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The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess
From a thrilling new voice in horror, Andy Marino, comes a haunting tale of a woman whose life begins to unravel after a home invasion. She’s told she killed the intruder. But she can’t remember, and no one believes her…
Sydney's spent years burying her past and building a better life for herself and her eleven-year old son. A respectable marketing job, a house with reclaimed and sustainable furniture, and a boyfriend who loves her son and accepts her, flaws and all. But when she opens her front door, and a masked intruder knocks her briefly unconscious, everything begins to unravel.
She wakes in the hospital and tells a harrowing story of escape. Of dashing out a broken window. Of running into her neighbors' yard and calling the police. What the cops tell her is that she can no longer trust her memories. Because they say that not only is the intruder lying dead in her guest room, but he's been murdered in a way that seems intimately personal.
When she returns home, Sydney can't shake the deep darkness that hides in every corner. There's an unnatural whisper in her ear, urging her back to old addictions. And as her memories slowly return, she begins to fear that her new life was never built on solid ground-and that the secrets buried beneath will change everything.
Sydney's spent years burying her past and building a better life for herself and her eleven-year old son. A respectable marketing job, a house with reclaimed and sustainable furniture, and a boyfriend who loves her son and accepts her, flaws and all. But when she opens her front door, and a masked intruder knocks her briefly unconscious, everything begins to unravel.
She wakes in the hospital and tells a harrowing story of escape. Of dashing out a broken window. Of running into her neighbors' yard and calling the police. What the cops tell her is that she can no longer trust her memories. Because they say that not only is the intruder lying dead in her guest room, but he's been murdered in a way that seems intimately personal.
When she returns home, Sydney can't shake the deep darkness that hides in every corner. There's an unnatural whisper in her ear, urging her back to old addictions. And as her memories slowly return, she begins to fear that her new life was never built on solid ground-and that the secrets buried beneath will change everything.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 28, 2021
About the author
Andy Marino
23 books199 followersAndy Marino was born in upstate New York, spent half his life in New York City, and now lives in the Hudson Valley. He is the author of seven novels for young readers, most recently THE PLOT TO KILL HITLER trilogy.
THE SEVEN VISITATIONS OF SYDNEY BURGESS is his first novel for adults.
THE SEVEN VISITATIONS OF SYDNEY BURGESS is his first novel for adults.
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October 2, 2021
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a home invasion gone weird disrupts a recovering addict's life even further by its aftermath, dragging the reader along on an oftentimes very confusing ride.
i'm a rounder-upper by nature (and probably also by nurture), so while there are some frustrating things about this one, mostly centered in the author's dislocating structural choices and my own personal inability to get with the lovecraftian tradition of half-unseen horror slithering on the periphery, the parts that i did like were strong enough to boost this into four-star territory.
its horror is mainly psychological in nature, but there's plenty of graphic body horror to bloody the pot, with a cherry of hubristic science fiction on top.
plotstuff: the titular sydney burgess is a former addict nine years sober who has struggled to turn her life around and finally seems to have achieved the suburban american dream: a steady career, a stable boyfriend who dotes on her and her eleven-year-old son, and a beautiful house where the three of them live in unremarkable placid safety.
this all changes when sydney is attacked by a masked intruder in her home while matt and danny are away camping. she manages to escape with serious but survivable injuries, but the incident leaves her with profound psychological scarring, especially when she learns that the intruder has been found emphatically dead in her home, stabbed twenty-eight times, presumably by her own self-defensive overkill.
blackouts and memory gaps are not unfamiliar territory for the ghost of sydney past, but violent mutilation is a pretty significant thing to forget, and the encounter shatters her sense of calm, creating psychological fissures that allow her past behavior and memories to crawl closer to the surface of her hard-won new life.
more specifically, it unleashes 'the swimmer;' an inchoate dark force that manifests, causing dreamlike hallucinatory experiences—visions and voices and impulses; weakening the seam between time and reality and some other ineffable realm, altering her with a slippery indefinable "offness" in her physical appearance; perceptible to others in a startling can't-put-my-finger-on-it way, and causing some erratic behavioral changes.
everything gets a bit murky from this point on, but while there were some "wait, HUH?" moments, there were also some high points shining through the confusion. he really shines at writing about addiction. and yeah, trigger, trigger, chicken dinners all around. i don't have any personal experience with addiction, but he writes sydney's predicament so viscerally—the lure of addiction crooking its finger, inviting her to backslide; her acute psychological distress and head trauma weakening her resolve—even as she refuses the painkillers her doctors prescribe. the temporal and reality shifts of the narrative pull the reader along into sydney's turmoil, enhancing the sense of being caught in a spiral with her, where her willpower clashes up against the hunger, the wanting, the ritual, and the promise of release that drugs once provided.
it can be read, up to a point, as an extended metaphor of addiction as demonic possession; addiction externalized into an entity, always lurking, set giddily free by a violent experience. it frequently reminded me of the psychic unraveling in sara gran's excellently taut demonic possession novel Come Closer; the narrative becoming increasingly fragmented as something else supersedes sydney's will and she begins losing control of her life.
the idea of compartmentalizing one's dark urges into a whole 'nother entity is not new—dexter's dark passenger, dr. jeckyll's mr. hyde, etc, but this one eventually takes the conceit one step further into unexpected—debatably implausible—territory, and that ending is a pretty solid gutpunch.
i appreciated the author’s extra credit wrinkle to the possession angle; a deft little pivot exploring sydney's growing sense that she is herself an invasive species; a performative parasite in this shiny happy suburban life she was maybe only adopting as protective camouflage.
when it's on, it's ON, but it's a not-for-everyone kind of book, for a number of reasons. my personal reason is that i have always balked at the blurry phrasings of cosmic horror—the "impossible geometries," and "thicket[s] of vagueness," and "the angular alphabet of some incomprehensible language." stuff like that makes my brain itch, and there's a lot of it here. it's a genre convention of a genre i don't dig, so that's on me, but it especially rankles here, when he's so damn good at the detail work when it's grounded in the real. the whole opening, describing the attack, is so finely-wrought that i'm powerless to resist typing most of it out here and you can read it or not.
now that's how you open a book, yeah? it's so immersive and real—the splintery convoluted thought-chains of panic, desperately grasping at the familiar, clinging to the smallest, most inconsequential details, caught in the slow realization of the moment, danger making everything stand out in sharp relief because this could be where you end. anyone who's had a near-death experience is bound to relate to this and it is powerfully effective. which is why i was so frowny when it slid into that 'unutterable horror' track that does nothing for me.
still, there's a lot to applaud here, so i'm rounding up and no one can stop me. not even some eldritch swimmer.
tl;dr: DO YOU LOVE ME?
tl;dr2:
come to my blog!
"You're a lucky woman," says Duchess County Sheriff Mike Butler.
