Warning for mentioning mental illness making someone a villain, necrophilia, and antisemitism which I will be mentioning in my review. If that turns you off from this book than I have saved you from that disgusting surprise.

The synopsis was everything I could want. A horror carnival kind of energy, coming every Halloween. So perfect and titillating. I was hooked on that idea.

So how did it let me down?

I don't like the women all being childlike and getting fucked with such focus on how childlike they are. I like my woman as adults and there's a lot of content that needed to be written more maturely.

Especially since the main girl, Sibby, who //thinks// she might be twenty but doesn't know. Um. She could be a child! She definitely talks like one. Sibby is either underaged or she's mentally handicapped and incapable of consent. Yikes on trikes.
Not that she's like an alt-right Harley Quinn who has sex with corpses. She talks like a child always saying oopsy and whoopsy and ouchy. Always saying cock and meat and giggling. She's clearly mentally unstable and unwell. A normal killer is not this childish or horny.

She also over explains and repeats herself like we can't keep track from one chapter to another.

I also didn't enjoy the Nightmare on Elm Street song being sung in a book makes me roll my eyes. Or maybe it's a Five Nights at Freddy's reference. It's stupid and repeated too often.

Then there's loads of referenced child abuse and CSA as a reason certain people there are so "quirky" which is the last thing I need for a freak show. A bunch of victims and disfigured people are oddball freaks. How lovely.

How many times they say "he's a mute" and disregard people who can't talk or see is brutal. Nonverbal and mute are separate things but author doesn't understand that or anything else.

One of them was used as a child for fellatio and is mocked for hating things put in his mouth. Except Sibby's parts because she's inconsiderate and a rapist.

Sibby is revealed to have seventeen siblings. How the f-

Romanians with hooked noses are insulated and I'm not sure why. Like the particular one attacked is her Dad who she's got features of. This isn't the first time though so it feels like a reoccurring trash fire of antisemitism.

Good people smell like flowers and bad people smell like rot in this book. Except Zade.
Zade doesn't smell like rot so he's not a bad person but he does smell like brimstone which smells of sulfur. Sulfur smells like rotten eggs and rot. How the hell?! Please authors check your scents out. Learn the smells you are describing because this isn't an isolated incident.

Sibby gets sex to the point her "tummy bloats from the fullness". S T O P. Infantilizing her is gross and having her say words like tummy during sex is not hard. During this she's covered in necrophilia corpse remains and getting fucked. Ew.

Strumming is used during her crotch rubbed.

A bunch of rich, white, Republicans decide to enter the fair because I don't know. Creepypasta Jeff the Killer reasons. So Sibby needs to go kill all of these pedophiles who just so happened to wander into her lair.

Sibby says death is the best thing that could happen to an abuse victim who dealt with extreme SA. Thanks, Carlton.

Senator man spotted, I hope Sibby doesn't necro this one.

0.5 stars, Satan himself wants his name removed from this book. ( )

Absolutely loved this book and seeing Sibby POV of events and learning more about her that ties into the Cat and Mouse series ( )

Ok, sin palabras...
Las escenas se describen de una manera tan explícita que tuve que parar de leer un par de veces, solo porque quedaba procesando lo ocurrido ( )

One, Two Freddy's coming for you
Three, Four Better Lock Your Door

Sibby and her henchmen-cum-lovers Mortis, Timothy, Jackal & Cronus are part of a traveling Halloween fair called Satan's Affair during the fall months. Contained within the Halloween scaretractions of haunted houses, small thrill rides, and plenty of food to enjoy, Sibby's little dollhouse waits for the one rotten soul to enter her domain. Those with rotten souls can enter but they are never allowed to escape. Not when Sibby has her beloved knife ready to hack up these demons. Sibby gets off on these killings and once the demon has been taken care of, she enjoys quite an orgy of sex with her minions. As the Halloween fair goes from town to town, Sibby continues her work to destroy the rotten-smelling souls that enter her attraction. It is even during this one night Zade makes his appearance.

Five, Six Grab Your Crucifix
Seven, Eight Gonna Stay Up Late

Ah, Freddy Kreuger. A favorite of mine. I can see why Sibby would recite the poem when she is so nearly his female counterpart. Of course, without being able to kill people in their sleep. Sibby really went through hell as a child especially being in such a cult of her father's own making. So, I felt really sorry for her. I felt even more emotional attachment to her when it came to her mother. The one person she loved more than anything. I want to say that the mother endured a lot to protect her children and perhaps more Sibby than the others. They were, after all, already brainwashed. Maybe it was the reason why she did not protect them as much (perhaps she even tried at one point but their brainwashing had become too bad for her even to reach them).

Sibby's emotions were a rollercoaster. I don't want to give off too much of a spoiler to the book, but the last chapters of the book were rather interesting and something I was not sure I expected. But then this book was not entirely something I expected in the first place. LOL.

And let us not forget that this book introduces us to Zade. Now, I have not read the Cat and Mouse Duet. I have it set to be on my July TBR. So, I am looking forward to that.

As for the blood, gore, and sex. This book won't be the first and won't be the last that I have read with that combination.

Nine, Ten Never Sleep Again

Will I be reading more of her? I plan to next month. Zade has made me curious about him so I will definitely be checking out his own duet. ( )

"Don't enter the den of wolves and ask not to be bitten."

We travel the country, offering terrifying haunted houses, thrilling rides and the tastiest food. And with every passing town, I cleanse the world, one execution at a time. I hide within the walls, casting my judgment for those that reek of evil, singing lullabies to their rotting souls. Once you've been chosen, there's no escaping my henchmen-they cater to my every desire. You can run and you can hide, but it only excites me. Come. Take a walk through my dollhouse, where your screams will blend and your cute little pleas will go unanswered.
So I have heard amazing things about H.D. Carlton and I have been wanting to really delve into the dark romance genre. Well I would say this book was a good way to start that. I mean it pretty much commits to be dark, dirty, and nasty from the start. Yet, I enjoyed it. I loved that the main character doing the killing was a female. I loved the brief backstory we got for her in a short novella. I felt like this book gave me just enough information to understand the characters while also leaving me wanting more. I will say this book is incredibly graphic and lucky for me I love horror movies and psychological thrillers because this sort of reads like one.
Sibby is a little bit childlike but also a stone cold killer so it was an interesting dynamic. I will say that trigger warnings should be read for this novella. I had a few times I was icked out but my god Carlton is a beautiful writer. I was so engrossed in the story and want to know more about Zade. So why four stars? I was going to give it five for the shocking reveal at the end alone... until it left me hanging with the final paragraph and now I don't know the final outcome. But seriously I look forward to reading more books by H.D. Carlton! ( )