C.M. Byron’s Purgatory is a haunting and emotional dive into the mind of someone living on the edge of their own sanity, guilt, and empathy. It begins with a raw depiction of mental illness and trauma, framed by the structure of the UK’s Mental Health Act, before unraveling into a dark, surreal journey through the mysterious Blackthorn Palace. The protagonist, a woman running barefoot from her past and her pain, finds herself in a Gothic world where empathy itself is both a gift and a curse. The story mixes psychological realism with supernatural metaphor, exploring themes of loneliness, trauma, redemption, and human connection through the lens of those society has cast aside.

Byron writes with such unfiltered honesty that it’s hard not to feel what the main character feels. There’s a rhythm to the prose that swings between poetic and brutal. At times, the writing feels heavy, even chaotic, but that chaos feels intentional. It mirrors the narrator’s fractured state of mind. The descriptions of Blackthorn Palace are lush and cinematic. But what hit me hardest were the quiet moments. The confessions, the loneliness, the small flashes of humanity that peek through the darkness. Byron doesn’t shy away from pain. They sit with it, let it breathe, and that’s what makes the story so powerful.

There are moments where the dialogue drifts into the surreal, and I found myself unsure what was real or imagined. But maybe that’s the point. Purgatory isn’t meant to be clean or clear. It’s meant to be felt. It’s a story about people who are too sensitive for the world, who see too much and can’t turn it off. I loved that it doesn’t romanticize mental illness or trauma, it just tells the truth of it. The characters are broken but not beyond repair, and that made me feel something rare: hope. I caught myself rereading certain lines, not for meaning but for how they made me feel in my gut.

Purgatory left me thinking long after I closed it. It’s heavy, emotional, sometimes disturbing, but also strangely comforting. I’d recommend it to anyone who has ever felt unseen or misunderstood, to those who find beauty in the dark corners of the mind.

Pages: 320 | ASIN: B0FR24B4RH