Adam Loxwood has concocted a sinisterly dark masterpiece thriller that just hit me out of nowhere like a bulldozer. From gritty action to immersive characters and complex relationships between them, The Girl Beyond Forever is a memorable reading experience.
Thomas Schafer is a broken man who is somehow still keeping himself together just long enough to discover what happened to his daughter after she was kidnapped from her room. Years have gone by and he has burned bridges with everyone who ever cared about him just so he can delve deeper into the darkness that awaits him at the center of the abyss. When another young girl is kidnapped in the same circumstances, Thomas must muster every last bit of his hope towards putting his brutal tactics to work and finally uncover what happened all those years ago that made him lose everything he ever cared about.
From the grounded noir elements to the mystical dark arts, The Girl Beyond Forever dips into various genres and meshes together a concoction that feels unique and engaging from the get-go. Whether it’s a brutally intense staircase fight sequence with axes and saws, or a car chase through the busy streets of London, or a very heartfelt tender moment of realization as Thomas spirals down a rabbit hole of madness and descent and all readers can do is grip the pages in sheer horror upon realizing he may have gone too far, the narrative gets you thinking and visualizing the events as if you’re following real characters and situations, as horrific as that may seem. Putting readers in the first-person perspective of such a tragic character is quite an awesome precedent for setting up a highly emotional tale of the lengths to which a parent can go to bring back their child. The dark arts and occult take care of that uneasiness you’ll feel in the night as you read this despite knowing it can be scary because you can’t bring yourself to detach from this rich world of storytelling Adam Loxwood has created with such poetic finesse.
The Girl Beyond Forever is a mesmerizing and beautifully haunting thriller steered by a powerful protagonist, brilliant pacing, bloody action, and emotional pith that injects every vein of this narrative with excellence. It’s one of the best books I’ve read of 2023 and I’m glad to be ending the year on such a high note.
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