Crossroads by Laurel Hightower | Review

How far would you go to bring back someone you love?

When Chris's son dies in a tragic car crash, her world is devastated. The walls of grief close in on Chris's life until, one day, a small cut on her finger changes everything.

A drop of blood falls from Chris's hand onto her son's roadside memorial and, later that night, Chris thinks she sees his ghost outside her window. Only, is it really her son's ghost, or is it something else—something evil?

Soon Chris is playing a dangerous game with forces beyond her control in a bid to see her son, Trey, alive once again.

Crossroads…a fork in the road, a decision to be made, life taking a turn and lives altered.  Laurel Hightower has taken a certainty in life, death and given it a complex meaning, a burden, a floating through life trying to grasp the ending but never holding onto that tangible point.  Chris is existing through life after the death of her only son.  He is taken in the most tragic circumstances well before his time, a car crash.  Greif is crushing her, minute by minute, hour by hour.  A natural reaction to an unnatural event, but what would you do to have them back?

Look at the cover – the desolation, the grief and loneliness jumps out at you.  It is essentially a horror in its purest form – the death of a child.  I know if I was too loose one of my boys it would be like living hell on earth.  The colour of the cover, the illustration, it grabs you by the genitals with its originality and its bleakness and the pages contained within hit you where it hurts all the more!  A narrative so bleak but powerful that it could bring the strongest of people to their knees. 

Motherhood had mad her face all her fears, let go of her phobias and the things that bugged her, like snot and puke and having anything touching her collarbone. Kids trample all over those little rules and peferences in no time…

Laurel Hightower takes us on a journey.  A road less travelled, the grass has covered up the remains of the road and the wind leaves you feeling wracked and disorientated.  A snippet of life, the devastation of putting your entire life into your child to have it cruelly taken away – leaving you with a sense of emptiness.  Crossroads isn’t an easy read, it isn’t meant to be.  It’s meant to grab you by the jugular and not let go.  It makes you want to run and hide and hope to any higher power that this never happens to you. 

Chris is a broken mother.  A mother that is a shadow floating through this world putting on an act that all is ok.  The mental strain and the depression his hidden from the public face.  Laurel Hightower brings us the sadness in Crossroads and has the button to the readers emotions firmly pressed.

The writing contained within Crossroads brings the puzzle and mystery together.  With every visit from the supernatural the tension almost becomes too much.  Be prepared to have your own heart ripped out, stomped on and given back the pieces of a shredded organ.  I wanted to make this book last, but, when you read that first page you will be hooked.  It knows it has you, and it knows you won’t let go until that last harrowing sentence has been digested. 

As the story developed I had several a-ha moments and you truly wondered who was holding the deck of cards.  A story that will haunt me for a while to come yet.

Crossroads is a masterpiece in visceral fear.  It crackles with menace and despair.  It’s scary, truly scary.  Reality has blended with the sinister.  Laurel Hightower has captured every parent’s worst nightmare and brought it into frightening high definition. 

ABOUT LAUREL HIGHTOWER

Laurel Hightower grew up in Kentucky, attending college in California and Tennessee before returning home to horse country, where she lives with her husband, son, and two rescue animals. She works as a paralegal in a mid-sized firm, wrangling litigators by day and writing at night. A bourbon and beer girl, she’s a fan of horror movies and true life ghost stories. Whispers in the Dark is her first novel.

Laurel Hightower