Deborah Coates brings to her contemporary fantasy a breath of horror, a frisson of the quiet dread that comes from a really good ghost story. Wide Open (2012) was good, an excellent debut.
Deep Down is better. It marries Wide Open’s chilling atmosphere, deeply-felt, evocative North Dakota landscapes, and vivid characters to a much smoother and more integrated narrative, one whose climax and conclusion comes together much more naturally, much more organically, than its predecessor.
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