The Worst Is Yet To Come by S.P. Miskowski.

Journalstone/Trepidatio Publishing, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1947654464

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Small town horror. A coming of age novel. The good girl/bad girl conflict. Readers have read it all before, right? Not so. S.P. Miskowski turns the tropes on their heads in this wrenching novel.

The little town of Skillute, Washington, might remind horror fans of other odd little towns, ones drawn by Shirley Jackson and Charles Grant, although King’s Derry might come to mind a bit as well. In The Worst Is Yet To Come Miskowski returns to the setting of her Skillute Cycle (comprised of Knock, Knock; Delphine Dodd; Astoria; and In the Light).The Davis family has moved there to get away from the big city. It’s definitely not Seattle, and one might think it has left reality. The focus is thrust squarely on middle school daughter Tasha, who must find a way to fit in, and let’s face it, there aren’t much bigger circles of hell than middle school social lives. The friend she discovers is the badass Briar Kenny, who lives on the “wrong side” of town, in a trailer park with her mom and sleazebag boyfriend. Through a series of brutal events, the two girls find themsevles bound together, much more tightly than either would have expected. To say more about the plot would ruin much of the suspense, but the twists and turns emerging between the pages are well worth the journey.

There is a dark force in Skillute that begs to be heard and felt, that is far more original than in most horror novels. Miskowski brings it to life in a manner that echoes the past work of Jackson and Grant, but carves out  her own style here that, while quiet, cuts like razor wire, wounding deep, before the readers, or characters, know they’ve been affected.

What makes this novel burn is the construction of the characters. Each of them relates to some piece of the reader: some of it in light, but much of it in shadow. Miskowski knows how to touch upon the darkest parts of humanity. Bullying and abuse are handled skillfully here, affecting more than the typical horror elements.

The surprises here are Tasha’s mother, Kim, and Briar’s relationship with Tasha’s family. Kim’s demons are real, unfolding and dug out with ragged nails until a scar is born (pun intended). Many of the characters have unlikable traits that conflict with their core beings, eliciting a beautiful dissonance that drives the impact of The Worst Is Yet To Come much deeper than most recent novels. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by David Simms