I ride a wave of displacement. Lucky? I don't feel lucky. I feel like I want to unzip my skin and wriggle out of my body and into another. By what metric is he measuring my luck? I suppose he means that I'm luckier than a woman whose attack has resulted in her murder. I want to tell him: lucky is what you are when you win the lottery.
a home invasion gone weird disrupts a recovering addict's life even further by its aftermath, dragging the reader along on an oftentimes very confusing ride.
i'm a rounder-upper by nature (and probably also by nurture), so while there are some frustrating things about this one, mostly centered in the author's dislocating structural choices and my own personal inability to get with the lovecraftian tradition of half-unseen horror slithering on the periphery, the parts that i did like were strong enough to boost this into four-star territory.
its horror is mainly psychological in nature, but there's plenty of graphic body horror to bloody the pot, with a cherry of hubristic science fiction on top.
plotstuff: the titular sydney burgess is a former addict nine years sober who has struggled to turn her life around and finally seems to have achieved the suburban american dream: a steady career, a stable boyfriend who dotes on her and her eleven-year-old son, and a beautiful house where the three of them live in unremarkable placid safety.
this all changes when sydney is attacked by a masked intruder in her home while matt and danny are away camping. she manages to escape with serious but survivable injuries, but the incident leaves her with profound psychological scarring, especially when she learns that the intruder has been found emphatically dead in her home, stabbed twenty-eight times, presumably by her own self-defensive overkill.
blackouts and memory gaps are not unfamiliar territory for the ghost of sydney past, but violent mutilation is a pretty significant thing to forget, and the encounter shatters her sense of calm, creating psychological fissures that allow her past behavior and memories to crawl closer to the surface of her hard-won new life.
more specifically, it unleashes 'the swimmer;' an inchoate dark force that manifests, causing dreamlike hallucinatory experiences—visions and voices and impulses; weakening the seam between time and reality and some other ineffable realm, altering her with a slippery indefinable "offness" in her physical appearance; perceptible to others in a startling can't-put-my-finger-on-it way, and causing some erratic behavioral changes.
everything gets a bit murky from this point on, but while there were some "wait, HUH?" moments, there were also some high points shining through the confusion. he really shines at writing about addiction. and yeah, trigger, trigger, chicken dinners all around. i don't have any personal experience with addiction, but he writes sydney's predicament so viscerally—the lure of addiction crooking its finger, inviting her to backslide; her acute psychological distress and head trauma weakening her resolve—even as she refuses the painkillers her doctors prescribe. the temporal and reality shifts of the narrative pull the reader along into sydney's turmoil, enhancing the sense of being caught in a spiral with her, where her willpower clashes up against the hunger, the wanting, the ritual, and the promise of release that drugs once provided.
it can be read, up to a point, as an extended metaphor of addiction as demonic possession; addiction externalized into an entity, always lurking, set giddily free by a violent experience. it frequently reminded me of the psychic unraveling in sara gran's excellently taut demonic possession novel Come Closer; the narrative becoming increasingly fragmented as something else supersedes sydney's will and she begins losing control of her life.
the idea of compartmentalizing one's dark urges into a whole 'nother entity is not new—dexter's dark passenger, dr. jeckyll's mr. hyde, etc, but this one eventually takes the conceit one step further into unexpected—debatably implausible—territory, and that ending is a pretty solid gutpunch.
i appreciated the author’s extra credit wrinkle to the possession angle; a deft little pivot exploring sydney's growing sense that she is herself an invasive species; a performative parasite in this shiny happy suburban life she was maybe only adopting as protective camouflage.
My heart quickens. Just for a moment—a passing flash—a sharp wave of disgust washes over me. Not at the sheriff and his fealty to the unrest in this room, but at the sheer blandness of the things I've surrounded myself with. The proof that I have embraced with all my heart and soul the proper aspects of being a mother, a partner, a fucking commuter. All the time and energy spent scratching and clawing just to put myself in the position to scratch and claw some more, at upward mobility, like a normal person. I recall the reckless misdirected rages and euphoric highs of the wreck I used to be and once again the craving hits—to slip into that younger skin for a moment, to sidestep the notion that the straight world has anything to offer me. To stay the fucked-up course.
I haven't felt the pull of these impulses in a long time.
when it's on, it's ON, but it's a not-for-everyone kind of book, for a number of reasons. my personal reason is that i have always balked at the blurry phrasings of cosmic horror—the "impossible geometries," and "thicket[s] of vagueness," and "the angular alphabet of some incomprehensible language." stuff like that makes my brain itch, and there's a lot of it here. it's a genre convention of a genre i don't dig, so that's on me, but it especially rankles here, when he's so damn good at the detail work when it's grounded in the real. the whole opening, describing the attack, is so finely-wrought that i'm powerless to resist typing most of it out here and you can read it or not.
It happened so fast, say people who have lived through sudden bursts of violence—but for me, time's a slow drip and I can see everything at once. Black sneakers on our reclaimed tiles, old appliance manuals in the junk drawer, the RSVP to the wedding of my boyfriend's cousin, a small lace-trimmed envelope waiting to be mailed. The man's eyes are framed by the slit in his balaclava, a word I know from the tattered paperbacks I tore through in the rehab center's shabby library.
I take one step back, jam my hand into my shoulder bag, and rummage wildly for the pepper spray. But I've never used it before, and it's buried under travel Kleenex packs and lip balm and generic ibuprofen and noise-canceling headphones and laptop and charger and moleskin notebook and tampons.
His hand closes around the Jesus candle my boyfriend bought from the bodega by the train station. Señor de los Milagros de Buga, $3.99 plus tax. It's the size of a relay runner's baton, glass as thick as a casserole dish and filled to the brim with solid wax.
My fingers brush the pepper spray canister. There's a little rim of plastic that acts as a safety—I just have to flick it to the side. Too slow, Sydney. The candle comes at me in a fluid sideways arc.
Half ducking, half flinching, I twist away. His side-arm swing smashes the candle into my left ear. There's an unbelievable volcanic thud inside my head, a searing, blinding flash, and time's not a slow drip anymore, it's a film reel with missing frames.
I am holding myself up, clinging to the door.
I will stay on my feet.
There's an electric current buzzing through my teeth. The front hall is full of bad angles, a nonsense corridor in a dream. The coats are swaying on their hooks. I raise the pepper spray, but my arm can only aim it in the direction of the baseboard, the off-white trim that doesn't quite touch the tile, a haven for crumbs and lost earrings. In the gilt-framed mirror next to the closet door, I see a gloved hand holding the candle up in the air. The man is very tall, and the tip of the candle hits the ceiling before it comes down.
The walls are tinted red and the whole house roars like the ocean. There's a hot-penny tang I can taste in the back of my throat, a cocaine drip that fills my mouth and overflows. Tissue packs and hair clips are scattered across the tiles, coming up fast.
I shouldn't be here. These words can't really form because the darkness is thick enough to stifle thought. It's more like a sharp sense of injustice wrapped in the fear that throbs somewhere in the void. An impression that I have been cheated by circumstance.
I shouldn't be here.
now that's how you open a book, yeah? it's so immersive and real—the splintery convoluted thought-chains of panic, desperately grasping at the familiar, clinging to the smallest, most inconsequential details, caught in the slow realization of the moment, danger making everything stand out in sharp relief because this could be where you end. anyone who's had a near-death experience is bound to relate to this and it is powerfully effective. which is why i was so frowny when it slid into that 'unutterable horror' track that does nothing for me.
still, there's a lot to applaud here, so i'm rounding up and no one can stop me. not even some eldritch swimmer.
tl;dr: DO YOU LOVE ME?
tl;dr2:
come to my blog!
September 14, 2021
Well that was weird.
Sydney Burgess is 9 years sober with an 11 year old son and a boyfriend with whom she lives with, Matt. Her life is finally stable and she can foresee a wonderful future for them all. While Matt and Danny are away camping Sydney inadvertently comes home during an attempted home invasion. Having escaped with her life and recovering in the hospital she is floored to find out that she murdered the man. She doesn't recall that. She remembers pushing the bureau in front of the guest room door and fleeing through the window. She does not remember carving the mans face to pieces. This becomes her undoing.
