Old Country
Ratings15
Average rating3.6
'It is almost impossible to put down' - Lisa Tuttle, GUARDIAN 'A stonking great slice of American folk horror: modern trauma layered with ancient evil' - DAILY MAIL The ranch was our dream home. Nestled in the arms of a valley below the Teton mountains, acres upon acres of wilderness, our nearest neighbours over a mile away . . . Beautiful, serene - isolated. Perfect. Until, naturally, the only neighbours for miles turned out to be crazy and delivered us a dire warning: The valley is cursed. Every season a spirit will manifest itself in increasingly disturbing ways, starting with an eerie light in the pond, and will kill you if you don't light a fire and- We made them leave then. Put it to the back of our minds and went about living our new, nearly perfect, lives. Then spring came, and so did the light . . . With piercing psychological insight and a profound feeling for the natural world, Old Country unspools an unrelenting narrative of terror and suspense. ***** 'What started as the spookiest of tales on Reddit - I should know, as I love them - sparked a tour-de-force of a novel that perfectly renders the tensions of living in isolation and the unforgiving passage of the seasons' - Thomas Olde Heuvelt, author of HEX and Echo 'Old Country ramps up our day-to-day household rituals to dizzying heights of horror. Domestic bliss has never been more terrifying' - Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Whisper Down The Lane 'I genuinely found it very hard to put down . . . Is there such a thing as humanistic horror? If not, I think these guys might have just invented it' - James Brogden, author of Hekla's Children
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I am a huge horror fan, the scarier...the better. Sometimes though, just an eerie and mysterious atmosphere and I'm in love too. Old Country isn't scary, at least not for this seasoned Stephen King addict. However, it is spooky and mildly gruesome in some spots and the overall story itself I enjoyed.
I am a sucker for small town and isolated scenarios. While Sasha and Harry aren't 100% isolated, they aren't around a bustling town either. The fact that they are surrounded by mountains, acres of land and trees and the closest neighbor being a mile away gave me the perfect horror feels.
Multiple POVs aren't for every reader but I enjoy them. Reading Old Country from the different perspectives made the story better for me. Too bad there wasn't a Dash perspective as that pup was my favorite character.
The idea of a spirit haunting land owners with each passing season offering a different type of haunting is one I haven't read before. Not like this and I loved it. I would have loved to read more about the actual legend(s) behind the hauntings but not knowing the full story adds to the mysterious nature so not a total downer.
Old Country would be a perfect one to read during Spooktober and I recommend adding to those TBRs for October. I sincerely appreciate Grand Central Publishing and Novel Suspects for providing me with a review copy. All opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone.
It's been a looong while since I read not only a good horror, but also a horror with gothic vibes! A work that does not rely on the jumpscare -it relies on a finely-built atmosphere, on a growing sense of menace, on the balance between your inner fears and the fear of what awaits the protagonists in their life in the cursed valley... A curse that manifests in so many different ways, according to the season, you can never have enough!
This is not your cliché story about ‘good vs evil', nossir! This is about growing, self-discovery, learning lessons. Every piece finds it place, nothing is wasted here in terms of narrative. Even the modern social messages are inserted without becoming obnoxious.
I can't wait to see what else will Mr. Query pull out of the hat!
