Crows on the Cross is Kristy Tallman's second novel. The story starts with two lovers who are in a car crash together. When they wake up they are each alone. Rainey is in Virginia and Drew is in Florida. The states represent where Rainey and Drew's personal hell began in the days of their youth.

When Rainey wakes up in her pristine 1969 Cadillac, she can't remember how it is she got home, let alone where she has been, or why the car and her clothes smell of smoke. All she does know for certain is that her and her lover Drew had a fight - but over what? Not even she knows why, but unable to find him Rainey's drawn by the disparate need to head south. Without knowing where he is she heads to the only place she knows he might be - in Florida.

Drew is first introduced waking up in Miami, Florida in Rainey's beloved 69 Cadillac staring hard into his childhood church. Why? Only able to remember the horrible accident that took Rainey away from him he's left to wonder how he ended up back in Florida and how he's driving around in a car that wrapped around a tree. Nothing makes sense - who's the shadowy man at the church and how is he going to endure his life after losing Rainey? The stranger at the church sends Drew reeling back in time - the nightmare of his childhood comes slamming back into his memory after all these years of keeping it hidden. Filled with anger and a broken heart he decides he's got to get the hell out of Florida. He's on a mission to Virginia to return the caddie back to Rainey's mother or so he tells himself.

Both Rainey and Drew suffer flash backs into their childhood, where each of them has had to endure the worst kind of evil that can be inflicted upon a helpless child. This novel will send you on a roller coaster ride of emotional trauma, you'll scream in anger one moment then feel like crying the next as you ride with the characters Tallman has created in a car that isn't just any car. The demons she creates in this book are too real, so real it will change the way you look at the common passerby every time you walk out your front door.

Kristy Tallman has done it again! Her ability to turn the pages of a novel into a real to life psychological hell for the reader by showing you that the genuine horror in this world is our very own human race has again been accomplished with an encore for more. Tallman has definitely surpassed the expectations I held after reading "The All-Souls Faire". She managed to shock me to the core and horrify me like no other author has in a long time! Excellent! 5-Stars

 REVIEWED BY MICHAEL TIMLIN

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