Stephen Coghlan

Burned out and drugged up, Alec LeGuerrier spends his days faking it. That is, until he stops a gang of nightmarish oddities from killing a strange young woman with indigo eyes. Dragged into the lands of the dreaming, he must come to terms with his brutal past and his grim imagined future in a land his mind refuses to acknowledge.

Urban Gothic

Briar's Reviews

Urban Gothic by Stephen M. Coghlan is the dark, mythic novel I've been searching for.

Do you remember back in English class where they said don't use words in the sentence to describe the sentence? Well, I'm gonna break that rule. This book FELT gothic. It gave me goth vibes in so many ways, and somehow Urban Gothic fit the book just right.

The writing is tremendous. I felt whisked away and enchanted, unable to pull myself from the beautiful writing in this book. It felt like artwork, which I can't always say for reading (yeah, yeah... I know... writing is an art... hush now). 

Our lead Alec works in a hospital as a cleaner (but used to be a Medical Technician - what a down grade. That majorly sucks). His past trauma weighs down on him and makes it impossible for him to truly experience his life and dreams. We open on his walking about, and suddenly he sees a woman and three men. It's not looking good for the lady, so he kills those three wicked attackers, and then tries to save our lady Veleda. She's quite mystical and fantastical, making Alec's life forever changed. He chooses to go on quite the adventure with her, and disappear into a world of gothic insanity. 

The dreamscape and the other realm with different people (and their kooky abilities) was so cool. It's one of those unique imaginative ideas that you've probably dreamed about and wanted to write about, but never did. It gave me those dreamy vibes and made me just so impressed. The story really pulled me in, and I am totally enchanted by Stephen's writing and ideas. Like, I can't express it enough. The descriptions alone gave me wonderful and intense images in my head. I love this! It's so cool! The story is so good at whisking the reader away.

But that's just me - me and my nostalgic love of gothic reading. It gave me dark Alice in Wonderland vibes, mixed with Donnie Darko and Rocky Horror-esque niche-ness. 

There's also a fair amount of action throughout the pages. I loved the mix of dramatic story telling and thrills packed tight in this story. It's just enough to pull you along but also keep you intrigued.

Ah, I love this. 

Five out of five stars.

I received this book for free from the author, Stephen M. Coghlan, in exchange of an honest review.