When We Talk to the Dead

By Ian Chorao

Book Overview

The island was abandoned years ago-but something dark was left behind, and it's waiting for those bold enough to return.

Perfect for fans of Iain Reid, this slow-burning horror novel will sweep you out, and like a churning ocean, before you realize, it will pull you under its turbulent spell.

A remote deserted island off the coast of Maine holds dark memories and disturbing secrets for the family who once lived on its rocky shores. Though nineteen-year-old Sally de Gama remembers nothing about the accident that took place on Captain's Island and destroyed her family when she was a little girl, she suffers from intense anxiety, pervasive bouts of dissociation, and gruesome nightmares.

All Sally knows is that her mother hasn't spoken since the accident that took the life of Sally's twin sister. Following the tragedy, her family fled and never looked back.

When her mother suddenly dies, Sally and three college friends travel to the island-for her friends it's an adventure to a strange, abandoned place. For Sally, it's a desperate bid to recover some of her memories and understand what really happened to her family. But when memories begin to return, Sally is overcome by grief and rage that threaten to plunge her into madness-a madness that is fed by a malevolent presence stalking them on the island.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DT3J5CM7
• ISBN13: 9798892423526
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Fell short of Horror

Sadly this slow burn horror was ruined for me by the constant introspection of the characters and the addition of psychology points at really odd times. Like when one character has fallen and a beast is about to attack, she focuses on a window and thinks about how her mother stated it is quite common for attack victims to focus on one single thing, like a bottle, or a crack. Of course that threw me completely out of the horror of the moment. I think it would have been much more potent to cut out a whole bunch of that. Plus the characters were not that likable. I guess that was okay, as I was interested in when they might be killed, and how most likely none of them would survive their stay at the island. So, in summary, it is college age students (but no common sense among them, e.g.. they buy refrigerated snacks to take to the island and are surprised when it goes bad?), following Sally as she returns to an island purported to be haunted and where her own disaster occurred with her family before they fled, never to return till now. Bad things happen, people die, and while the twist at the end was decent, it could not save the rest of the book. The cover was cool, and the title. The audiobook version was okay, but only because I could speed it up to 2x. No fault to the narrator, M.L. Sanchez, who did a good job with the characters and sketchy world they lived in.