She fled to the small bathroom that adjoined her room and turned on the cold water full blast. She first scrubbed the blood off her palms, her movements rough. Then she dunked her entire head under, letting the chilling water wash over her. Cold water always helped her come back to her body when she was on the brink of a panic attack. It grounded her here and now, pulling her back from her anxious tailspin.

Chapter 2

Introduction

My love for the horrific, macabre, scary, and downright spooky goes back a very long time. There’s been a lot of great stuff in this genre published recently and Kyrie McCauley’s All the Dead Lie Down is no exception. In this story our protagonist, Marin, is left alone in the world after the tragic and accidental death of her mother. She’s suddenly taken in by Alice Lovelace, a famous horror writer that she admires, to be a nanny for her two young daughters over the summer break. Marin slowly realizes that there is more to the Lovelace estate than she thought and that she’ll need to use her wits to survive. Let’s dive in to this rich story below.

The Good Stuff

I will not lie. This book had me wanting to don my best Victorian mourning outfit and read in the rain. I say this only a little facetiously – the atmosphere of this book is at once lush and stifling. It starts off super-strong and draws you in immediately; Marin’s third-person point of view brings us into her mindset in the midst of her grief around her mother’s sudden passing. She’s immediately unsettled when we meet her coming up to the Lovelace estate and is off-balance for about the first third of the book.

Along with Marin, we don’t necessarily know what to make of Alice’s daughters right away. Wren and Thea, alternatively affectionate and capricious, seem like normal kids at first but have unexpected streaks of mischief and cruelty that keep Marin on her toes. When their eldest sister, Evie, arrives, this doesn’t necessarily clear things up for Marin. From then on, we follow Marin, Evie, and the two girls as they navigate their relationships with each other while also grappling with a terrifying necromantic power saturating the estate.

See?? This is so goth that it’s tearing up fishnets while listening to The Cure. I loved it! Marin slowly reveals a spine of steel that is helped along by Evie’s companionship. This further flowers into something more and is so, so sweet to see develop. (You’ll see why the flower thing is such a pun when you read the book, haha!) The story could have easily maintained a chaste friendship between the two and you almost think it will stay there, but then McCauley reveals that Evie and Marin are drawn to each other. Their combined strength is what sees them through to the end of the story.

I also really appreciated the time that McCauley took to describe these characters. It’s clear that the Lovelace family is related to one another based on their descriptions alone, but McCauley took time to depict each character throughout the book as they grew and changed over the events of the story. Although a majority of the characters were white, I really appreciated that McCauley didn’t let us assume and took the time to clarify.

As with many horror stories, there are some content warnings I’ll include here. Check between the rainbow gifs for the list, and engage with care.

Content warnings:

• Death of a loved one
• Generalized anxiety disorder
• Panic attacks
• Blood
• Body horror
• Animal violence and animal death
• Accidental death
• Brief reference to infant death
• Grief
• Drowning
• Emotional abuse by a parent
• Emetophobia

Hopefully these gifs aren’t too flashy. Please let me know if they cause you any issues and I’ll update as needed!

In Summary

This might be a weird thing to say about a gothic romance/horror, but this book was genuinely so much fun. For the twists and turns, the spookiness, and the queer representation, this book is highly recommended.

All the Dead Lie Down is written by Kyrie McCauley and published by Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books. You can find a link to purchase it here. As always, gichi miigwech for reading!