"You're a lucky woman," says Dutchess County Sheriff Mike Butler. I ride a wave of displacement. Lucky? I don't feel lucky. I feel like I want to unzip my skin and wriggle out of my body and into another. By what metric is he measuring my luck? I suppose he means that I'm luckier than a woman whose attack has resulted in her murder. I want to tell him: lucky is what you are when you hit the lottery."
The opening of this book is incredible. Sydney walking in on the intruder - I was immediately compelled to keep reading. I should also mention that I loved Sydney as a character. I thought Marino did a fine job in creating an addict and the struggle they face on a daily basis. Once your an addict you are never not an addict anymore. That line has been erased and Sydney knows this.
Marino is one hell of a writer. We get a back and forth time line and a narrator that is terribly unreliable, yet likable. The entire book starts to feel like a fever dream. I couldn't make heads or tails on what was actually happening. There are some deliciously creepy scenes that I loved but for the most part I was just confused the entire time. I still don't know what The Swimmer is. Is she possessed by a demon? Is this something created in a lab? Is it alien? I have no clue.
Oh boy, that ending. Totally unexpected. 😲
If you're a reader that embraces the weird, the dark, and the gory then this may be the gem you're looking for. All others steer clear! 3.5 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for my copy.
Sydney Burgess is 9 years sober with an 11 year old son and a boyfriend with whom she lives with, Matt. Her life is finally stable and she can foresee a wonderful future for them all. While Matt and Danny are away camping Sydney inadvertently comes home during an attempted home invasion. Having escaped with her life and recovering in the hospital she is floored to find out that she murdered the man. She doesn't recall that. She remembers pushing the bureau in front of the guest room door and fleeing through the window. She does not remember carving the mans face to pieces. This becomes her undoing.
"You're a lucky woman," says Dutchess County Sheriff Mike Butler. I ride a wave of displacement. Lucky? I don't feel lucky. I feel like I want to unzip my skin and wriggle out of my body and into another. By what metric is he measuring my luck? I suppose he means that I'm luckier than a woman whose attack has resulted in her murder. I want to tell him: lucky is what you are when you hit the lottery."
The opening of this book is incredible. Sydney walking in on the intruder - I was immediately compelled to keep reading. I should also mention that I loved Sydney as a character. I thought Marino did a fine job in creating an addict and the struggle they face on a daily basis. Once your an addict you are never not an addict anymore. That line has been erased and Sydney knows this.
Marino is one hell of a writer. We get a back and forth time line and a narrator that is terribly unreliable, yet likable. The entire book starts to feel like a fever dream. I couldn't make heads or tails on what was actually happening. There are some deliciously creepy scenes that I loved but for the most part I was just confused the entire time. I still don't know what The Swimmer is. Is she possessed by a demon? Is this something created in a lab? Is it alien? I have no clue.
Oh boy, that ending. Totally unexpected. 😲
If you're a reader that embraces the weird, the dark, and the gory then this may be the gem you're looking for. All others steer clear! 3.5 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for my copy.
October 21, 2021
3.5+
"It happened so fast, say people who have lived through sudden bursts of violence—but for me, time's a slow drip and I can see everything at once. Black sneakers on our reclaimed tiles, old appliance manuals in the junk drawer, the RSVP to the wedding of my boyfriend's cousin, a small lace-trimmed envelope waiting to be mailed. The man's eyes are framed by the slit in his balaclava, a word I know from the tattered paperbacks I tore through in the rehab center's shabby library.
I take one step back, jam my hand into my shoulder bag, and rummage wildly for the pepper spray. But I've never used it before, and it's buried under travel Kleenex packs and lip balm and generic ibuprofen and noise-canceling headphones and laptop and charger and moleskin notebook and tampons."
After reading that opening, it was as if I knew the feeling of being trapped in a situation of intrusion.
I can't say I hated it because the writing is brilliant. With the description of each scene, I was soaking it all in. Every little detail of imagery works, except the involvement of the swimmer and I couldn't tell if this was the drugs or a demonic figure, which are kinda the same. This thriller is dark on the disturbing side with mind altering inserts.
Sydney, a working single mom, experiences a home invasion which leaves her damaged, but surviving. The intruder does not survive and although she doesn't know exactly what occurred, she thinks she left the scene by jumping out of a window and running for help. After being questioned by the police, she learns the scene was quite different and she repeatedly stabbed or carved the man up with 28 wounds.
Sydney's past as a drug addict haunts her, which becomes tricky with it being past or current...I'm not sure. She suffers blackouts, memory loss and erratic behavior that could be contributed to her head trauma or a relapse. As she spirals out of control mentally and physically, she has a loving support team: her eleven year old son, Danny and her boyfriend, Matt. Unfortunately, everyone in her circle is in danger because the voices in her head are not nice and the "swimmer" is apparently her dark side. That ending had me like "What??!!" I need therapy 🥺
My thoughts go out to families that suffer in the realm of drug addiction. This is not for everyone...even me, but his writing is outstanding. Tis the season for a Horror fiction and will capture some fans.
Thank you Redhook Books and NetGalley for this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
"It happened so fast, say people who have lived through sudden bursts of violence—but for me, time's a slow drip and I can see everything at once. Black sneakers on our reclaimed tiles, old appliance manuals in the junk drawer, the RSVP to the wedding of my boyfriend's cousin, a small lace-trimmed envelope waiting to be mailed. The man's eyes are framed by the slit in his balaclava, a word I know from the tattered paperbacks I tore through in the rehab center's shabby library.
I take one step back, jam my hand into my shoulder bag, and rummage wildly for the pepper spray. But I've never used it before, and it's buried under travel Kleenex packs and lip balm and generic ibuprofen and noise-canceling headphones and laptop and charger and moleskin notebook and tampons."
After reading that opening, it was as if I knew the feeling of being trapped in a situation of intrusion.
I can't say I hated it because the writing is brilliant. With the description of each scene, I was soaking it all in. Every little detail of imagery works, except the involvement of the swimmer and I couldn't tell if this was the drugs or a demonic figure, which are kinda the same. This thriller is dark on the disturbing side with mind altering inserts.
Sydney, a working single mom, experiences a home invasion which leaves her damaged, but surviving. The intruder does not survive and although she doesn't know exactly what occurred, she thinks she left the scene by jumping out of a window and running for help. After being questioned by the police, she learns the scene was quite different and she repeatedly stabbed or carved the man up with 28 wounds.
Sydney's past as a drug addict haunts her, which becomes tricky with it being past or current...I'm not sure. She suffers blackouts, memory loss and erratic behavior that could be contributed to her head trauma or a relapse. As she spirals out of control mentally and physically, she has a loving support team: her eleven year old son, Danny and her boyfriend, Matt. Unfortunately, everyone in her circle is in danger because the voices in her head are not nice and the "swimmer" is apparently her dark side. That ending had me like "What??!!" I need therapy 🥺
My thoughts go out to families that suffer in the realm of drug addiction. This is not for everyone...even me, but his writing is outstanding. Tis the season for a Horror fiction and will capture some fans.
Thank you Redhook Books and NetGalley for this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
September 8, 2021
Sydney Burgess opens the front door to her house, excited for some alone time since her boyfriend and son have just gone camping. To her complete shock, there is a man dressed head-to-toe in black rummaging through her house. After a short and violent struggle, Sydney wakes in the hospital and begins to recount how she escaped with her life to the county sheriff. There’s only one problem: the intruder was found dead in Sydney’s home and she has no memory of that horrific event.
The reader soon learns that Sydney is a recovering drug addict, she’s been clean for many years, but she can tell that the sheriff’s perception of her is changing when he learns of her addiction. And thus, we have an unreliable narrator in this strange, strange horror story.
