In Excess of Dark, is Red Lagoe’s most recent publication through Dark Lit Press, having released March 15th, 2024. I received a review copy and wanted to get it read and a review posted prior to release, though life got in the way as it tends to do. The premise of this book had my attention right out of the gate, this novella follows Karina as she grapples with severe consequences of a darkness that followed her since childhood, an ability to bring her darkest daydreams to light. Imagine if that happened to you, how many times has your mind wandered and you found yourself thinking through a scenario that weirded you out, left you horrified and/or just wondering, “What the fuck…” Maybe its a common experience, maybe its not that common, but I know I’ve certainly been there. There is so much potential with this kind of story, having those kind of powers.

While it was quite short leaving me wanting more, Red Lagoe wrote a great, intriguing, horror piece. The interactions between characters felt very real and organic. They felt lived. The horror scenes were depicted incredibly grotesque way, yet still being light enough I could see someone less interested in visceral gory detail enjoying this book. There are 2 or 3 erotic scenes, they are rather short and don’t go too far into detail, so if you don’t like that in your books, I think its quick enough to ignore for the rest of the content. If you actively seek it out in your books, well there’s not a ton. If not for some nitpicky editorial caveats, I’d have given the book an 8 of 10 stars…

That being said, there were a few spelling errors here and there, nothing excessive, generally not something I would even consider noteworthy to bring up and wouldn’t affect the outcome of a review. There was one spelling error that I feel most certainly should have been caught by the editors, GPS being spelled “GSP”, which certain stands out being surrounded by lowercase letters, though that being said, it feels rather nitpicky, but was just one of those very jarring errors. For whatever reason whenever hearing Karina’s thoughts, it was not italicized, and I know it’s not really a rule to do so, but I do prefer when that’s done, at least Lagoe was consistent with it, but boy did it make some parts jarring. My main issue which I will be knocking a star off for, leaving it at 7 of 10 stars, is that this book, which again is written in THIRD person following Karina, will sometimes almost change perspective. More specifically sometimes it will refer to Karina’s mother or father by “mom” or “dad” when they do something, and other times it will use their names, which would be fine in a first person book, or even if there was a solid perspective change into first person or something, but there’s no question about that not happening. It happens frequently and is clearly not an instance of Karina’s thoughts, making use of just mom or dad fine. Take for instance this excerpt, “Mom’s face soured. She pushed by Karina and charged into the house. ‘It’s foul in here.’” At first you think okay, “Mom’s face soured.” Clearly this paragraph is some of Karina’s thoughts, though then the next sentence being “She pushed past Karina…” and not “…past me…” makes it clear that’s not the case. I had hoped errors like this would have been caught in the proofs between review copies and publication, but I checked the full publication, it’s no different. Despite this issue often breaking immersion, it is still worth the read. Like I said, it’s a good story.