Synopsis:
From beloved horror author Jonathan Janz, Marla is a slow-burn, full-throttle horror novel about the families we inherit, the guilt we carry, and the terrible gravity of a gaze you can’t forget. The hardcover edition includes a foiled cover, gorgeous sprayed edges, and an exclusive, never-before-published prequel story.
Turn the page—if you dare.
Every small town has ghosts. King’s Branch has Marla.
A reclusive young woman who lives with her mother in a creepy Gothic house, Marla Gorman is the stuff of urban legends. Some believe she’s a prisoner. Others claim she’s a witch.
The evening of the first murder, Detective Carl Lancaster sees Marla leering at him from her bedroom window. He sees her again at the exact moment a second man is killed. And though Marla was nowhere near either murder site, Carl is convinced she’s connected to the crimes.
To Carl, Marla is a menace. To social worker Annie Frost, Marla bears a bizarre connection to her past. To Dylan Ellison, a struggling college student, Marla might be the companion for which he’s been longing.
But none of them understands Marla’s true nature. She’s about to plunge them—and everyone in King’s Branch—into an unspeakable nightmare and teach them the true meaning of terror.
Review:
ALARM (from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary):
As a noun: Sudden sharp apprehension and fear resulting from the perception of imminent danger.
As a verb: To strike with fear.
As an anagram: MARLA.
Marla by Jonathan Janz is an electric horror book that leaves you shaken and uneasy with the parts of the world that are a little beyond your understanding. It’s a slow burn, but when action hits, Janz makes sure it hammers deep into your heart, doubting what you’ve already read and keeping you on your metaphorical toes throughout the rest of the journey through the pages of Marla.
From the very first pages of Marla, we are confronted with something we don’t understand – a woman who seemingly is at the heart of bizarre deaths, but who can’t possibly be responsible if we apply human logic and reasoning to it. The story is told from the perspective of a few different people who are all seemingly orbiting around Marla’s possible machinations — Carl, a detective in the town’s police department; Annie, a local social worker; and Dylan, a college student. None of the characters are perfect hero archetypes, but each are sympathetic in their own way.
Now, I have no idea if Jonathan Janz purposely made the antagonist and the namesake of the entire book an anagram of the word ALARM, but as I read Marla, I almost couldn’t help associating her with the word. The letters of Marla’s name bounced around in my head after so many times hearing the audiobook narrators Sean Patrick Hopkins and Patricia Santomasso utter her name, it was almost a warning in and of itself. Each time Detective Carl Lancaster sees her or talks about her or thinks about her, it’s almost a bell going off that something strange is afoot. The alarm rings a little differently for many of the characters, but it’s an alarm, nonetheless.
There is a mystery set apart from the pure horror of Janz’ book, which was fun to explore and unravel. Marla shares a little DNA with Stranger Things, if only being a supernatural mystery set in small-town, Indiana (by the way, as a Midwesterner who lives about an hour away from it, I loved the shout-outs to Holiday World, a fantastic (and real!) little theme park located in Southern Indiana). There are tons of differences, so don’t think it’ll play out exactly like Eleven’s story on Netflix, but you can feel some of the same vibes as you read it, for sure.
I really enjoyed digging in and exploring the horror and the mystery surrounding Jonathan Janz’ Marla. The pacing really worked for me — slow and methodical at the start, but as the characters work to unravel the truth, the tempo picks up in conjunction with the blood and mayhem. As narrators, Hopkins and Santomasso did a great job, balancing the Midwest life of King’s Branch along with the wrongness of what exists in the Gorman House. I highly recommend Marla by Jonathan Janz.
Thank you to Blackstone Publishing for providing this audiobook for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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