#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 96: Sallow Bend by Alan Baxter...2 Copies!!!

This week I have 2 copies of a MUST buy title by one of Australia's most popular speculative fiction authors. It came out this week from Cemetery Dance. To celebrate, they are offering a copy to 2 lucky library workers. Details below, but first a reminder on how to enter: 

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #95. Our winner was Jen from Jupiter [FL] Branch Library. Now on to today.

The July issue of Booklist magazine carried my GLOWING review of Sallow Bend by Alan Baxter. It rated it 4.5 out of 5: 

School is out for summer, the Carnival has just set up, but the town of Sallow Bend awakens to darkness. Two girls from the high school have gone missing. When they return a couple of days later, they are now three, and yet no one but Caleb, the well-meaning, if socially awkward school janitor, thinks this is odd. Everyone claims they have always known the third girl, Hester, but no one can remember any details about her. Told from many points of view, but with a focus on Caleb and Tricia, a mother whose son went missing last year, Sallow Bend is an immersive, page-turner, where details about the characters, the place, and its eerie history, are effortlessly fleshed out, but paired with the unceasingly intensifying dread, quickly escalating from unsettling to terrifying and Baxter, already an award winning Horror author in his native Australia, seems poised to take over America as well. Suggest to readers who enjoyed other original entries into the small town Horror trope like Hex by Olde Heuvelt or Daphne by Malerman.

Further Appeal:  An excellent small town horror, page turner with folk horror elements. The sense of place is strong, and is huge part of what makes this book so immersive and awesome.

Multiple points of view add character development and increases the pacing. History of the town is VERY important. A Carnival in town as well-- for me personally this is a frame I LOVE!!!!

The tone begins very uneasily-- kids are missing but it escalates steadily and intensely to terror.

Missing children is the overall frame and there is harm to children, but it is not gratuitous.

Baxter wins awards and is very popular in his native Australia and this should be his coming out party in America. Buy this one. Your horror readers will love it.

This book was excellent-- 4.5 out of 5. The only things keeping it from 5 stars are-- I thought it took place in Australia because there were some words that are used in their version of English rather than American English, which was fine, but then somewhere in the middle Atlanta was mentioned and that threw me off. I was fine thinking it was Australia. This is editing, bit Baxter's issue and a very  minor detail because this could take place anywhere in any small town.

And this-- I don't want to spoil but there is a character from the Carnival workers who becomes important and I wish there was more time about who he really is and what power he holds. I'dd read a whole book about him. Maybe that is a good thing that I want more.

Three Words That Describe This Book: multiple points of view, small town horror, intensifying terror

Readalikes: This was Hex by Olde Heuvelt meets Daphne by Malerman. If you smooshed them together and added a carnival. Old school Stephen King fans will like it as well.

The focus here is on the adults, not the kids, and how they address the horror and come to terms with their own mistakes and choices. So while on the surface books like Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury or even Children of the Dark by Janz may seem like comp titles, they might not be. For me they are, but those titles give the pov to the teens. This does not. I liked that and found it refreshing.

A must buy for every library. Just the Hex comp alone will draw in readers immediately.

This book is a PERFECT read for this weekend as well. It is set during those wanting days of summer, just as the carnival is making one its final stops of the year, and school is just going back into session.

Now a finished copy of this book could be yours, to add to your library collection immediately. I will be picking 2 winners Friday evening and Cemetery Dance will send the book directly to the winners. 

Good luck.