Dark Is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce | Horror Fiction Audiobook Review

This was great on audio.

My 2 Cents for Free!

Dark Is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce

Released April 2026

Source: Netgalley

See more @ Goodreads

I listened to Dark Is When the Devil Comes on audio over two days in broad daylight, and surprisingly it really creeped me out. Most books leave me feeling eh when it comes to the creeping dread but this one did get under my skin a few times. The narrator did a fantastic job with the characters too; expressing their fear, anxiety, bitchiness and sometimes confusion about events past and present. A meh narrator can break a book like this but in this case the narration enhances the story perfectly.

This is one of those books that is best going into blind. Even the blurb here is vague about events. Too many of them lately compare everything to something else and/or give it all away and I’m so glad this one didn’t so I won’t either.

So all I’ll say is this: Hazel returns to her childhood home and attempts to reconnect with her estranged sister Cathy but everything quickly goes awry and Cathy ends up connecting with Hazel’s old school friend Susie and a nightmarish adventure of sorts ensues.

I loved the touches of rot sprinkled throughout, the dank atmosphere adding to the growing unease, the extremely complicated relationships between the three women and the fact that none of them were perfect but Cathy and Hazel kept everything a bit off kilter. I didn’t truly trust any of their memories and was left guessing for much of the book and ending up just going with the flow in the end. It’s not flawless (a few things made me go “but why?”) but it’s very good.

This would make a nicely sinister little movie. Recommended if you want to get creeped out a little.

Thanks Netgalley, Minotaur Books and author Daisy Pearce for sharing this title with me.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Publisher Plot Synopsis 

Unrelentingly scary and thrilling, Dark Is When the Devil Comes is an ambitious and chilling novel from acclaimed horror author Daisy Pearce.

The woods are known as the place to avoid. What goes in, doesn’t come out.

Hazel has been gone from her small hometown of Idless in the English countryside for years. Now returned in the wake of a traumatic divorce and crumbling personal life, her simple plans are to lay low at her parents’ vacated house, reconnect with her prickly sister Cathy, and slowly get back on her feet.

Cathy is surprised when Hazel doesn’t show. Their relationship strained from a fallout half a decade ago, she didn’t expect them to get back into a sisterly rhythm…though she hadn’t counted on Hazel bailing, either.

But something isn’t adding up. Other people in town whisper of a threat that can’t be shaken. The woods are known for being restless. And Cathy knows the old saying.

If you go looking for trouble, you just might find it.