BOOK REVIEW - The Silence in the Void by Dona Fox

I was looking forward to receiving a new title by Dona Fox. She is one of my absolute “musts” in horror and reading her is always a delight. Her writing is always based on a solid ground of psychosis and paranoia, where her characters arise both in victory and doom.

Reality and illusion join together to get the reader confused and disoriented. Ends are never expectable and the body of the story spins like a galaxy formed by sick minds.

This story is not what you are expecting. Blood and guts wrap a visceral thread of shifters and dark secrets.

Our narrator Mason, a broken child, tells us about his family, full of horrors and blood. The Great Depression is the timeframe of a circus ruled by a tyrant, who uses all the family members as pure objects to mistreat and neglect.

The kid is a witness of his family history and dreams of changing it all. He makes a strange discovery when following two strange figures talking about things he can’t yet understand.

That’s an intersection point in the story. From there, tragedy after tragedy build a path to loss and somehow, resurrection. He loses all the people he loves and slowly —also his mind.

You’ll have to follow our protagonist, Mason, to get to the eye of the hurricane in this story. Hold tight to your seat though, because a disturbing spiral of emotions is guaranteed. This is, indeed, an amazing horror story.

[bctt tweet=”Tragedy after tragedy build a path to loss and somehow, resurrection. He loses all the people he loves and slowly —also his mind. @_DonaFox #horror #writingcommunity” username=”theboldmom”]

“Usually, they scream. But she fell silently to the hard-packed dirt below where she sprawled so beautifully, a spent flower tossed carelessly aside.”

Sometimes they fall is about intrigue, accidental deaths, and outright murder in the circus. Our narrator is Mason, a trapeze artist who is gradually losing his grip, both in his hands and on his mind. As he suffers the loss of those he holds most dear he struggles with reality and the resurrection of the dead.

[bctt tweet=”The Silence in the Void by Dona Fox – Part 1: sometimes they fall – Gradually losing his grip, both in his hands and on his mind. @_DonaFox #horror #writingcommunity ” username=”theboldmom”]

Readers speak

Should you get the urge to re-read this story because you thought you missed something the first time around you would not be alone.

The book holds so many odd qualities to it. Look at the prologue without saying much here you have clowns and a dare. The main story, what can you say about it? The saga of a circus family of trapeze artists hence the title though murderous, bloody, violent and again odd.

2nd take – the main character Mason and his screwed up lens of life where you begin to wonder how he even thinks. The family is a strange bunch with skewed relationships. Their claim to fame as trapeze artists – No Net. If you fall you fall.

You have deaths and births all within the short length of the book. The story is a narrative of their lives and volatile relationships, clingings and letting-go’s, moments where you watch what happens in shock, and yet other moments you want to shake their shoulders and yell Stop – this is grotesque, dude.

This is the secret of the writing of Dona Fox here. She has a story to tell and she does her writerly (I think that’s a word) duties and does it yet she couches the extreme and “odd” as if it was entirely normal as it is entirely normal for them.

Get what I’m saying? The reader wanting an easy time here will run up against the skilful writing of the story and you will be required to actively read it. You didn’t quite catch it, re-read.

The story shows artistry and craft and Dona Fox is one of the good writers out there who knows how to frame a story so the story shines with its own inner light. Cater to your audience, yeah, for sure. Write with craftiness and talent, priceless. Still, Dona, still, this story is freaking odd but you already know that.