This place was once upon a time whaling town, corrupted by crime, gambling and prostitution but as new comers start to build a new community and social circle, they opened antique shops, trendy restaurants, galleries. So Ronan goes to his old town to look after his death but the place is extremely changed after being invaded by new artsy community. Even his father never understood him, refusing to visit him for 20 years. He is gay and he never gets approval of the people of his small town Hudson.

I loved so many unique, inventive, different things about this book which waltzes between different genres including horror, mystery, thriller, dysfunctional family drama, thought provoking approach to the small town’s bullying, narrow minded people’s attitudes towards the LGBTQ community and of course the hero’s main motivation that feeds him to take action to the newcomers was deep hate growing inside of him for years and years.īut one thing still confuses me: the MC Ronan, 40 years old, NYC photographer specialized on erotism on his work. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.Ī small town’s abrupt change by losing the spots of local stores to the new hipster owners, floating whales, increasing pressure and blowing hateful energy ! What a complex, creative but also a little confusing story! The author’s profound love to the whales made him use them as important spiritual addition to this story as he did at his previous work. Ronan’s hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real estate developers aren’t the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become-overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom’s wife, Attalah.

He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge. But his father is ill and New York City’s distractions have become too much for him. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. Ronan Szepessy promised himself he’d never return to Hudson. Miller comes a frightening and uncanny ghost story about a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it.

Sam j miller author