Headlights - bookrastinating.com

400 pages

Published by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom..

Every instinct tells him to run. Every memory tells him he can’t.

Special Agent Daniel Stansfield is ready for a change. Burnt out and defeated by the job, it’s his last day with the FBI. But before he can turn in his badge, he’s summoned back to Denver, the city he ran from four years ago, with a chilling message: it's happening again.

Seemingly innocent people are waking up on the side of the highway, with no memory of how they got there, wearing the skin of victims they've allegedly never met. And they each share one haunting detail: a strand of a stranger’s hair is tied around their tongue.

Now Daniel is pulled back into the gruesome cycle, and every clue leads him deeper into the shadows of his own past. He will have to confront the ghosts of his traumatic childhood and face what’s …

Every instinct tells him to run. Every memory tells him he can’t.

Special Agent Daniel Stansfield is ready for a change. Burnt out and defeated by the job, it’s his last day with the FBI. But before he can turn in his badge, he’s summoned back to Denver, the city he ran from four years ago, with a chilling message: it's happening again.

Seemingly innocent people are waking up on the side of the highway, with no memory of how they got there, wearing the skin of victims they've allegedly never met. And they each share one haunting detail: a strand of a stranger’s hair is tied around their tongue.

Now Daniel is pulled back into the gruesome cycle, and every clue leads him deeper into the shadows of his own past. He will have to confront the ghosts of his traumatic childhood and face what’s been hunting him all along— before he and the people he loves become the next victims.

Perfect for fans of The Shining and Longlegs, bestselling author CJ Leede’s Headlights is a pulse-pounding hunt across the frozen wilderness of Colorado.

2 editions

Amber Herbert reviewed Headlights by C. J. Leede

Serial Murders, Supernatural Entities, and the Shadows That Refuse to Be Ignored

4 stars

Headlights isn't your average horror thriller. What begins as a serial murder case that's gone unsolved for five years soon becomes a twisting trek through the main character's trauma, repressed memories, and literal and metaphorical ghosts.

Leede, as always, delivers prose dripping with emotion and complex meaning. While on the surface it's about a murder case, Headlights is really about accepting your past, learning to live with it, and allowing yourself to grow around what's taken up roots and never intends to leave.

The descriptions of the Drifters and their human skin pelts were fascinating but not enough to grip me. But around the halfway mark, I was fully invested in the mystery and how it all connected to Daniel's past. The Witchwalker, this behemoth of an interdimensional being, is given an origin story that's equal parts sympathetic and terrifying. There's a spicy scene involving cannibalism that oddly …

Headlights isn't your average horror thriller. What begins as a serial murder case that's gone unsolved for five years soon becomes a twisting trek through the main character's trauma, repressed memories, and literal and metaphorical ghosts.

Leede, as always, delivers prose dripping with emotion and complex meaning. While on the surface it's about a murder case, Headlights is really about accepting your past, learning to live with it, and allowing yourself to grow around what's taken up roots and never intends to leave.

The descriptions of the Drifters and their human skin pelts were fascinating but not enough to grip me. But around the halfway mark, I was fully invested in the mystery and how it all connected to Daniel's past. The Witchwalker, this behemoth of an interdimensional being, is given an origin story that's equal parts sympathetic and terrifying. There's a spicy scene involving cannibalism that oddly worked for me, and Daniel's connection with Hannah felt unavoidable yet heartwarming. By the end, I saw myself in Daniel and his journey and was grateful for a bittersweet but nevertheless hopeful ending.

My main criticism lies with the many nods to The Shining and Stephen King. The novel would have transcended its many tropes without the burden of such a weighty reference.

While this isn't my favorite CJ Leede novel (that's American Rapture), the story spoke to a damaged, rarely visited piece of me. I believe it will speak to other readers in much the same way.

I recommend this novel to fans of Stephen King and anyone seeking a supernatural-tinged mystery.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the advanced copy.