February 1, 2025
DEBUTThis debut offers a slice of folk horror with a truckload of family trauma. Small-town police chief Rachel Kennan throws herself into her work after the disappearance of her young son. Her husband, Finn, is a less-than-successful writer descending into an addiction to alcohol. Their individual grief makes both parents unable to help their daughters cope and leaves Rachel unable to help her town deal with a mysterious force that's taking its children, along with the Kennans' daughters, into the woods. Gunn begins the novel with some slim characterizations, particularly among Rachel's seemingly interchangeable deputies, but then reveals more about the rather toxic family dynamic between Rachel and Finn, whom Rachel blames for their son's disappearance. Add that dynamic to the town's mistrust of Rachel's family and the supernatural evil waiting in the woods, and Gunn creates a combustible mixture as volatile as nitroglycerin. Readers will keep turning the pages to see whether all the Kennans survive. VERDICT Gunn knows how to generate tension, and this trip into the woods should enchant fans of Stephen King's The Outsider as well as readers of supernatural thrillers.--James Gardner
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January 1, 2025
A small town becomes a portal to supernatural disaster in this Appalachian-tinged family horror. Police chief Rachel and her misfit journalist husband Finn are big-city folk in rural Dahlmouth, Virginia. Their outsider status is exacerbated when Finn drunkenly crashes their car, killing their son. Their daughters Charlie and Lucy are deeply affected by the family rift as Rachel and Finn lead separate lives in the same house, grieving in their own ways. Rachel badly hides her affairs with women as Finn pens scathing online critiques of small-town life, angering the neighbors. When Rachel's latest case involves a mysteriously butchered body in the nearby woods, everything goes sideways. The trees are hiding an ancient secret that seeks to devour the children of Dahlmouth and anyone who gets in its way. Gunn's depiction of a family that lost its center is shot through with ghostly apparitions, a lot of dead-eyed kids, and the threat of possession at every turn. Alternately eerie and gory, this first novel has appeal for new and seasoned horror fans.
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