Title: Left To YouAuthor: Daniel J. Volpe
Series: Left To You #1
First Published: November 11, 2021
Publisher: Bad Dream Books
Pages: 260
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Supernatural
Format: Ebook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Rating:
Synopsis:
What would you do to save a loved one?
Robert’s mother, Helen, is ravaged with cancer. Every day could be her last, and Robert dreads losing the last member of his family. Robert’s friend and Holocaust survivor, Josef, tells him an unholy story and leaves him a way to save his dying mother. But, as with everything in life, the salvation comes with a steep price.
Will Robert accept what’s left to him and save his mother? Or will the cost be too high, weighing Robert’s soul down to the depths of Hell?
Get the Book: AmazonReview
Left To You is a gut wrenching book with some of the most effective, hard hitting horror I have ever experienced. A young man caring for his dying mother befriends an old man with a very dark secret. The first half of the novel is tense in that you know something is wrong sort of way, and I found it chilling. It builds up to the old man’s tale of suffering and inhuman horrors, of hellfire and damnation. Josef Lazerowitz, the young man comes to learn, is a holocaust survivor.
The story dives into Josef’s past and I can’t even begin to quantify the emotions that I felt while reading, I cried many times. Volpe weaves Josef’s tale with respect and skill, and he is a character that I will never forget.
Sadly for me I felt the second half of the novel was significantly weaker. When the big secret is revealed, the book snaps to the present day, back to the initial narrator, Robert. The transition feels jarring, and though I was invested in Robert’s story with his mother as well it felt like so much was missing. Volpe does remedy this later with the release of a prequel novella that fills in the time jump.
While there were some story developments in Robert’s story that I found horrifying, it leads up to an ending that felt anti-climatic and it left much to be desired. There were some good ideas with the structure of this novel, but I hate to say that it ended up being a detriment to otherwise powerful storytelling.
Quote
“Dogs, Professor, are beneath us, but if we want them to work, they must be fed.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Daniel J. Volpe
Daniel J. Volpe is the Splatterpunk Award-winning author of PLASTIC MONSTERS, TALIA, LEFT TO YOU, and many others. His love for horror started at a young age when his grandfather unwittingly rented him, “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
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