This is an extremely graphic, violent, gory, gruesome, and disturbing work of fiction. There were parts that I wished I could have skimmed over, but my need to read every word didn’t allow for that. If my brain could forget the tongue episode I’d be very grateful.
The narration style was extremely disorienting, probably done purposefully. It flips back and forth between lucid moments and then to nightmarish, almost hellish scenes. It makes sense as part of the story, but it was very confusing to read.
I did not enjoy reading this, but I’d recommend it to true lovers of mind-bending horror stories.
I give it a 2.5/5 rating rounded up to 3 stars.
Thank you to Redhook Books for providing me with an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The reader soon learns that Sydney is a recovering drug addict, she’s been clean for many years, but she can tell that the sheriff’s perception of her is changing when he learns of her addiction. And thus, we have an unreliable narrator in this strange, strange horror story.
This is an extremely graphic, violent, gory, gruesome, and disturbing work of fiction. There were parts that I wished I could have skimmed over, but my need to read every word didn’t allow for that. If my brain could forget the tongue episode I’d be very grateful.
The narration style was extremely disorienting, probably done purposefully. It flips back and forth between lucid moments and then to nightmarish, almost hellish scenes. It makes sense as part of the story, but it was very confusing to read.
I did not enjoy reading this, but I’d recommend it to true lovers of mind-bending horror stories.
I give it a 2.5/5 rating rounded up to 3 stars.
Thank you to Redhook Books for providing me with an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 29, 2023
Just like Marino’s other book, this *will not* be for everyone, but it very much worked for me!!
Honestly, give me a stream of consciousness story with a tortured MC, it’s already got my name on it, but something about the authors writing continually pulls me in and clicks with me instantly.
The story follows a woman who somehow survived a brutal home invasion, and who starts experiencing strange things in the aftermath of that night. Just like with It Rides A Pale Horse, the imagery that Marino is able to conjure is almost impossible to explain, but left me deeply unsettled at times. This one also struck a very personal note with me. Addiction has and always will be a constant in my life, and the depictions of that and the feelings expressed rang very true and just felt all too real.
This is a very slow story with a nonlinear plot, a somewhat disjointed narrative, and just like his other book, is sometimes off the walls confusing at times, but again, this one really worked for me!!!!
Honestly, give me a stream of consciousness story with a tortured MC, it’s already got my name on it, but something about the authors writing continually pulls me in and clicks with me instantly.
The story follows a woman who somehow survived a brutal home invasion, and who starts experiencing strange things in the aftermath of that night. Just like with It Rides A Pale Horse, the imagery that Marino is able to conjure is almost impossible to explain, but left me deeply unsettled at times. This one also struck a very personal note with me. Addiction has and always will be a constant in my life, and the depictions of that and the feelings expressed rang very true and just felt all too real.
This is a very slow story with a nonlinear plot, a somewhat disjointed narrative, and just like his other book, is sometimes off the walls confusing at times, but again, this one really worked for me!!!!
August 28, 2021
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess by Andy Marino is a horror novel although it does start off a bit like a thriller. The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist in the current time although there are flashbacks interspersed into the story.
Sydney Burgess is a recovering addict who has spent the last nine years clean and sober fighting to get her life on the right track. Sydney has done all of this for her son who is now eleven and she never wants him to remember the times in her life she wasn’t there for him.
One night an intruder breaks into Sydney’s home she shares with her now partner and her son. The intruder knocks her out and as events unfold Sydney finds a way to make her escape where she alerts the neighbors who call the police. Sydney only remember her escape and the neighbors outdoors but when police question her they say she murdered the intruder before she left her home.
The title of this one, The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess, comes into play in the story as it’s in sections with the seven visitations. The book started off strong in the first part of the story but with each part it seemed to become a bit of a mess in terms of world building and the flow of the story. The protagonist is on a downward spiral from the elements in the book but I’d prefer it didn’t seem the story was going with her, if that makes sense. For me what this one needed was to go deeper into the details of what was going on. I think I grasped the basics of what it was meant to be but being left with a feeling of wading through to figure that out put my rating for this one at two and a half stars.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/
Sydney Burgess is a recovering addict who has spent the last nine years clean and sober fighting to get her life on the right track. Sydney has done all of this for her son who is now eleven and she never wants him to remember the times in her life she wasn’t there for him.
One night an intruder breaks into Sydney’s home she shares with her now partner and her son. The intruder knocks her out and as events unfold Sydney finds a way to make her escape where she alerts the neighbors who call the police. Sydney only remember her escape and the neighbors outdoors but when police question her they say she murdered the intruder before she left her home.
The title of this one, The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess, comes into play in the story as it’s in sections with the seven visitations. The book started off strong in the first part of the story but with each part it seemed to become a bit of a mess in terms of world building and the flow of the story. The protagonist is on a downward spiral from the elements in the book but I’d prefer it didn’t seem the story was going with her, if that makes sense. For me what this one needed was to go deeper into the details of what was going on. I think I grasped the basics of what it was meant to be but being left with a feeling of wading through to figure that out put my rating for this one at two and a half stars.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/
June 18, 2023
This is my second Andy Marino book, and I am loving his kind of weird.
Like It Rides a Pale Horse, there is an overall surrealistic feeling, but this one was ultimately much more grounded. The book skips around in time, keeping the reader on their toes but not to the point of losing anyone. And along with a fantastic mystery, we get a body horror scene straight out of my nightmares!!
This, like any mind-bending horror, will not be for everyone. But it hit perfectly for me.
Like It Rides a Pale Horse, there is an overall surrealistic feeling, but this one was ultimately much more grounded. The book skips around in time, keeping the reader on their toes but not to the point of losing anyone. And along with a fantastic mystery, we get a body horror scene straight out of my nightmares!!
This, like any mind-bending horror, will not be for everyone. But it hit perfectly for me.
February 6, 2023
UPDATE: my tamagotchi came and it’s name is Bunny Gravy Kisses 👾
Number one - this book made me want a tamagotchi and then remember how loud they are and that there’s no silent mode. A rollercoaster.
Number two - It was nothing like The Host by Stephanie Meyer or Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca but I kept thinking of these books. It also made me squirm a lot and the ending ripped my heart out. If it had ended before the 85% mark and was shorter it would have been perfect to me. The story switched gears three different times and really threw me for a loop so be warned!
Anyway I’m buying a tamagotchi on Friday when I get paid:)
3.5 ⭐️
Number one - this book made me want a tamagotchi and then remember how loud they are and that there’s no silent mode. A rollercoaster.
Number two - It was nothing like The Host by Stephanie Meyer or Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca but I kept thinking of these books. It also made me squirm a lot and the ending ripped my heart out. If it had ended before the 85% mark and was shorter it would have been perfect to me. The story switched gears three different times and really threw me for a loop so be warned!
Anyway I’m buying a tamagotchi on Friday when I get paid:)
3.5 ⭐️
September 8, 2021
Oh my gosh. Talk about keeping me up all night long. Crazy creepy, seriously dark, and twisted but in a good way. If you like a mash of horror and psychological thriller this is perfect for Halloween scary reads list! I will be thinking about this for a while. Its the stuff of nightmares. I'm sleeping with the light on for the next year.
September 28, 2021
3.0 Stars
I absolutely love this subgenre of horror so was thrilled to check out this brand new entry in the subgenre. I loved the idea of this one, even the execution did not completely work for me.
