Belle Vue by C.S. Alleyne (   Bookshop.org   |  Amazon.com )

Crystal Lake Publishing, August 2020

ISBN: 9781646693115

Available: paperback, Kindle

Belle Vue isn’t a horror story.  Nor is it a suspense novel, or a crime thriller.  It isn’t even a story of the occult and ancient rituals.  It’s a beautifully entangled web of all of the above genres, with the author adding just the right dose of each to create a compelling, first-rate story.  Belle Vue deserves a serious look when next year’s nominees come out for ‘best debut horror novel.’

The story runs two threads concurrently throughout the book, and they join together at the book’s climax.  The present-day thread concerns Claire, a graduate student in her mid-20s, who just rented an apartment in Belle Vue, an old Victorian-era insane asylum that has been converted to luxury apartments.  The other thread is set in the late 1800s, and stars two sisters, Ellen and Mary Grady.  Ellen is the sweetheart who is always trying to help others, while Mary, to put it simply, is cold-blooded, conniving, and ruthless.  Mary has Ellen committed to the asylum for her own scheming reasons, whereas poor Ellen, kindhearted soul she is, thinks Mary is trying to help her deal with the death of her mother.  The true depth of Mary’s evil unfolds as the story progresses.

Both stories are the “slow burn” type, and both are equally compelling.  Claire soon finds her dream place is not all she expected, with the strange occurrences that happen once she moves in.  It’s to the author’s credit that many of the things that happen are fairly minor, but they are written well enough to leave the reader with a feeling of disquiet, expecting something worse to come (and it usually does).  The suspense builds as the story progresses, and the author snaps off a couple of well-placed curveballs in regard to the fate of some of the main characters.  The 1800s part of the story is less supernatural, but explains the complicated history of Belle Vue.  It’s a complex tangle of characters, supporting and backstabbing each other for their own ends.  It’s a wonderfully enjoyable net of intrigue, and this part also contains the occult section of the story, as the reader learns of a depraved pleasure and sacrifice cult that once called the asylum home.  The actions of the Belle Vue staff and cult members are horrible enough to justify considering this book to be a horror novel, yet it’s so much more.  Emotional swings for the reader should be expected when reading this.  Sometimes you can thrill to trying to figure out who will betray who next, other times you will be reading fast to find out what weird things will happen in the present day thread.  Occasionally, you just feel sadness, especially where the character of Ellen is concerned.  That’s a hallmark of a good book: it takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster.  Belle Vue does it exceptionally well.

This is a story no one should miss.  From its skillful cross-pollination of genres to its Hitchcock-style ending, this book should easily find popular acclaim.  It won’t scare you out of your seat, but instead leaves you with a feeling of unease that grows throughout the book, and lingers long after the conclusion.  Extremely well done, C. S. Alleyne is an author to keep an eye on in the future.  Highly recommended.

Contains: violence, profanity.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson