The Redemption of Morgan Bright

By: Chris Panatier

Narrated by: Erin Ruth Walker

A woman checks herself into an insane asylum to solve the mystery of her sister’s murder, only to lose her memory and maybe her mind.

From the subversive voice behind The Phlebotomist comes a story that combines the uncanny atmosphere of Don’t Worry Darling with the narrative twists of The Last House on Needless Street

What would guilt make you do?

Hadleigh Keene died on the road leading away from Hollyhock Asylum. The reasons are unknown. Her sister Morgan blames herself. A year later with the case still unsolved, Morgan creates a false identity, that of a troubled housewife named Charlotte Turner, and goes inside.

Morgan quickly discovers that Hollyhock is… not right. She is shaken by the hospital’s peculiar routines and is soon beset by strange episodes. All the while, the persona of Charlotte takes on a life of its own, becoming stronger with each passing day. As her identity begins unraveling, Morgan finds herself tracing Hadleigh’s footsteps and peering into the places they lead.

The terrifying reality of The Redemption of Morgan Bright unfolds over the course of chapters told from the points of view of both Charlotte and Morgan, police interviews, and text messages.

©2024 Chris Panatier (P)2024 Vibrance Press

Chilling to the bones.

As someone fresh to the genra, I can say this is QUITE an orientation to horror books. I'll definetly need to give it a re-listen to fully grasp the scenes. The author does a fantastic job of creating an uncomfortable setting, interesting characters, and a captivating recounting of just a few weeks in an instituation. It earned every star I gave.

Stirred my anger

The authors after-word ruined this whole book for me. They turned what was a very interesting and intriguing strange ghost story into a political statement. I do not appreciate the waste of my time and my credit just to listen to those final words.

This book is freaking AF and I’m going to have nightmares.

I listened and read the book in tandem which made it easier to follow along, but also provided a sort of immersive ghost story feel to the whole thing. It’s gorey, horror filled, and chilling. However what might just be the scariest parts were the pieces taken from reality.
The whole premise was built on the idea of revoking women’s rights to control their bodies, their lives, and their marriage. Infusing the gore filled paranormal elements evoked gruesome imagery that highlighted those issues.
I’m also pretty obsessed with the way the author told this story. It was a trippy and utterly brilliant mix of information from police reports, text messages, and illustrations, to wild scenes in first person POV with an unreliable narrator to third person POV conversations. Each piece that was revealed was creepier than the last. I just knew that I needed more and I couldn’t stop reading. I don’t read a lot of thrillers but this had me completely turned around while trying to figure it all out.

Characters:💙💙💙💙💙
Psychological Horror: Unreliable Narrator, Magical Realism, WTF is happening, Forced Institutionalization, Dystopian Society, Suppression of Women’s Rights, subversive
Mixed Tenses, Perspectives, POVs, and Mediums
⚠️ Contains situations and imagery such as depictions of mental illness, non-consensual violence, self ☠️ ideation and conduct, SA, injury to a child and off-screen ☠️ of a child

Disturbing and poignant

Great narration for what must have been a really tough assignment, at least my impression anyway. I struggled in the middle third a bit, and it was not what you’d call an uplifting read, but certainly compelling and powerful. Strong concluding phase of the story pulls it all together impressively.

nope

Not exactly what I thought it would be. It went in a very strange ridiculous direction. I could have done without the author's afterword. He questioned himself whether it was necessary (it wasn't) and whether anyone would care what he had to say (I didn't). Also, the narrator mispronounced way too many words. They weren't even complicated or unusual vocabulary. I expect more from a voice actor. Where was the director and editor? Total disappointment all the way around!

the plot was just hard to buy

2.5 stars for The Redemption of Morgan Bright. I felt like the author wanted to do an expose on the brutal history of women in mental health asylums and it was almost like she had a checklist and was just going through it to include things one by one - the Utica crib, rape, a cabinet prison, medication induced psychosis. It's also confusing in the beginning about who is who and why they are incarcerated at the Hollyhock Asylum. This was intentional but didn't work for me. I also didn't buy the plot at all. It just wasn't believable to me and only gave the book a "hoaky" feeling. There is a historical element as well as a supernatural and a mystery and the characters are so poorly written I didn't care about any of them. My notes re the book said, "This book is all over the place-lobbing themes and tropes and sub plots into a heap like wet laundry." Sorry. I'm sure the author worked hard on it and it pains me to write a bad review but I did not really enjoy this book.