4.5 stars

A snake handling religion located in a small church in an even smaller backwoods town. A reporter with a dark history surrounding the church of her childhood. A mother and daughter enveloped in a slinking, slithery darkness with ties to horrors that aren’t as removed from the everyday world as we’d like to think. Beneath boasts a dark beauty and DeMeester’s talent lies in her descriptive writing and her world-building when it comes to this novel. The characters are well-developed, and some of th...

Hoo boy. The description of this book was so compelling! And a woman horror author! I had really high hopes. Cosmic horror, cults, investigative journalist looking to expose secrets of a cult and stumbling into things far more messed up than she assumed...But the writing is bad. This book is bad. I thought at first I was being too harsh on it, it's a debut novel, and while the execution wasn't great, maybe the great concepts could carry it through to being a decent read.They could not.The charac...

Unfortunately, I finished reading this literally the day before I went into emergency surgery, so there goes any notion of my penning an actually insightful review. That said, I wanted to at least note my reading of it down, and say a few things, probably more poorly than I would were I in less pain or on less medication. I'm a fan of Kristi DeMeester and of Word Horde, and this novel got sold to me on the strength of the "horror novel about snake handling" logline, as well as my hearing a bit o...

Snake handling is an obscure practice of a Christian sect, based on some very literal interpretation of scripture. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will ge...

4.5 Stars Video Review: https://youtu.be/YkWkavDxHPcBeneath is a strong debut horror novel filled with creepy creatures and nasty people. Clearly, Demeester has a dark and twisted imagination. The prose in this novel is absolutely fantastic, with tightly written descriptions and disturbing imagery. This novel is unapologetic in its attempts to make readers uncomfortable.Given the synopsis, readers may expect the snake handling to play a large role in the story. Yet very little of the plot actual...

4.5Beneath deserves to be on your list of horror books to read sooner, rather than later. I enjoyed every minute of this ride. This is my first Kristi DeMeester but it will not be my last. I hope she writes more sick reads!And this book is sick.Dark and disturbing, the prose sort of washes over you like briny, brackish water and leaves you feeling unsettled and dirty at the end of the day.The blurb on the back of the back of the book gives you a great, surface level capture of what this story is...

Beneath is one heck of a book, for the most part. I'll state up front that the ending didn't quite work for me, and it felt as if DeMeester wasn't sure how to wrap up the events of her story in a satisfying way. This is a slow-burn horror book, but where there should have been a big finale, the story disappointingly fizzles out and slowly fades away. I would also advise that this very much a "me" issues, and might not be a "you" issue, so please don't let that deter you. Read it and judge for yo...

4.5 Stars.My friend Sadie is a horror nut like me, and every once in a while she will message me and say "you need this". Not only does she love horror, but she loves pretty much all of the same things that I love, so if Sadie says I need something, I definitely need it. This is one that she told me I needed.I bought it, and like a lot of the books I buy it got buried under piles of other books that arrived shortly after and I forgot about it. Not entirely, though. I knew I wanted to read DeMees...

Devastatingly bleak novel that ratchets up the tension and terror page by page and never relents. Snake cults, religious horror, the horrors of organized religion, the weakness of the flesh, the pleasure and the price of sin, and a haunting conclusion combine to form one unforgettable beast. Compulsively readable, with smooth, fluid prose, and filled with a cast of truly realistic and fully-realized characters. Highly recommended to weird and horror fans who thrive in dark places, both geographi...

I have enjoyed Kristi DeMeester's short stories immensely. With her first novel "Beneath" there is evidence of her authorial capability allocated throughout the story. The novel is highly sexually charged throughout it's telling, with the lines blurred between eroticism and the perversion.The novel's main characters, a young female no nonsense reporter, a priest who wavers between impure thoughts and weakness, a mother and daughter who's highly religious upbringing and marred upbringing comprise...

I’m giving this a (grudging) two stars because it’s well written. But unfortunately I pretty much hated this book.

DNF at chapter 20, page 107. I wanted to love this book so much but it just wasn't working for me.

Beneath is an apocalyptic novel involving evangelicals and snake handling. Several characters were only children of single mothers who I found 'easy' to relate to. I'm not sure what else I could add.This is a great first (published) novel - a first rate horror novel - and I look forward to seeing what Kristi DeMeester writes in the future. In the meantime, I'm going to dig into her first story collection Everything That's Underneath: A Collection of Weird and Horror Tales

**Review coming soon!**

And where are the angels to guard? Where's the God of men and children?VNV Nation - Serial KillerDo you ever feel like a book was written just for you? Like, there’s some unspoken connection between you and the author, and somehow, despite not knowing each other, you share a kinship…and because of that kinship, the book they wrote has some sort of special resonance with you, and you’re like “yeah, I’m right there with you”? Like they somehow heard the thoughts in your head and managed to convert...

Beneath has all the elements I love in a good southern gothic horror story, it has the South obviously, religious fundamentalism, including a pedophilic priest, and language that encompasses dread. I have to admit that this book takes a turn for the bizarre and grotesque that I wasn’t exactly expecting. I am not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it was not “The Great Worm”.Initially, the story reminds me of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (which is my favorite Flynn by the way) when Cora, a r...

'Beneath' is my first book read as part of the anniversary celebration readathon on Instagram/Blog pages/wherever for the Ladies Of Horror Fiction (happy 1st birthday!) in conjunction with bokstagrammer/booktuber Alex aka Hey Little Thrifter! Go and say hello to them,they are superb at shining a light on horror fiction!''You understand something about darkness, don’t you, preacher? How once that door opens, it can seep out. Infect everything it touches? How quickly it spreads, and you standing w...

This was a pretty sleazy, but very entertaining, horror novel set in rural North Carolina concerning a disturbed snake-handling evangelical preacher, an equally disturbed sixteen year old girl who has a fixation on the preacher and a journalist doing a story on the preacher (who also has issues). Who doesn’t have issues in this unsettling novel? The first half was really great, setting the scene, loading up the atmosphere, building the characters, giving us the feel of the mountain etc. Whilst t...

DeMeester is a contemporary hella lauded author, and I see her name cropping up time and again on my Twitter feed, in my mag subscriptions and so on.And my God I don't think I've seen such a pretty book cover maybe ever. I LOVE it. (How do you even go about making something like that? Is it painted? Photoshopped? Reminds me of those Pre-Raphaelite paintings like "Lady of Shalott" except without all those OUTRAGEOUS colours :D!)No-brainer, had to pick this up.This story is executed with quite a c...