ALL THE DEAD LIE DOWN by Kyrie McCauley – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

All the Dead Lie Down by Kyrie McCauley
Published by Katherine Tegen Books on May 16 2023
Genres: Horror, Young adult
Pages: 368
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Atmospheric and eerie, All the Dead Lie Down is a nice mix of horror, coming-of-age and family secrets.

It was the creepy, evocative cover of All the Dead Lie Down that caught my attention, and I have to say Kyrie McCauley’s story matches the cover perfectly. This was such an atmospheric story with unexpected elements, although the most interesting parts didn’t really happen until after the halfway point. Still, as a reader who is very picky when it comes to young adult, I ended up really enjoying this.

Seventeen-year-old Marin Blythe is all alone in the world after her mother died in a terrible train accident. Luckily, her mother was friends with the famous horror author Alice Lovelace, who asks Marin to stay with her over the summer and act as a nanny to her two young daughters. Marin is grateful for the opportunity and arrives at Lovelace House eager to begin her job. 

But soon after she arrives, Marin realizes that things aren’t quite right. Alice Lovelace is reclusive and unfriendly. Her daughters Thea and Wren seem to delight in playing cruel tricks on her. She discovers a trunk in the attic full of long braids—made of real human hair. Thea spends time burying her “dead” dolls and holding funerals for them. And when Thea’s and Wren’s older sister Evie returns from school, she talks about a family curse, although no one will explain the details of the curse to Marin.

Eventually as Marin starts to bond with the girls and becomes closer to Evie, the terrifying secrets of Lovelace House begin to reveal themselves.

McCauley sets her stage perfectly, evoking a secluded, gothic setting, an old house with the ocean on one side and a forest on the other. The residents of Lovelace House seem quite at home there, as they are odd themselves. I liked the character of Alice, a Stephen King-like horror author who locks herself in her room all day and writes, suffering from migraines and writer’s block. You know there’s something “off” with her, but it isn’t until the final reveal at the end that the reader learns Alice’s secrets. And speaking of Stephen King, there’s even a nod to The Shining later in the story that made me smile.

There’s a sweet and subtle romance that develops between Marin and Evie, and I thought it was nicely done. After all the weird and disturbing things that Marin sees during her stay at Lovelace House, it’s a miracle she doesn’t run for the hills, but part of her character development is trying to find where she belongs in the world, and I appreciated the fact that she sticks around to try and make her new found family work.

The author includes brief flashbacks that show the horrific accident Marin and her mother were involved in. Clearly she’s suffering from trauma and trying to find ways to deal with it, and when Evie and her sisters reveal their own past traumas, I was worried that the story would become too dark. But McCauley gives readers a glimpse of hope to temper the darkness, and for me if was just the right amount.

I mentioned that it takes a while for the plot to kick in, and that’s the main issue I had with this book. Nothing really happens in the first half, and I found myself growing bored and impatient with the story. True, the eerie atmosphere was exceptionally well done, but it was a lot of mood with really no substance behind it. But apparently McCauley used this time to carefully set things up, because the second half was such an improvement. We learn the secret of the Lovelace curse and wow, it was a doozy! I’m not going to mention it because it will spoil the surprise, but it was the perfect gothic element to make up for the slow first half. The author pulls in lots of ominous story details, like an ocean water flooded basement, the family crypt and cemetery, bones of the dead, the dark and creepy woods surrounding the property, and a greenhouse full of poisonous plants.

The last few chapters were thrilling and terrifying. Without giving anything away, Evie and Marin are involved in a confrontation with Alice, who is attempting to right a past wrong. McCauley adds even more creepy and disturbing scenes, and I flew through the final chapters as fast as I could. I also loved the sentimental, feel-good ending involving Marin and her situation, as she’s been trying to find her place in life after her mother’s untimely death. Fans of atmospheric storytelling and unusual supernatural elements should definitely check this out.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.