many beautiful moments but also hellish moments of darkness. Ames really leans into that here, with a meditation on the horror caused by capitalist endeavour and the pursuit of profit despite the cost. Monsters come in both recognisable and unknown forms here, human and something else entirely. The societal parallels here are unmistakable and that eco horror commentary is something striking and unusual.

From the first page, Ames ensures that you know this will be a bloody and frightening tale. That opening was incredibly atmospheric and definitely had me hooked. I liked the narrative style, moving from flashback to interview. The little hints at future actions and the way you know this is a doomed experience from the first page are brilliant. Ames excels in that fine ground that combines stomach-churning gore and action on the page with those spindly voices whispering in the back of your skull. Those body horror and contortion scenes are pure nightmare fuel. Rarely does a book actually leave chills on your skin and flashes of fear in the night than this book. There are plenty of very, very horrific scenes that are properly skin crawling, but plenty more moments that make the pit in your stomach drop because you are just anticipating more bloodshed. You are always on edge reading, questioning everything you are presented with. That psychological torment and paranoia in the characters is so well-executed and really adds to the atmosphere of terror.

Of course, horror only hits as hard if you actually care about the characters you are reading about. An absolute highlight of the book for me was these three-dimensional and loveable group of teenagers. The teenage friendships the characters form in only a few days add depth to the book. Our protagonist Riley’s compassion and connection with the others makes you want to root for them even more, despite knowledge of their eventual fate. Riley is a perfect central voice for the narrative, plagued by anxiety and panic attacks, but determined to push herself. Her voice is so arresting and enveloping that you really find yourself falling in love with her. The bleakness of the situation they face and everyone’s desire to survive makes the stakes rise even higher. Beyond Riley, our other four teenage companions are well thought out and developed. They all grow beyond their initial introductions and add vital elements of survival. This makes the shape shifting aspect of the monster that much more devastating. When you are not sure if someone you see is really the person you know, it makes every interaction become charged with an undercurrent of distrust.

It Looks Like Us is a tragic horror story that twists your mind and keeps you checking over your shoulder constantly. It is both a raging fire of horror and blood and a whisper in the dark.

It Looks Like Us is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of September 27th 2022.

**Will you be picking up It Looks Like Us? Tell us in the comments below!**

Synopsis | Goodreads

The remote terror of THE THING meets the body horror of WILDER GIRLS in this fast-paced Antarctic thriller.

Shy high school junior Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest tech companies. She joins five student volunteers, a company-approved chaperone, and an impartial scientist to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse… something that looks human.

Riley has anxiety–ostracized by the kids at school because of panic attacks–so when she starts to feel like something’s wrong with their expedition leader, Greta, she writes it off. But when Greta snaps and tries to kill Riley, she can’t chalk it up to an overactive imagination anymore. Worse, after watching Greta disintegrate, only to find another student with the same affliction, she realizes they haven’t been infected, they’ve been infiltrated–by something that can change its shape. And if the group isn’t careful, that something could quickly replace any of them.

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Review: To Break A Covenant by Alison Ames

Annie Deo — Sun, 05 Sep 2021 18:00:42 +0000

To Break A Covenant focuses on a group of girls in a small town that is intermittently plagued with supernatural experiences relating to a mine where a deadly explosion took place in 1964. The arrival of newcomer Piper whose father has been contracted to check the integrity of the mine sets off a whole new wave of paranormal phenomena, leading to the girls becoming desperate enough to take matters into their own hands, at great peril to themselves.

Debut author Alison Ames has crafted a superbly spooky and unsettling YA horror novel that contains the most heartwarming friendship circle and adorable sapphic romance at its core. This wonderful complexity means that the reader is put through heart-pounding scenes of terror in one moment, only to unwind in a light-hearted scene with the girls bantering with each other in the next. As the hauntings become more tangible and threatening, creating a high level of anxiety in the characters AND the reader, these breaks in tension are very welcome.

It also serves to ensure that we are heavily invested in Clem, Nina, Lisey, and Piper’s wellbeing as we bond with them along the way. These girls feel so real and three-dimensional, we would all want to be friends with them! The group dynamics between each of them are different (for instance, Nina instantly envelops Piper into the group whereas Clem is more aloof at the start), but they’re most definitely squad goals as they form a firm alliance and stand together in the face of danger. What I particularly appreciate is how the author doesn’t introduce contrived conflict for the sake of it, but she also steers away from an unrealistic ideal of ‘perfect’ friendship. There are times when one or more of the girls understandably become frustrated and lash out, however it isn’t drawn out for maximum drama while still allowing them to be angry, bitter or resentful as any of us would in their shoes.

Clem is our narrator with the story told from her first-person perspective, but there are sporadic clips of ‘unused footage’ from various ghost hunter shows that have visited Moon Basin to delve into the truth behind its haunted reputation. These clips are a fun way of expanding the folklore surrounding the mine and its impact on the nearby town residents, and make perfect sense in our society that reality tv shows would flock to cash in on a place with the reputation of Moon Basin. At the beginning, the clips are fairly innocuous and reveal more about the workings of the tv industry as we see presenters and camera men trying to drum up excitement from fairly hum-drum occurrences. But as the story progresses and the girls in our main arc face greater danger, the clips also take a turn for the grim and foreboding, increasing our fears for their safety.

On the whole, this book is lovingly polished and delivered with the confidence of a seasoned writer, whose characters stand on their own and occupy a town that feels fully lived-in, thanks to atmospheric descriptions, its background cast of quirky characters and unique folklore. There is a minor issue with pacing in the second half of the book where it feels as though the girls are going around in circles and their plan isn’t properly explained so it’s difficult to follow their thought process and understand why the plot seems to be taking a meandering detour. In addition, readers who aren’t fans of ambiguous endings may be left dissatisfied at the loose ends left unresolved by the final page.

To Break A Covenant is an eerily haunting read that’s sure to raise goosebumps and leave your heart racing in dread. Its protagonists are a fun, charismatic bunch who are easy to root for as they seek answers and struggle to save their town from the malevolent force that has festered within the mine for decades. Try and read this one after dark if you dare, but don’t be surprised if you have to turn on the light to chase away night terrors!

To Break A Covenant is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of September 21st 2021.

**Will you be picking up To Break A Covenant? Tell us in the comments below!**

Synopsis | Goodreads

Debut voice Alison Ames delivers with a chilling, feminist thriller, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and Sawkill Girls.

Moon Basin has been haunted for as long as anyone can remember. It started when an explosion in the mine killed sixteen people. The disaster made it impossible to live in town, with underground fires spewing ash into the sky. But life in New Basin is just as fraught. The ex-mining town relies on its haunted reputation to bring in tourists, but there’s more truth to the rumors than most are willing to admit, and the mine still has a hold on everyone who lives there.

Clem and Nina form a perfect loop—best friends forever, and perhaps something more. Their circle opens up for a strange girl named Lisey with a knack for training crows, and Piper, whose father is fascinated with the mine in a way that’s anything but ordinary. The people of New Basin start experiencing strange phenomena—sleepwalking, night terrors, voices that only they can hear. And no matter how many vans of ghost hunters roll through, nobody can get to the bottom of what’s really going on. Which is why the girls decide to enter the mine themselves.

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