Chad Lutzke

*TW: themes of trafficking and abuse, but no graphic descriptions.

Review: A short, gut-wrenching read. Two women and a child finally escape the abuse of trafficking. Blood will be spilled.

But what happens once they’re free? After years imprisoned in a basement -starved, used, and forced to endure unimaginable horrors at the hands of men-they are afraid of the outside world. How can you still believe in humanity after that? How can you not fear men and a system that often seems to help the rich more than the victims of abuse?

This book managed to wrench my gut and made me feel the emotions of all three characters, especially the girl who is mute and doesn’t even know the simplest things, like how crisps taste. In just a few sentences, the author conveys the horror they experienced, the sadness for everything they lost, and the strength they still have.

I was so happy with the ending.The characters truly deserve all the best in the world.

This anthology of three novellas is the first in the new 'Dark Tide' series by Crystal Lake Publishing, and I was thrilled to read them. The titles are loosely connected with the most obvious link being each story's main character suffering from the loss of a loved one. But how they deal with their grief are completely different, though always painful, stories. The first one is about a man loosing his fiancee and not knowing how to get on, the second is about a mother in need of closure over her daughter's death, and the third one is about someone coming home to clear house after their father died. My favorite story was the middle one, because it had some great twists and action in it. The third story was a very creepy kind of folktale, while the first one was a character-driven tale about despair.
I love how the cover combines a detail of each story into one strange and disturbing image and I appreciate that the stories are in novella format instead of short stories, which gives them enough room to unfold and does not overwhelm this reader with too many different approaches.
Overall, this was a promising debut in a new series and I am already curious what the next theme will be.

The main storyline is about a teenaged boy moving to a new town and falling in with the wrong friends who manipulate him into doing things that are just not good. And while he constantly battles an inner struggle, knowing that what they do is not OK, he is not able to stay away, because that would also mean losing the only friends he's got now - and his first love. Thus, the stage is set for a horrible drama to unfold, leading to a finale where the boy has to make a severe choice which will define who he is and who he will become.

One detail I loved in this book were the titles of the chapters, announcing the chapter plays xx numbers of days ago, thus building a great amount of suspense and curiosity towards the oncoming 'now'. While it is mostly typical for a story to build tension towards a finale at the end, here I read a constant reminder that I was nearing some unavoidable outcome - and with each chapter I realized it would be very bad.

'Wormwood' is the result of a collaboration of two equally talented authors, bringing together the best of two worlds in a most formidable book.