Search - Silk

I found the ending SUPREMELY unsatisfying (she's engaging in some experimental writing), but the rest of the book was good. Somehow that only made the betrayal at the end -- by the author, not of any character by another -- more disheartening. Clearly, she CAN write a cracking good yarn ... she just chose not to in this case.

Caitlin Kiernan's debut novel. It's got every splatterpunk trope imaginable all rolled into one of the most spellbinding horror novels ever written. Oh yeah, and it kicks butt too.

They are twentysomething misfits...society's castoffs...urban strays looking for a thrill. Something cheap, anything to get them throught he night. Only their music is different. Sleepwalking on caffeine, nicotine, and and drugs, they wait out the dawn in the death-rock clubs and shadowy back alleys.
Into their midst comes the enigmatic Spyder. A patron saint of the alienated and lost, she invites them into her mesmerizing world of ritual and cermeony, blood and fire...a realm of vengeful gods, of exiled spirits harboring the dark secrets of Hell - and the darker secrets of Heaven. Is she their guardian angel, forcing them to face their greatest fears even as she battles to save their ravaged souls? Or a much more terrifying force sent not to redeem but to destroy?

I came across this book in a Barnes & Noble and the blurb on the back sounded interesting enough so I opened to the first page and read:
"Two nights before Halloween, as if it matters to anyone in the house, as if every day in this house isn't Halloween. As if every moment they live isn't the strain and the stretch, the hand reaching back, groping through bottomless candy bags down to where front porches glow with orange-flicker grins and skeletons dance hopscotch sidewalks and ring doorbells. And they are all here, here around her where they belong." ... and I was hooked.

Spyder Baxter and her friends, a bunch of beautiful, broken souls, each with their own demons, have found each other. Drawn to each other, sometimes united, sometimes squabbling like siblings, they find that curiosity really can kill the cat. Their toddling forays into shamanistic dream-quests serve only to bring them to the attention of the sort of dark and terrible beings it would have been better to be unmarked and unnoticed by.

A dark and disturbing book. Gritty and real, I could not put it down.

I haven't finished this book yet, but it's really good. It really draws you in, with the backstory and the characters--the events happening. You want to know what happens next. But it starts out pretty slow, and doesn't get to the "heart" until you get much farther.

This is a good one if you like Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, etc. I didn't think much of the writing style, but the characters and setting were quite interesting.