Publisher: Mira
Released: March 1, 2008
Source: Borrowed from the Library

The footprints were etched in the snow for miles, passing through walls and crossing rivers…appearing on the other side as though no barrier could stop them.In 1922 a farmer in Adamant, Arkansas, awakes to a noise on his roof and finds his snow-blanketed yard marked with thousands of cloven footprints. The prints vanish with the melting snow…only to reappear seventy years later near the gruesome killing of Rachel DeLaune.

Years after her sister’s unsolved murder, New Orleans tattoo artist Sarah DeLaune is haunted by the mysteries of her past. Sarah has always believed that her sister was killed by a man named Ashe Cain. But no one else had ever seen Ashe. He had “appeared” to Sarah when she needed a friend the most, only to vanish on the night of her sister’s murder. The past bleeds into the present when two mutilated bodies are found near Sarah’s home, the crime scene desecrated by cloven footprints.

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THE DEVIL’S FOOTPRINTS is another creeptastic novel of suspense from Amanda Stevens, though there were a few things about it that niggled at me. I thought the mystery was very well done, and it wasn’t until I was close to the end that I could say for sure, “Ohhh! It was…”

I’m a big fan of Ms. Stevens’ tormented characters with their dark secrets, and Sarah DeLaune – yeah, she was tormented. She had a loveless childhood, then her old sister Rachel was brutally murdered, and the killer was never caught. Satanic symbols and cloven footprints were found at the scene of the crime, just like the prints a local farmer had seen back in the 1920s. Fast-forward 14 years after Rachel’s death, and more women are found dead similar to how Rachel was murdered. Is the killer Ashe Caine, a reclusive goth kid who Sarah suspects murdered Rachel? Or maybe it was the Devil himself?

I really enjoyed the puzzling mystery and eerie, dark atmosphere of the book. What bugged me was that there were things in the story that were introduced or hinted at, but they were never fleshed out. It also drove me nuts that Sarah was tortured for years with not knowing her family’s dark secrets, and the DeLaune’s housekeeper knew the answers but refused to share. Why, why, why? *sigh*

Even with my complaints, overall I still enjoyed THE DEVIL’S FOOTPRINTS. I love Amanda Steven’s descriptive writing style and how her creepy tales can make me afraid to turn out the lights. Definitely worth a read!

Rating: 3.75 Stars