Staff Pick
If there's anything I've learned from LaRocca's work, it's that nothing is ever what it seems. In a spine-tingling subversion of the smalltown-with-secrets trope, Everything The Darkness Eats gives us a ruthless villain, a sympathetic yet disturbing main character, and more of its creator's signature writing style, which feels like it should be narrated by the late Tony Jay or Boris Karloff. You will be unnerved. Recommended By Stacy W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
An insidious darkness threatens to devastate a rural New England village when occult forces are conjured and when bigotry is left unrestrained.
After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community — a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley’s Edge.
From the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of the viral sensation, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats is a haunting supernatural thriller from a new and exciting voice in genre fiction.
Review
"This is probably the most all-inclusive horror novel I've ever encountered, and one of the most riveting. LaRocca's tight story structure; luminous prose, and in-between-the-lines subtext approach virtuosity in this tale of grievous loss, all-too-realistic violence, and human longing, all which slam-dunks the reader into an inescapable (and keenly original) terror-scape. Part mystery, part crime drama, and part occult fable, Everything the Darkness Eats is the most relevant book I've read this year. LaRocca proves to be an absolutely superior crafter of modern fiction." Edward Lee, Header and City Infernal
Review
"Sherwood Anderson this isn't. In Everything the Darkness Eats, Eric LaRocca has created a truly modern horror story that boldly illuminates the harsh realities of life in contemporary small town America. His Henley's Edge is not your stereotypical community where everyone's a neighbor and every neighbor's a friend. It's a town where depression and loneliness thrive, where intolerance and bigotry undermine civic institutions, where isolation turns even loved ones into strangers. Horror fiction doesn't get more emotionally raw than this. A smart, sharp read with echoes of King's Needful Things and Barker's The Damnation Game, Everything the Darkness Eats not only has one hell of a good title, it's one hell of a good book." Bentley Little
Review
"LaRocca looks at the passive violence and prejudice underlying small town life with an unblinking eye, revealing how it can erupt into something truly monstrous — and then he somehow grafts that together with something profoundly dark and supernatural to create a unique and deadly beast of a novel with a double row of very sharp teeth." Brian Evenson, author of Father of Lies and Last Days
About the Author
Eric LaRocca (he/they) is the Bram Stoker Award(R)-nominated author of several works of horror and dark fiction, including the viral sensation, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. A lover of luxury fashion and an admirer of European musical theatre, Eric can often be found roaming the streets of his home city, Boston, MA, for inspiration.