The Merry Dredgers

The Merry Dredgers by Jeremy C. Shipp was a great read! It ambled along delightfully before blowing up into a heart pounding climax that took me by surprise.
We are introduced to Seraphina, a snarky actress compelled by poverty to play the part of a Princess at children's parties. Her voice as the narrator, utterly sarcastic and somewhat despairing, is captivating. Despite the dire situation she is in, she is still a blast to read about.
She receives word that her sister is in some sort of lovefest hippie cult and is alarmed. Soon after, she hears that her sister's in a coma after falling at the cult's retreat center. Seraphina is sure that the cultists had something to do with it so decides to investigate the retreat center. However, she show more is NOT a competent investigator and instead finds herself enjoying her time as a cult member and even falling in love.
The setting, an abandoned amusement park in the woods called Goblintopia, is creepy AND silly. There are many great descriptions of all the weirdness which I loved. It was surreal and atmospheric. Most of the cultists are goofy and aptly named Merry Dredgers. Except for that one.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book! Definitely for readers who enjoy silliness with their magic realism. show less

The Merry Dredgers is a mystery-horroresque novel about a woman searching for answers to what happened to her sister that landed her unconscious in a hospital.

Seraphina infiltrates the cult her sister was involved with before she was injured. We get to meet some quirky characters and learn much more about the wacky, once-abandoned amusement park the cult uses as their compound. The world-building here was fantastic, with detailed descriptions of the remodeling of the goblin-themed park and how the cult functions inside it. I may be a little biased here since I worked at an amusement park for several years and have always been fascinated with creepy and odd theme parks.

The ending did feel a little rushed, or maybe it felt like it was show more tied up a little too neatly for my liking. But the writing, like the banter between Seraphina and the other characters, especially Nichelle, along with the world-building, kept me entertained and interested up until the very end. show less

This was my jam!
Seraphina, a struggling actress holding herself up financially as a rental princess for children's parties, infiltrates a cult of enlightenment seekers lodging in an abandoned amusement park to investigate the horrible accident her sister had there.
Dark/thriller/horror/weird book? Yes!! Suspicious cults, not following one of the three established monotheistic religions? Yes! Student protagonists who are different with artistic jobs and a twisty sense of humour? Yes! Vivid visions/dreams/nightmares? Yes! Abandoned amusement parks? Especially hilarious weird amusement parks? Heck yesss!!!
So why isn't this a 5* straight?
I felt the characters were quite flat, even Phina.
The book is so thoroughly story driven that the show more characters weren't fleshed out enough. Thus it wasn't easy to tell all the 'minor' Dredgers apart, especially.
After the halfway point of the book, the story slipped into the background, too, as a mere stage for describing the amusement park rides and rites. At times, it felt more like one striking scene after striking scene pasted together than real storytelling. The sudden closeness between Phina and Nichelle felt instalove-y; and the ending was too abrupt and rushed for my taste.
All those points of critique apart, this was a thoroughly enjoyable book for me. As many people know, I love thriller/weird stories set in derelict carnivals, yet I never seem to find the trope handled very well. This was one of the most satisfying executions of abandoned amusement park horror I've read so far.
I'm most definitely looking to get my hands on other stories by Jeremy C. Shipp.

Received this book by the publisher - Thank you so much! - as a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. show less

I liked the book very much. The heroine is not always a heroine: she is someone who struggles to earn her livelihood, a woman who sometimes flees away from her sister, who is In a coma.
But she is also someone who wants to find out what has happened to her sister and who will stop at almost nothing to reach that goal.
The abandoned amusement park is wonderful, creepy and weird, very weird. I would not say this is a book of horror, but sometimes there is horror in the book.
The last chapter is utterly satisfying.

"Well, picture me as a popped party balloon. Picture me as a stone made of foam, incapable of smashing a single window. That’s the sort of tired I am."

Seraphina feels the need to investigate after her sister, Eff, ends up in a coma after getting involved with what Seraphina is sure is a cult. She decides to leave her life of odd jobs (including pet sitter and princess for hire) and her rather demanding cat to try find answers, and hopefully not get sucked into the cult herself (she is less naive than her sister, afterall).

Ooh I absolutely loved the setting! An abandoned goblin amusement park is such a great idea and I'd love to explore such a place. Although I'm sure it would be very creepy (even without a probable cult that may or show more may not have tried to kill someone I care about). It very much gave me Night Circus vibes (although the style is very different) and was one of the strongest parts of the book. The mood shift between the earlier chapters and the main story were amazing. I mean, it went from princessy and pink and parties to rust, cults and a dark mystery. I found myself thinking about this a couple of times while reading and it was definitely well executed.

While I loved the wandering style of the story, I was a little annoyed by the ending. A lot of things happened very suddenly. It felt out of place and didn't answer a lot of questions. I would have appreciated the events building up a little more slowly with more time for answers. I also had a similar annoyance when Seraphina changed her mind what felt like too quickly about something (nothing major, but it felt odd). show less

Well, this was an oddity. Supposedly horror, I didn’t find it horrific at all; more a creepy setting. Our heroine is an ex-aspiring actress working kids parties as a party princess. When her sister falls into a quarry and remains in a coma, she joins the cult her sister was living with thinking one of the cult members was responsible for her fall. This book is about what happens next.

The cult has taken over an old amusement park - not something sweetness and light like Disney, more based on the root stories as collected by the Brothers Grimm and sanitised by them. Are the goblins of the park really what they seem - animatronic effigies - or are they actual goblins? Is the fairy tale forest inhabited by fairies or something darker? show more What is the cult actually worshipping?

Strange and stranger….

I liked the story enough to finish it, but I found the abrupt ending left the plot partly unresolved. It would have been nice to have tidied up the loose ends, even if the resolution was dark.

Recommended. show less

Seraphina spends her days as a party princess, pretending to be someone she is not. Seraphina receives a concerning set of letters from her free-spirited sister, Eff. Eff has joined a group of like minded people, who she swears are not part of a cult. When Seraphina receives word that Eff is in a coma after an accident at the retreat, she decides to go to the last place that Eff was and go undercover into the group. Seraphina becomes a Merry Dredgers and explores her spiritual energy at a broken down goblin amusement park while trying to get to the bottom of her sister's accident.
The Merry Dredgers is a wild mystery thriller with enchanting and diabolical characters. I was quickly taken with Seraphina's character and her ability to act show more as a Princess all day and then retreat into the opposite persona when being herself. This was a great skill for Seraphina as she became Corrina in order to infiltrate the Merry Dredgers. I was amazed as she was able to keep the personas separate, never crack as Corrina and remember that she was potentially in a very dangerous situation. The Merry Dredgers themselves are an eclectic group. Their base of operation, the half functional goblin theme park, was a trippy ride that I wasn't quite sure where it was heading. The whole time Seraphina is with the Dredgers it seems like they really might be a harmless group of people intent on living an alternative lifestyle. The writing was able to convey that things just don't seem quite right within the community however, as Seraphina desperately searches for cracks within their facade and clues to who might have hurt her sister.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. show less