Chosen The Dark World Book #1
Occult Horror, Occult Fiction
Raven Tale Publishing
APIL 2, 2023
Kindle
380
Amazon
When Lisa Chambers awakens in Temple General Hospital, she’s injured, widowed, and pregnant—and her nightmares are just beginning. Frightening visions of her dead husband, her baby, and grotesque creatures worshipping a man with burning eyes spiral into wide-awake scenes even more sinister.
Surgeon Daniel Walker’s people believed a monstrous creature lived in the waters off the Georgia coast. Drexl von Dorff’s family settled on the island once owned by Dan’s Yamacraw-Creek ancestors. That alone makes them bitter enemies and neither cares who knows it.
Both men are now involved in Lisa’s life—Daniel as her surgeon, Drex as the man who pulled her from the burning car. Both want to be more to the new widow, but there’s a third entity also interested in Lisa and her baby . . .
. . . the creature chained beneath the waters off Land’s End Island.
Review By Sherry Perkins
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
“And the beings beneath the waves watched and waited.” — Chosen
If you like your horror stories a la Rosemary’s Baby or anything Lovecraftian then you’re in luck. Tony Paul de Vissage’s Chosen ticks all the horrific boxes in this Cthulhu-like story based on Creek snake fish demon folk lore. And I loved every creepy minute of it!
Most of the plot you can see coming, right up until the deliciously wicked twist at the end. However seeing what the characters don’t—you know, that thing where you scream at the character don’t do that!—only makes the journey more cringy and satisfying.
Chosen starts, as most good horror stories do, with an innocent person dragged into something they didn’t deserve and certainly didn’t expect (except for the earlier ignored hints that something is wrong) with horrifying consequences. Because what starts out as a drive along the Georgia coastline with her husband turns into a fiery and fatal crash for Lisa Chambers.
Lisa awakens from trauma induced haze to nightmarish pain. Her leg bones are terribly broken. She learns her husband died in the crash, and discovers she is pregnant. Her physical recovery is protracted, and her emotional recovery is in chaos which makes it easy to become attracted to the doctor caring for her, Dan Walker. Dan is the only orthopedic doctor in town. He’s also instantly attracted to Lisa. More than that, he’s a Creek medicine man which certainly comes in handy when the strange stuff starts.
The strange stuff—or at least the intense dislike Dan has for Drexl von Dorff, the passerby who came upon the fiery crash and quite heroically rescued Lisa—seems somehow connected to Drexl, with whom Dan clearly has history. Bad history. Naturally, the tension between Dan and Drexl eventually snakes its way into the growing relationship Dan is building with Lisa.
Okay, so this is where I start screaming don’t do that! Too late. The inevitable has arrived with tentacles, scales and…oh, no!
Another five-star novel from Tony Paul de Vissage about the evil that impatiently awaits.