The narrative was purposely quite fragmented, given the mental state of the main character. The disjointed chapters made sense from a design perspective, but it didn't create the most pleasing reading experience. Whenever I found myself pulled into the story, the scene would abruptly jump to a different time and space, which always disrupted my reading flow.
The best aspect of this novel were the moments recounting the actual possessions. I particularly enjoyed hearing the woman's murderous thoughts.
This novel didn't quite leave up to my high expectations for its potential as a new favourite possession story. I still appreciated the author taking a chance on a different narrative style, since horror is a great genre for experimentation. If you love possession stories as much as I do, you'll likely still want to try this one for yourself.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Orbit Books.
I absolutely love this subgenre of horror so was thrilled to check out this brand new entry in the subgenre. I loved the idea of this one, even the execution did not completely work for me.
The narrative was purposely quite fragmented, given the mental state of the main character. The disjointed chapters made sense from a design perspective, but it didn't create the most pleasing reading experience. Whenever I found myself pulled into the story, the scene would abruptly jump to a different time and space, which always disrupted my reading flow.
The best aspect of this novel were the moments recounting the actual possessions. I particularly enjoyed hearing the woman's murderous thoughts.
This novel didn't quite leave up to my high expectations for its potential as a new favourite possession story. I still appreciated the author taking a chance on a different narrative style, since horror is a great genre for experimentation. If you love possession stories as much as I do, you'll likely still want to try this one for yourself.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Orbit Books.
September 21, 2021
This book is hard to rate. It starts with a bang then becomes disjointed and confusing. The timelines and plot shifts without notice and is very jarring. Perhaps that's what the author was going for, but it made it quite tough to read. The writing is good and the characters are decently enough developed. It's just....the plot and pov and timeliness switches made it difficult for this reader to keep up with. I think it would be too easy to give away the plot, so just check out the publisher's synopsis to see if it grabs you. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this one. Especially if you're in recovery for addiction.
Thank you to Redhook Books, author Andy Marino, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to Redhook Books, author Andy Marino, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
August 6, 2021
Review copy from NetGalley/Redhook Books
Reviewing for Cemetery Dance.
Yeesh. I have a lot to say about this one.
Reviewing for Cemetery Dance.
Yeesh. I have a lot to say about this one.
October 10, 2021
I finished the last page and said - "well that was wild" ...
Sydney Burgess has built a better life for both herself and her son, Danny. A solid job, roof over their heads, and a loving boyfriend. She's worked hard to leave the past behind. That is until she comes face to face to a masked intruder in her home ...
Where do I even begin with this book?! The chaos on these pages had my head spinning.
Addiction plays a huge part in this book. The psychological distress Sydney faces throughout the story is heavy. It's a truly disturbing work of fiction.
Here's a perfect example of a book that would make a stellar movie! The alternating chapters and flashbacks would be sooooo good on screen.
The ending was definitely shocking!
Huge thank you to Hachette Book Group and Redhook for my gifted copy!
Sydney Burgess has built a better life for both herself and her son, Danny. A solid job, roof over their heads, and a loving boyfriend. She's worked hard to leave the past behind. That is until she comes face to face to a masked intruder in her home ...
Where do I even begin with this book?! The chaos on these pages had my head spinning.
Addiction plays a huge part in this book. The psychological distress Sydney faces throughout the story is heavy. It's a truly disturbing work of fiction.
Here's a perfect example of a book that would make a stellar movie! The alternating chapters and flashbacks would be sooooo good on screen.
The ending was definitely shocking!
Huge thank you to Hachette Book Group and Redhook for my gifted copy!
August 22, 2021
Started strong, but the second half didn't work for me.
Sydney is able to escape after a man breaks into her house and holds her captive, but she's confused when the police tell her she killed the intruder. She has no memory of it. Cracks start to form in Sydney's world, which she's carefully created after years of poverty and addiction, and she sets out to discover who the intruder was and what he was looking for. This is definitely ambitious and it starts off incredibly tense and creepy, deftly able to move from a more typical suspense plot into a more cosmic style horror. The wrong-ness creeps in slowly and for a while it's just about perfectly done. I didn't mind the frequent flash-backs and flash-forwards, for that first half they were working for me, but once again, in the second half it was unclear why it was happening and it only served to obfuscate instead of to increase tension or offer clarity.
The problem, for me, was that we descended into full-blown cosmic horror too quickly and the narrative at that point lost everything that was going for it. The prose lost its rhythm as these external forces take more control, and the stakes are no longer really there once those external forces are basically running the show. We lose our protagonist in a lot of ways, and she no longer cares about the things she used to care about, so it's hard for the reader to know what we're supposed to care about.
The reveals are also a bit clunky for me, the actual explanation doesn't feel genuine, and while I get the idea Marino was going for and think it really worked for a while, it's very tricky to write something where our protagonist is becoming less themselves. (The most successful one I can think of is Sara Gran's COME CLOSER, which smartly is a short and very focused book.) Ultimately the last few sections lose their force and getting this information on Sydney's past and what she's been through only left me less clear on the character instead of painting her more fully.
Sydney is able to escape after a man breaks into her house and holds her captive, but she's confused when the police tell her she killed the intruder. She has no memory of it. Cracks start to form in Sydney's world, which she's carefully created after years of poverty and addiction, and she sets out to discover who the intruder was and what he was looking for. This is definitely ambitious and it starts off incredibly tense and creepy, deftly able to move from a more typical suspense plot into a more cosmic style horror. The wrong-ness creeps in slowly and for a while it's just about perfectly done. I didn't mind the frequent flash-backs and flash-forwards, for that first half they were working for me, but once again, in the second half it was unclear why it was happening and it only served to obfuscate instead of to increase tension or offer clarity.
The problem, for me, was that we descended into full-blown cosmic horror too quickly and the narrative at that point lost everything that was going for it. The prose lost its rhythm as these external forces take more control, and the stakes are no longer really there once those external forces are basically running the show. We lose our protagonist in a lot of ways, and she no longer cares about the things she used to care about, so it's hard for the reader to know what we're supposed to care about.
The reveals are also a bit clunky for me, the actual explanation doesn't feel genuine, and while I get the idea Marino was going for and think it really worked for a while, it's very tricky to write something where our protagonist is becoming less themselves. (The most successful one I can think of is Sara Gran's COME CLOSER, which smartly is a short and very focused book.) Ultimately the last few sections lose their force and getting this information on Sydney's past and what she's been through only left me less clear on the character instead of painting her more fully.
November 5, 2021
God did I love this book. And much of my love for it is for the very reason others did not. The narration and plot twists worked just about exactly perfect, and the prose was amazing. Describes things in ways where I understand even the spaces between the words. It reflects a deep and unique understanding of addiction, of relapse, of the lifestyle, in an emotional horror tale that I'll never forget.
I'm going to pretend it was written just for me and only for me.
I'm going to pretend it was written just for me and only for me.
