Book Review: "She Waits Where Shadows Gather" by Michelle Tang

Oh how I love getting cheap horror on Kindle Unlimited and there is only one thing I love more than that: getting cheap folk horror on Kindle Unlimited. Would I class this book as folk horror? Yes because it seems to base itself on the local and national legends of the Philippines. Just because it isn't Western folk horror doesn't make it not folk horror. Set within a modernised context, this book takes urban legends and makes them visceral, haunting and realistic as we start the book with a movement, a nonbeliever and a fatal car accident in which one of our main characters almost doesn't make it...oh but we're just getting started...

Carlos and Avery have third person limited almost alternating chapters which show us how this story unfolds, though I do feel like Avery gets more time in her chapters. There is a move that happens and Avery and Carlos start living together in this house in the Philippines that some regard to be haunted but of course, they think this is silly. I think you can see where this is going. The author shows us not only the debunking that the couple try to do, but the fact that the people who are around the area desperately trying to warn them, but then again there's a lot of jokes made about it by others. Carlos is drinking in a bar when his friends are telling stories about ghosts and stuff. On his way home in his car (yes, he's drunk and now he's driving ... oh boy), he crashes and 'dies'. In reality he is completely and utterly paralysed and in the hospital. But before he blacks out from the crash, he calls out for help and the man that comes to help him has his exact face. Now, I was shocked and I am not going to tell you anything else related to that incident because it will ruin the story for you.

As the story progresses, Avery's faith in having a child starts to die as she must begin looking after her husband, Carlos. But things begin happening. She once tries to wipe some fingerprints from the glass in her house but the fingerprints are on the other side despite nobody having put their hands against the glass. There's another incident in which she swears she can feel someone watching her. There's a rocking chair in a room that rocks without anyone sititng on it (classic!). Avery is getting spooked and Carlos is still paralysed, though as he starts to talk again there's something going on. This something will move Carlos' body from his bed to the bathroom where he is trying to stop his wife taking her own life. They both have no idea how he got there since he cannot walk...

The author's writing is generally chilling at times. I got this feverish feeling as if everything was going dark. The folk horror nature relies heavily on something that may have happened in the past in this family home that people don't seem to talk about. Things that are happening in the house are beginning to creep Avery out and she keeps calling on the maids who help her out. Sometimes, she feels someone walking about the house but, knowing the maids aren't in, she cannot put her finger on what is going on. It really does make you feel like whatever is in this house could possibly be in your own home too. It's one of those books that makes you look over your shoulder. Shuddering and chilling, I absolutely loved the experience from start to finish.

All in all, I absolutely adored how simplistic and yet how twisted this book was. As you start to get into the story, you start to learn that something that cannot be explained at its heart, lies in the family history. It has thus imprinted itself on the house as well. The writing is atmospheric and often includes quite chilling descriptions that aren't graphic but they have an old-style ghost story quality. It really does take you back to the almost Dickensian horror stories in which everything is quiet and ghostly and then something shatters the silence. But what is it?