Hello fellow readers and welcome to another wonderful blog tour! Today this is my stop on the Write Reads blog tour for Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis!

Welcome to Harrow Lake. Someone’s expecting you . . .
Lola Nox is the daughter of a celebrated horror filmmaker – she thinks nothing can scare her. But when her father is brutally attacked in their New York apartment, she’s swiftly packed off to live with a grandmother she’s never met in Harrow Lake, the eerie town where her father’s most iconic horror movie was shot. The locals are weirdly obsessed with the film that put their town on the map – and there are strange disappearances, which the police seem determined to explain away. And there’s someone – or something – stalking her every move. The more Lola discovers about the town, the more terrifying it becomes. Because Lola’s got secrets of her own. And if she can’t find a way out of Harrow Lake, they might just be the death of her.

You have to love a small spooky, town story with some locals who never truly pulled themselves out of the last century. Especially when there is a creepy story of a monster that will ruin the lives of the residents should they step out of line. But what if, after all that, the real monsters are people? And what if they turn out to be our parents?

This isn’t any spoiler territory, I can assure you. This book very quickly reminded me how our parents are themselves to us first and people second. That is one of the hardest things to write about especially from the eyes of a child and Kat Ellis manages it so well here while also managing to maintain some unsettling plot details and a strange town atmosphere.

When we meet Lola, I’m not going to lie that I found her irritating. In the first few pages it is very easy to find her annoying and slightly spoiled. As the story unfolds, her background is expanded to the point of feeling pity for this girl and her constantly shifting loyalties to both Nolan and Lorelei. There is a deep conflict in her that I found very interesting with a sense of resilience that is hard to not admire straight away.

Some moments within the plot are genuinely hard to grasp and figure out but the creep factor is never far away. As the tension rises in the story and Lola becomes more paranoid it is hard to tell what might be the nasty reality of Harrow Lake or what might possibly be a monster lurking around the corner. I would love to see concept art for Mister Jitters as well.

Overall, a definite must read for horror fans while being an impressive take on the horror movie legacy and what damage it can leave behind.

Thank you to Dave at the Write Reads for having me on this tour and to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of Harrow Lake in exchange for a review!

Harrow Lake is published on the 9th of June!