July 3, 2021
⟾ 2.5 stars
i really wished i ended up liking this one, but i was confused for half of the book. i don't know if it was the way it was written, but the plot felt very fragmented and i didn't exactly understand what the book was trying to do. it skipped around a lot, but it didn't give us clues to figure out we're reading a different part of the story. i get sydney is supposed to be an unreliable narrator but idk, it was pretty hard to follow. maybe it's a me problem.
the characters were interestingly written and i quite enjoyed a few chapters because sydney's descend into madness was quite intriguing. however, i couldn't for the life of me figure out what was haunting her.
the writing itself i really enjoyed. i loved how the author described certain things, how he introduced some of the characters, without breaking the first person pov.
the ending wasn't great. it left me with so many unanswered questions. i wish it dipped more into how the swimmer came to be, some backstory about the whole thing or maybe why it picked sydney. ik the open ending was probably done on purpose, but imo the book would have been better with a closed ending, so at least a few things were explained.
thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review!
i really wished i ended up liking this one, but i was confused for half of the book. i don't know if it was the way it was written, but the plot felt very fragmented and i didn't exactly understand what the book was trying to do. it skipped around a lot, but it didn't give us clues to figure out we're reading a different part of the story. i get sydney is supposed to be an unreliable narrator but idk, it was pretty hard to follow. maybe it's a me problem.
the characters were interestingly written and i quite enjoyed a few chapters because sydney's descend into madness was quite intriguing. however, i couldn't for the life of me figure out what was haunting her.
the writing itself i really enjoyed. i loved how the author described certain things, how he introduced some of the characters, without breaking the first person pov.
the ending wasn't great. it left me with so many unanswered questions. i wish it dipped more into how the swimmer came to be, some backstory about the whole thing or maybe why it picked sydney. ik the open ending was probably done on purpose, but imo the book would have been better with a closed ending, so at least a few things were explained.
thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review!
February 6, 2023
This was messed uppppp
February 21, 2023
Not my favorite by the author (See my review for It Rides a Pale Horse), but a very interesting story! I wish I knew what happened after..... sequel possibilities?!
November 17, 2021
Some exceptional writing from Marino about addiction, but at the end of the day have very little idea what this story is about. There is a "swimmer" and while it certainly seems like a person doesn't want one of those, the explanation about who or what the swimmer is or how it was created or how it works got the handwave. Throw in some inventive body horror and an ending so abrupt I thought I'd skipped a page and ultimately this was a disappointment.
July 26, 2021
Well, this is dark.
Seriously, every chapter just goes darker and darker. If you want even a sliver of light in the bleakness, this probably isn’t your book.
It’s also well written and has a plot that’s extremely unique. When the reason behind everything was finally revealed, I can honestly say that I didn’t see it coming. I’ll also admit hat I struggled to wrap my head around it at first – but I eventually bought into it.
I think that you need to be in the right mood for this one. It’s grim and sad and slightly frenetic.
I’ll be honest and tell you that I likely won’t reread it. I usually want a bit more fun and lightness in my reading. But I am glad I read it.
*ARC via Net Galley
Seriously, every chapter just goes darker and darker. If you want even a sliver of light in the bleakness, this probably isn’t your book.
It’s also well written and has a plot that’s extremely unique. When the reason behind everything was finally revealed, I can honestly say that I didn’t see it coming. I’ll also admit hat I struggled to wrap my head around it at first – but I eventually bought into it.
I think that you need to be in the right mood for this one. It’s grim and sad and slightly frenetic.
I’ll be honest and tell you that I likely won’t reread it. I usually want a bit more fun and lightness in my reading. But I am glad I read it.
*ARC via Net Galley
October 23, 2021
This book is MESSED UP, and I loved every second of it.
Psychologically bruising, blunt-force trauma scenarios that'll make you squirm and groan, but much more so because of the way Marino messes with your mind and your emotions--this is much more subtle and effective than raw body horror. This book is damage personified.
If you were to mash up Adam Nevill's most hallucinogenic and horrifying moments with Josh Malerman's brisk pacing and whoops-there-it-is-terror you'd be somewhere in the ballpark of Andy Marino and his debut horror novel. This book was filled with clever, masterful writing that just made the dark spots all that more intense. I got chills multiple times with this one, a rare feat for me.
This is probably the most true, heartfelt, and terrifying book I've ever read about addiction.
This is a dark, fiendish trip I'm so happy I took. Highly recommended.
Psychologically bruising, blunt-force trauma scenarios that'll make you squirm and groan, but much more so because of the way Marino messes with your mind and your emotions--this is much more subtle and effective than raw body horror. This book is damage personified.
If you were to mash up Adam Nevill's most hallucinogenic and horrifying moments with Josh Malerman's brisk pacing and whoops-there-it-is-terror you'd be somewhere in the ballpark of Andy Marino and his debut horror novel. This book was filled with clever, masterful writing that just made the dark spots all that more intense. I got chills multiple times with this one, a rare feat for me.
This is probably the most true, heartfelt, and terrifying book I've ever read about addiction.
This is a dark, fiendish trip I'm so happy I took. Highly recommended.
June 10, 2022
The feelings this story gave me was everything I love in horror. From beginning to end I felt tense, on edge, grossed out, & very VERY uncomfortable. It was dark and chaotic and bleak and super fucking weird.
I LOVED the writing style. I thought it worked really well for the story and the type of main character we had but I could see it not working for some people. The chapters are structured kind of oddly but I got used to it and honestly didn’t mind it.
This book talks HEAVILY of drugs and addiction. So, content warning for anyone who finds that content triggering. We are in the mind of an addict the entire book. Based on my own personal experience and growing up around addicts, I thought this was a very accurate portrayal of the mindset of an addict, both when in it and in recovery. That said, it was not a comfortable place to be AT ALL, nor was in a comfortable topic for me to read about. I often had to stop and talk myself through how I was feeling and check in with where I was at mentally and if I thought it ok for me to continue.
I went into this book knowing nothing about it other than it was a possession story. This story is SO much more than that and absolutely NOTHING like I was expecting. I can understand why this hasn’t worked for some people, but for me, I’m obsessed, I can’t get it out of my head and I’m devastated that I have to wait until October for another novel from him.
I’ve raised my initial rating of 4 stars to 5 after sitting on this for a few days.
Watch my reading vlog here: https://youtu.be/oX4EgZ6jbWM
I LOVED the writing style. I thought it worked really well for the story and the type of main character we had but I could see it not working for some people. The chapters are structured kind of oddly but I got used to it and honestly didn’t mind it.
This book talks HEAVILY of drugs and addiction. So, content warning for anyone who finds that content triggering. We are in the mind of an addict the entire book. Based on my own personal experience and growing up around addicts, I thought this was a very accurate portrayal of the mindset of an addict, both when in it and in recovery. That said, it was not a comfortable place to be AT ALL, nor was in a comfortable topic for me to read about. I often had to stop and talk myself through how I was feeling and check in with where I was at mentally and if I thought it ok for me to continue.
I went into this book knowing nothing about it other than it was a possession story. This story is SO much more than that and absolutely NOTHING like I was expecting. I can understand why this hasn’t worked for some people, but for me, I’m obsessed, I can’t get it out of my head and I’m devastated that I have to wait until October for another novel from him.
I’ve raised my initial rating of 4 stars to 5 after sitting on this for a few days.
Watch my reading vlog here: https://youtu.be/oX4EgZ6jbWM
August 8, 2022
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess by Andy Marino started off pretty well and had a lot of potential. Then things just got confusing and it started to lose me. I did stick with it to the end but I just as easily feel like I could have quit at any time.
September 11, 2021
Where to begin?! My mind is completely bent. So we start off with the Sydney surprising an intruder in her house, getting assaulted but managing to get away. Next thing she knows she is waking up in a hospital with no recollection of what happened. While trying to get down to what actually happened the Sheriff informs her that she did escape but the intruder is not alive as she recollects but in fact dead.
Sounds great right? A nice little thriller that makes you ask why was he there and what was he looking for. Then we hit the third visitation of Sydney Burgess and that's where things get........weird? The chapters start flip-flopping around to the point you are so confused as to what you are reading. It took me a few re-reads to try and get myself back on understanding what the heck was going on. Mind-numbing to say the least. But I was intrigued and kept going and glad I did.
