In Review: Darkened Wings Flutter by Lou Yardley

I’m just going to come out & say it, this book scared me so much in places – one point, in particular, caused me to fall over a shoe rack in my desperate attempt to get back to bed as quickly as possible just because I thought I heard a noise outside.

What’s the book you ask? Darkened Wings Flutter by Lou Yardley

Widower Chuck Graves lives next door to a family with their share of problems – a couple that always argues, a little girl called Imogen (Immy for short) who seems to unnerve people with her mannerisms and seemingly odd behavior but her little brother Ryan the polar opposite keeps smiling regardless of what’s going on. Everything appears normal, but Chuck can’t help but wonder what’s going on behind closed doors.

The small town of Crow’s Foot Hollow is then thrown into turmoil when a local boy Dwayne goes missing. For teacher Beth Harwood, it soon becomes clear that the nearby forest is connected to his disappearance but the forest is the subject of scary stories and haunting nursery rhymes

Creepy right? That’s not the half of it…

Let’s start with Immy – with all the horror stories, films & my preferred musical choices I should’ve been drawn to her but rather the opposite she gave off a real ring vibe and early every-time early on she was mentioned I did get a little shiver down my spine but as the story developed I found myself doing a complete 360 and by the end was not only changed my entire opinion but felt slightly guilty, her brother Ryan, well he may be all smiling at the start & happy go lucky – remember at the start I mentioned that everything with the family might not be as it seems I’m going to keep this as spoiler-free as possible Ryan is how do I put this nicely evil, sneaky little bastard – Yep that’s fine. Oh and don’t get me started on the parents especially the Mum

The boy who goes missing Dwayne disappears, returns home & then disappears again – the second time he does you honestly have to re-read to make sure you read it right, Did that happen? I can confirm it does and it only gets worse – this is the point where I have to tell you that there should be a new term for Yardley’s work which is NSAATE (Not Safe At Any Time Ever)

I picked this up and down so many times but was still drawn to it for all the wrong reasons…

“The end is nigh when darkened wings flutter…”

I have to put 5 out 5 skulls because if I didn’t Lou could very well send the moths round.

You can learn more about Lou Yardley here or become a supporter on Patreon and if you still want to read this after hearing just how much it terrified me well you can do here but don’t say I didn’t warn you…