Horror Book Spotlight: A Tomb For The Broken by Jerry W. Barksdale

Do you remember the ghost stories you heard as a kid? Whether they were told to you by a friend or family, they inhabited your mind and seeped into your nightmares. 

But imagine if those stories were actually true?

This week’s Horror Book Spotlight is on A TOMB FOR THE BROKEN by Jerry W. Barksdale. This is the author’s debut novel, published by Broken Brain Books in June, and it is climbing the bestseller list in the Psychological Horror category. 

So, what is the book about, and should you READ it or SKIP it? 

A TOMB FOR THE BROKEN Plot

The story is told through Shawn Lee James, the protagonist, whose childhood is riddled with his father’s paranoid schizophrenia and his sadistic grandfather’s scary stories. 

Through all of this, Shawn is drawn to two ghostly girls in the woods who seem less like a hallucination and more like a curse. 

Shawn begins to wonder if his delusions are born from his grandfather’s stories or if it's something that has manifested through them. 

A TOMB FOR THE BROKEN First Impressions

One of the reasons I picked this book was because of the cover. The rough sketch of a girl and the scribble of a ghoulish figure on the side will make you pause too. It’s a simple sketch, but there’s something so eerie about it. 

There are more creepy illustrations inside, which either look like tree branches or a sinister figure inside. 

The story begins with Part One: I was always dead, Shawn Lee James. 

Three lines in, and the story grips you in something that is unsettling and terrifying. Our protagonist is describing the eyes of his father, who is hanging from a noose. 

But then we move on to how the father had struggled with paranoid schizophrenia, which he tried to treat with alcohol. 

We learn that there is a history of addiction and mental illness in the family. This seems an important plot device, something that probably comes into play later in the story and provides structure to the protagonist’s journey. 

The protagonist’s parents were always fighting, and he mentions how his grandfather would end the fights, usually with his fists. Papaw, as he was called, had a violent temper as well. The mother seemed to have been living with anxiety as she took on the trauma of losing her family and coming into a family that was often violent. 

The protagonist has noticed it all since he was a child, but he was most scared of Papaw’s stories, which he believed were told to him because his grandfather enjoyed scaring him. 

Shawn is fourteen years old when his father moves into a two-bedroom trailer. His cousin Brandon visits, and Shawn ends up telling him one of Papaw’s stories that scares both of them. 

Shawn explains how Papaw’s stories were about there being another world in the basement where the dead would roam around and where there was a bus in the middle of nowhere. The dead would descend upon him, and just before he would suffocate, he was awakened from the nightmare. 

In the second chapter, Shawn is off on a hike with his father when a storm hits, a tree falls, and the two are separated. 

Shawn notices two girls in the woods who beckon him. He is taken to a bus in the woods for shelter, but when he turns around, the girls are gone. They do reappear later, but then Shawn reunites with his father, who tells him to never tell anyone what he saw in the woods. 

The next day, over breakfast, Shawn asks about the girls, but although his father visually reacts, he doesn’t respond. 

This is how far you can read into the book. 

READ OR SKIP?

There’s something about this story that leaves you deeply unsettled from the first few pages itself. Perhaps it is Shawn finding his father hanging from a noose, or the history of mental illness, or perhaps the unstable family dynamics. 

While we are led to believe the story is about mental illness running in the family, could there be something else underneath it all?

The author manages to vividly describe a tale that does not follow a linear storyline. We know Shawn’s father has passed away, but then we are taken into Shawn’s unstable household where his father is violent, the mother is clearly being treated unfairly, and a grandfather who takes joy in scaring his grandson. 

It then moves on to the incident in the woods. The bus from Papaw’s dreams is real?

That means Papaw’s stories may not be fiction. 

The way the story keeps moving could have been frustrating, but the author manages to cleverly keep you on the edge as each page reveals a turning point and a clue to what lies ahead. 

This is definitely a READ. 

A Tomb For The Broken may just be the scary story you are looking for to keep you up at night. 

Get the book on Amazon