Clifford Island is a memorial. Something tragic happened, and the people never moved on.
A grieving mother finds herself traveling to a little known island for reasons not even she can fully explain. When she goes missing, her brother travels there to try to piece together what happened. The people of Clifford Island seem stuck in the 90’s; in fact, they seem to be reenacting the same day over and over again, but no one is talking about why.
Jimmy Juliano’s debut, DEAD ELEVEN, is a decent psychological horror story. I found it a bit silly in some ways–like when a pastor says something along the lines of “I let God guide me,” the POV character thinks, “OMG, was that a threat?” simply because the author wishes to set a tense, vaguely threatening tone. This is just one example of characters drawing exceedingly random conclusions for the sake of the story.
But overall the story was original and compelling. Is the odd behavior of the islanders the problem, or is it the solution to something much, much darker?
She got to her mailbox and raised her right hand to Gloria, who, of course, was dead and tethered to her own mailbox.
Chilling, creepy, and strange (in a good way), this story wasn’t executed perfectly, but it was interesting nonetheless. It presents multiple points of view in a mixed media format. I appreciated the exploration of expressions of grief, and the threat of an ancient Evil, but could have done with less of the teenagers’ sections of the book.
Jessica Crawford 