Book Review | A Black and Endless Sky by Matthew Lyons

In the wake of Jonah’s divorce, he embarks on a cross-country road trip with his estranged sister Nell back to their hometown. But they get involved in an incident at a biker bar that threatens their safety. Then Nell wakes up at an abandoned industrial site in the desert with no memory of how she got there. Soon, she begins seeing terrible visions and it’s clear to Jonah that their troubles have just begun.

It feels bad, being this close to it – as if dread was a physical thing that could fill up your lungs and choke the life out of you. It feels like being trapped inside every nightmare she’s ever had. 

A Black and Endless Sky is a gory, action-packed horror with a dash of the cosmic. It opens with a construction crew discovering a mysterious door deep inside a hole in the ground, and the chaotic fallout from that discovery. I was intrigued by a character introduced at the start, but they were not featured in the rest of the story. Instead, the story moves to Jonah and his sister Nell. The siblings’ relationship is fractured so the road trip is filled with their bickering. It is made worse after a fight at a biker bar and Nell’s accident at the hole. They are also pursued by a woman who appears to have her own nefarious purposes.

What the book does best is describing the action scenes where every punch and every blood spilled are clearly illustrated. Unfortunately, the violent fight scenes took over the story to the point where they felt repetitive. The siblings’ dynamics hint at a difficult past, but they lacked a deeper connection. It seems their connection mainly resulted from their impulsive habit of getting into fights and they are unable to engage outside of that. Both Jonah and Nell keep making their situation worse through their behavior. The supporting characters’ motivations keep changing so it was hard to believe their actions.

I found the demonology aspect of the plot to be the most interesting, but it was also the least explored. Demon possession and otherworldly beings entering the human world have always been exciting sources of conflict, and I wish this book had touched on that more. While it brings up some ideas about identity, faith, and obsession, they weren’t enough to leave an impression.

A Black and Endless Sky is a blood-soaked cosmic horror about family and faith, for fans of demon possessions stories.

I received a digital copy from the publisher for review purposes.

About the author: Matthew Lyons

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