Long story short this is a mix of genres: thriller, horror and sci/fi all smashed together. It worked well for me because it was unique and a nice break of what I normally read. It is definitely not for the squeamish that is for sure. If your looking for something to make your head hurt in maybe a not so bad way this could be it
***Thanks to Netgalley and Redhook Books for my advanced copy
Sounds great right? A nice little thriller that makes you ask why was he there and what was he looking for. Then we hit the third visitation of Sydney Burgess and that's where things get........weird? The chapters start flip-flopping around to the point you are so confused as to what you are reading. It took me a few re-reads to try and get myself back on understanding what the heck was going on. Mind-numbing to say the least. But I was intrigued and kept going and glad I did.
Long story short this is a mix of genres: thriller, horror and sci/fi all smashed together. It worked well for me because it was unique and a nice break of what I normally read. It is definitely not for the squeamish that is for sure. If your looking for something to make your head hurt in maybe a not so bad way this could be it
***Thanks to Netgalley and Redhook Books for my advanced copy
November 28, 2021
At first the story was very scary and full of savagery, I had high hopes for it. But then the story got messed up, I really hated Sydney. The narration of this book annoys me.
September 28, 2021
Actual rating: 8/10
Wow. What a novel. The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is quite unlike anything I’ve ever read. This is a novel that blurs the lines of reality like no other. I consumed this book and audio at an astonishingly quick pace for how bizarre and at times, confusing, it can be. It’s one of those books that I’m glad that I slept after and took a day to process. I think the way you approach and analyze this novel will completely affect your rating. I’ve seen ratings on Goodreads that were a 2 star and ones that were a 5 that I could agree with points from both. This isn’t a neat little book that will fit itself into your brain with ease; this is a story that will make you uncomfortable, disgusted, sympathetic, and horrified. The pieces of The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess come together with jagged edges that are sharp enough to cut.
“My first instinct is to look away, like I do whenever gory crime-scene footage comes up in something I’m watching. It’s not that I’m squeamish, exactly–I just decided after I got clean that the fewer images of humanity at its worst I see during my short time on this earth, the better.”
This is a gory book. The descriptions of violence are explicit and disturbing. I found when I listened to the audiobook, these moments were much more palatable. I felt less like crawling out of my skin. Somehow Christine Lakin (the narrator) made these moments of savagery seem poetic. This is also due to the masterful writing of Andy Marino, he truly has a gift for language and imagery. As disgusted as I was, I marveled at his ability to describe murder and addiction in such lyrical terms, and Lakin’s soft enunciations contrasted perfectly with it. I don’t know if I would have been able to stomach some of this book without her gorgeous narration.
This is a book about addiction, it’s a book about possession. There’s a stunning comparison to the feeling of possession that comes over one in the throes of addiction; the feeling of being controlled by your vices. On the other hand, there’s the feeling of being addicted to that possession, in the most literal sense for this book. Sydney becomes aware of her possession but doesn’t exactly want to get rid of the feeling.
Though I haven’t experienced extreme addiction the way Sydney has, Marino paints a vivid picture of the way addiction takes over your mind. The disorderly way that our brains can operate, much like when our mental health declines and mental illness takes over. Which makes sense, as addiction is often attributed to a mental illness. There’s a noisiness mixed with numbness that takes over when one experiences a mental breaking point that I can relate to, and Marino describes it in a way that makes sense to anyone who has experienced it.
One thing I also loved was the way our author described parental love. You may be the most capable parent in the world, and you’re still going to hope that any moments of imperfection don’t negatively affect your child. I imagine this is amplified when you come out of a haze to realize the ways you’ve screwed up in front of them. One hopes that the good outweighs the bad when it comes to parenting.
“I’m reassured by how naturally he assembles. I comfort myself: his mind is running smoothly. Yet I know only time will tell if I’ve fucked him up, implanted traumas to glitch his adolescence.”
This book is told in a strange order, it’s confusing, it is scary, it’s abrupt and astonishing in its ending. It’s a mixture of brilliance and peculiarity that won’t be for everyone. The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a great horror book for the rainy, dark seasons. Thank you so much to Redhook/Orbit for the physical review copy and to Hachette Audio for the audio review copy. I enjoyed (and was appalled by) them both.
Wow. What a novel. The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is quite unlike anything I’ve ever read. This is a novel that blurs the lines of reality like no other. I consumed this book and audio at an astonishingly quick pace for how bizarre and at times, confusing, it can be. It’s one of those books that I’m glad that I slept after and took a day to process. I think the way you approach and analyze this novel will completely affect your rating. I’ve seen ratings on Goodreads that were a 2 star and ones that were a 5 that I could agree with points from both. This isn’t a neat little book that will fit itself into your brain with ease; this is a story that will make you uncomfortable, disgusted, sympathetic, and horrified. The pieces of The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess come together with jagged edges that are sharp enough to cut.
“My first instinct is to look away, like I do whenever gory crime-scene footage comes up in something I’m watching. It’s not that I’m squeamish, exactly–I just decided after I got clean that the fewer images of humanity at its worst I see during my short time on this earth, the better.”
This is a gory book. The descriptions of violence are explicit and disturbing. I found when I listened to the audiobook, these moments were much more palatable. I felt less like crawling out of my skin. Somehow Christine Lakin (the narrator) made these moments of savagery seem poetic. This is also due to the masterful writing of Andy Marino, he truly has a gift for language and imagery. As disgusted as I was, I marveled at his ability to describe murder and addiction in such lyrical terms, and Lakin’s soft enunciations contrasted perfectly with it. I don’t know if I would have been able to stomach some of this book without her gorgeous narration.
This is a book about addiction, it’s a book about possession. There’s a stunning comparison to the feeling of possession that comes over one in the throes of addiction; the feeling of being controlled by your vices. On the other hand, there’s the feeling of being addicted to that possession, in the most literal sense for this book. Sydney becomes aware of her possession but doesn’t exactly want to get rid of the feeling.
Though I haven’t experienced extreme addiction the way Sydney has, Marino paints a vivid picture of the way addiction takes over your mind. The disorderly way that our brains can operate, much like when our mental health declines and mental illness takes over. Which makes sense, as addiction is often attributed to a mental illness. There’s a noisiness mixed with numbness that takes over when one experiences a mental breaking point that I can relate to, and Marino describes it in a way that makes sense to anyone who has experienced it.
One thing I also loved was the way our author described parental love. You may be the most capable parent in the world, and you’re still going to hope that any moments of imperfection don’t negatively affect your child. I imagine this is amplified when you come out of a haze to realize the ways you’ve screwed up in front of them. One hopes that the good outweighs the bad when it comes to parenting.
“I’m reassured by how naturally he assembles. I comfort myself: his mind is running smoothly. Yet I know only time will tell if I’ve fucked him up, implanted traumas to glitch his adolescence.”
This book is told in a strange order, it’s confusing, it is scary, it’s abrupt and astonishing in its ending. It’s a mixture of brilliance and peculiarity that won’t be for everyone. The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a great horror book for the rainy, dark seasons. Thank you so much to Redhook/Orbit for the physical review copy and to Hachette Audio for the audio review copy. I enjoyed (and was appalled by) them both.
February 6, 2022
You’d be surprised at the amount of involuntary screaming that you’re capable of. Screams are the great equalizer—men, women, children, all of us a bunch of shrieking automatons when situations move beyond everyday panic and into the realm of true mortal terror.
