Beware of Bodymore

“You sure pick the best places to break down, don’t you, Way?” I’m saying to myself in the cab of a Bodymore tow truck as I pull to the west entrance of the park.

Lifelong Baltimore resident Joey knows that something isn’t right in the city. It might just be the very suspicious park that has claimed many missing residents, but she thinks that it goes deeper than that. And when her friend, Wayland Cross, disappears in the park one night, leaving behind a corpse that isn’t his, she knows for a fact that her gut was right all along.

Steak House Books was kind enough to send me an arc of this book really early on in the year and I read it well in advance of Halloween.

I’ve been exploring the horror genre a little more this year — at least within the literary world — and it is safe to say that Bleed More, Bodymore is a horror novel through and through. There is no last minute cliche of everything having been inside our main character’s head, rather Ian Kirkpatrick’s book wholeheartedly delves into the paranormal: ghosts and all.

While the book is like the dark urban fantasy version of TJ Klune’s Under The Whispering Door, I found it to be a little too fast-paced for my own liking. In trying to overcome what happened to Cross, Joey is constantly on-the-go, digging in places where she shouldn’t be and getting herself into a lot of trouble. There is a lot of worldbuilding that is happening in this book and that means a lot of backstory has to be given to the audience so they can understand what is happening.

Coupled with general contextual clues about Baltimore, as a non-American reader, I was definitely a little lost at times. Several months after having read this book, I don’t really remember much of the plot of Bleed More, Bodymore. I remember myself enjoying it sure, but the story didn’t really stick with me in the way I wanted it to.

Even so, Kirkpatrick wrote a beautifully thrilling horror story about death and ghosts and trauma and if you’re a fan of horror books à la Stephen King, Bleed More, Bodymoremight be right up your alley.

Rating: 3.5/5

Bleed More, Bodymore by Ian Kirkpatrick will be released on 31 October.