Robert Grim #2: Oracle – Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Translator – Moshe Gilula

How could a sound that had ceased forty years ago suddenly echo again on a cold winter morning … and feel so wrong?

Luca and Emma weren’t expecting to find a ship in a tulip field on their way to school. It wasn’t there yesterday and it seems pretty impossible that it’s there now.

This sounds like a job for Robert Grim.

I can’t say that Robert Grim was exactly enjoying his retirement or even remembering much of it. He doesn’t live in Black Spring anymore, though, so that’s progress.

He’s not exactly advertising his services but even he can’t deny he has a unique skill set. His involvement in this investigation isn’t what you’d call voluntary. That’s not how these things work.

This is one of those rare series where I enjoyed the sequel more than the first book. I was all about the mystery of the ship but it turns out that’s only the beginning of this story.

While this book was still dark, there was some hope to be found. I had Luca, a gutsy kid, to cheer on and I needed that.

I struggled with the fictional animals meeting their maker in HEX. There was some of that here too but none that I’d built a relationship with first so that made it easier.

If you absolutely had to, you could read this book without having read HEX but you would be missing out. It provides much needed context for the character of Robert Grim. This book also includes spoilers for the first so you won’t want to read them out of order.

Supernatural phenomena followed their own set of rules … until they didn’t.

I spent the whole book trying to figure out how Robert Grim survived the Black Rock Witch and I was given an explanation but I need to know more. Thankfully this book ends with an opening for another so I may get to explore this further.

Oftentimes when I’m reading a book, I think about what I would do if I was plonked into the storyline. If I had made my way to Every Man’s End, I would unquestionably not be here to tell you about it. I would have investigated the ship that shouldn’t have been, the bell would have tolled and, well, if you read the book you’ll know what would’ve happened next.

‘And what did you think?’

‘That they should have listened to the kid, dammit.’

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

On a foggy winter morning two children discover the impossible: the wreck of an eighteenth-century ship stranded in a field.

One enters the hatch on the deck and is never seen again. And she isn’t the last to disappear…

Soon a government agency begins to investigate, determined to uncover the ship’s secrets before a media storm erupts. They enlist Robert Grim, a retired specialist of the occult, to unravel the mystery, who soon realises the ship could be a harbinger of an ancient doom awakened under the sea. 

In a maelstrom of international intrigue and pure terror, Grim must race against time as he comes face to face with an open doorway to the apocalypse.

Robert Grim #1: HEX – Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Translator – Nancy Forest-Flier

“Nothing’s normal here.”

Katherine van Wyler was sentenced to death for witchcraft in 1664 but that’s not where her story ends. Hundreds of years later, the Black Rock Witch remains, her eyes and mouth sewn shut.

Once you move to Black Spring, you will never live anywhere else. The residents of this insular community are used to living alongside this emaciated, chained woman but they’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. If Katherine’s eyes ever open, her power will be unleashed.

This book has been on my radar for years and waited patiently on my Kindle for two. The upcoming release of the sequel gave me the perfect excuse to dive in and then I almost didn’t finish it. To be honest, if I hadn’t already committed to reviewing the sequel, I probably wouldn’t have.

“She’s not going to let you go. You live in Black Spring now. That means the curse is on you as well.”

It’s rare for a book to have a negative impact on me. Reading is my joy. Even when I read memoirs of people who have experienced the horrific, I find hope in their resilience.

This book, though, had a significant impact on my mental health. You could say it did its job, with the witch reaching out from the pages to infect me with her curse. It got to the point where, each time I started reading, I’d think ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’

But nothing was all right, nothing could ever be all right

I don’t think of myself as a reader with many rules. I’m happy to wander between genres and dip my toe into unfamiliar territory. Do what you want to the humans, especially if we’re in a slasher, and I’ll likely forgive you. I may even cheer you on. If you harm my fictional animals, though, we’re going to have a problem. I had a big problem with what the animals, one in particular, experienced in this book.

I don’t want you to think this wasn’t a good book. It was. It was well written. I got attached to a couple of the characters. I needed to know what hell was going to be unleashed once Katherine’s eyes opened. But wow, it really did a number on me.

“Peacocks. You know what that means, right?”

Content warnings include alcoholism, attempted suicide, death by suicide, death of a pet, lynching, mention of domestic violence and sexual assault, and suicidal ideation.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, never leaves.

Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she’s there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.

The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiralling into a dark nightmare.