Sydney Burgess has built a good life for her and her son - stable relationship with a kind man, a safe home of their own, and nine years of sobriety. It's the kind of comfortable safety everyone craves.
Until the day she comes home to find a man ransacking her home. A struggle and some head trauma later, Sydney finds herself safe in the hospital, bandaged and in pain, but alive. She managed to free her hands and escape out of a window.
Or so she remembers. The crime scene tells a different story.
Butchery. There’s no other word for it. The dispassionate way I slipped the knife beneath his pliable flesh, over and over again.
Could Sydney have brutally killed a man and not remember it? Trauma can cause memory loss, but what can explain her son's anxiety and insistence that her face looks wrong? Or a chirping melody coming from the basement? Or a presence that never seems to leave, that wants to be known?
Sydney's life becomes more and more saturated in horror as her world tilts and truth feels blurred. Can she trust the people around her, or the presence hanging heavy in the air? Can she trust herself?
The appearance of love, of family, can be so easily granted and revoked. Its boundaries determined entirely by another. This is love. No, this. Fooled you.
Andy Marino wrote a novel that inched its way under my skin. In the world of possession horror, originality is often sidestepped in favor of the tried and true. And the tropes here may not be entirely original, but the execution was smooth. The story takes classic possession and immerses it in addiction and turmoil. The swimmer, aka the oily darkness that Sydney can't seem to shake, is familiar, but with enough originality that it doesn't constantly invite comparison to similar works.
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a haunting and sleek possession novel, immersive and bingeable. It's exactly the kind of horror I love, full of inescapable dread - although, who would want to escape a nightmare as lovely as this?
Sydney Burgess has built a good life for her and her son - stable relationship with a kind man, a safe home of their own, and nine years of sobriety. It's the kind of comfortable safety everyone craves.
Until the day she comes home to find a man ransacking her home. A struggle and some head trauma later, Sydney finds herself safe in the hospital, bandaged and in pain, but alive. She managed to free her hands and escape out of a window.
Or so she remembers. The crime scene tells a different story.
Butchery. There’s no other word for it. The dispassionate way I slipped the knife beneath his pliable flesh, over and over again.
Could Sydney have brutally killed a man and not remember it? Trauma can cause memory loss, but what can explain her son's anxiety and insistence that her face looks wrong? Or a chirping melody coming from the basement? Or a presence that never seems to leave, that wants to be known?
Sydney's life becomes more and more saturated in horror as her world tilts and truth feels blurred. Can she trust the people around her, or the presence hanging heavy in the air? Can she trust herself?
The appearance of love, of family, can be so easily granted and revoked. Its boundaries determined entirely by another. This is love. No, this. Fooled you.
Andy Marino wrote a novel that inched its way under my skin. In the world of possession horror, originality is often sidestepped in favor of the tried and true. And the tropes here may not be entirely original, but the execution was smooth. The story takes classic possession and immerses it in addiction and turmoil. The swimmer, aka the oily darkness that Sydney can't seem to shake, is familiar, but with enough originality that it doesn't constantly invite comparison to similar works.
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a haunting and sleek possession novel, immersive and bingeable. It's exactly the kind of horror I love, full of inescapable dread - although, who would want to escape a nightmare as lovely as this?
October 18, 2021
I - uh - I'm a little confused about this book lmao. Like, I'm not sure what the hell happened?
I mean, it started out with a bang. Very immersive and intriguing and I was hooked. But then, as it moved forward, it got progressively messy and difficult to comprehend. At least for me. I didn't know what I was reading anymore. Is it a sci fic thriller? Or a possession horror story? I don't know, I don't know.
We have an unreliable and unlikable narrator Sydney who does god knows what weird stuff and is pulling herself out of addiction. But things start to unravel when a masked man intrudes in their house, and she apparently ends up killing - brutally murdering - him. It leaves open various events for her, plunging her into an unknown blocked part of her life that she thought she had left behind.
Anyhow, it was a weird book. Most of the times I was confused as to what was happening, because of the constant timeline change. And then there was this thing with the 'swimmer' that I absolutely did not understand. I thought I was dumb for it but then I read a few reviews and apparently many had the same reaction. So, cool.
I liked the author's writing style and the choice of narration. It was rather like a fever dream, very claustrophobic, and like in someone's head. Like reading a version of the end of Requiem for a Dream, you know? It definitely is a very subjective narration style which will work for some and won't for others. It sadly did not work for me as much as I loved the beginning. The story / plot was interesting, although it leaves with even more questions. Maybe it was all the intention of the author, but yeah.
I mean, it started out with a bang. Very immersive and intriguing and I was hooked. But then, as it moved forward, it got progressively messy and difficult to comprehend. At least for me. I didn't know what I was reading anymore. Is it a sci fic thriller? Or a possession horror story? I don't know, I don't know.
We have an unreliable and unlikable narrator Sydney who does god knows what weird stuff and is pulling herself out of addiction. But things start to unravel when a masked man intrudes in their house, and she apparently ends up killing - brutally murdering - him. It leaves open various events for her, plunging her into an unknown blocked part of her life that she thought she had left behind.
Anyhow, it was a weird book. Most of the times I was confused as to what was happening, because of the constant timeline change. And then there was this thing with the 'swimmer' that I absolutely did not understand. I thought I was dumb for it but then I read a few reviews and apparently many had the same reaction. So, cool.
I liked the author's writing style and the choice of narration. It was rather like a fever dream, very claustrophobic, and like in someone's head. Like reading a version of the end of Requiem for a Dream, you know? It definitely is a very subjective narration style which will work for some and won't for others. It sadly did not work for me as much as I loved the beginning. The story / plot was interesting, although it leaves with even more questions. Maybe it was all the intention of the author, but yeah.
February 20, 2022
This started out so strong. Great cover, interesting synopsis, I was so ready to dive in to this. As the story begins, I was instantly sucked in. An attack and a death - and she doesn't remember any of it. I was totally on board for many of the visitations - the book is well laid out and easy to pause after each part to catch your breath and process what you've read.
But around half way, the story started stuttered for me. I was losing the thread, left wondering what was really going on. I decided to keep pushing, assuming it would all wrap up. Instead it ended with me even more confused and disappointed. I wish I'd loved it more.
A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
But around half way, the story started stuttered for me. I was losing the thread, left wondering what was really going on. I decided to keep pushing, assuming it would all wrap up. Instead it ended with me even more confused and disappointed. I wish I'd loved it more.
A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
July 7, 2021
Thank you Net Galley for the advanced ecopy. I have mixed feelings about this book. Let’s start with the good: the main character Sydney is incredibly well written and fleshed out. Sydney is an addict, nine years sober, living an ideal life now with her son Danny and boyfriend Matt until a violent home invasion occurs. Sydney can’t remember everything that happened during the invasion, and as she is questioned by police she begins working to find answers to what really happened on that day. Without giving too much away, this story goes everywhere but where I thought it would! The author really wrote each character well, none are cut and dry stereotypes, and his representation of addiction as truly a disease and the painful effects of relapse were sad, well done, hard to read, but extremely realistic considering the out there storyline. Here’s where I had an issue: this book is labeled horror but really is more akin to sci fi which is rarely something I read. It is not a happy book and the end is open ended enough to allow the reader to decide for themselves whether what happens to our characters is fair, good, right, or even real. The book jumps back and forth in time which can be confusing at times but once I got into a groove with the authors writing style I enjoyed it. Overall a strong effort but definitely go into it expecting something more akin to a sci fi novel. 3.5 rounded to 4 for creativity and such a well written protagonist.
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