The Broken Places

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Broken Places by Blaine Daigle is a horror novel that takes readers on a thrilling journey into the depths of the Yukon wilderness.

Ryne Burdette inherits his family's old hunting cabin and decides to go on a weekend hunting trip with his two best friends. However, there is something eerie about the woods, particularly as a winter storm approaches. The animals start behaving strangely and the natural laws of the wilderness seem to unravel. Whispers suggest that something is watching them.

As the storm intensifies and darkness envelops the woods, the trio must confront the dark secrets of the Burdette family lineage. The horrifying truth lies in shadowed places that have never been explored.

So I just finished reading The Broken Places by Blaine Daigle, and let me tell you, it was a wild ride! First things first, can we talk about that cover? It's absolutely perfect. I'm obsessed with it.

Now, here's the thing. This is Blaine Daigle's debut horror novel, and I seriously couldn't believe it. It was mind-blowing. The whole story just oozed this creepy atmosphere that had me on the edge of my seat. And let's not forget about the setting - remote, bleak, and totally unforgiving. It was like a character in itself; that's how well it was described.

The writing style was top-notch too. The pacing was spot-on, keeping me hooked from start to finish. And the characters? They were so intriguing and well-developed. I loved getting to know them throughout the book.

If I had one tiny nitpick, it would be that I wished there was a bit more exploration into the backstory of both the town and the Burdette family. But hey, considering this is Blaine Daigle's first novel, it was still pretty darn impressive.

I seriously can't wait to see what this author has in store for us next. Keep an eye out for this author because he has got some serious talent!

ARC Via NetGalley

First a thank you to NetGalley and wicked house publishing for giving me an early copy of the book to read.

This book kept me guessing up until the end, not knowing what was going on, struggling to come up with theories and I love that in a book.

The relationship between the three men at the heart of story was really beautiful and not really something I've read about before, each character felt unique and yet I could feel the shared history.

The setting was wild and creepy from the beginning, all the side characters added to its very off atmosphere. And though certain aspect felt similar to other stories it's twists and turns made it very unique.

The writing was well done, the dialogue felt natural and the descriptions were great balancing between painting a picture and the other over done description I find in some other books.

A great book overall, with a compelling narrative and an exciting mystery, mixed with dread and terror in a perfect way. A book I didn't want to put down and couldn't wait to pick up.

I liked the overall story and the idea of having every single main character struggling with their own emotional turmoil. That being said, I often struggled to remember whose point of view I was currently reading, and the characters became almost an amorphous blob of a person instead of 3 distinct guys and I sometimes found it a bit repetitive. Still a generally solid story

Thanks to Wicked House, NetGalley, and Blaine Daigle for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair review.

A few places need to be reworded. But this was a damn fine folk horror tale with some very good prose.

We follow Ryne, a man mourning the death of a child, a divorce, and the loss of his father in a car accident. In flashbacks, his past is fleshed out, so we see why he's pulling away from the world, in the company of his two closest friends. But, as we learn his story, we discover, along with Ryne and his friends, the dark legacy of his family in the Yukon.

There's some really good, unnerving scenes in this book. The male friendship is touching, and it's even gruesome and creepy. I look forward to more from Daigle in the future.

Three friends, one cabin, epic horror.

The charcter development.... EXCELLENT.

I loved the entire tone and pace of this book. It exceeded every single expectation I had.

It was clever and a real page turner. I cannot recommend this horror more!

5 stars. Take all my stars!!

Thank you to wicked house and netgalley for my gofted copy!

This is under 300 pages and yet it felt more like 500 or something because it was extremely slow-paced. With the horror genre, if it's slow-paced, I'm more inclined to like it if it's a movie than a book. Nothing really against the book or its author – just my personal preference.

The book focuses on 3 friends who travel to a secluded cabin – it's in the family of one of the men. I very much could not tell the friends apart, whoops, so I can't really tell you anything about them? I remember things that happened to them before the book – leg injury, something about drowning or ice? But I can't tell you their names or which name belongs to which character (and who had which incident happened to whom). Which, this book is like 98% solely these three men; so I should've known their names before the 50% mark or something. That's half on me and half on the book, in my opinion? Like, of course you should make an effort to remember their names (even if your memory is bad like mine) and differentiating the characters and such. But also it's up to the writer to make sure no two (or three) characters are the same.

The horror was well-written, I'll give it that. It's a very slow one but it has all the elements of “spooky things start to happen and we start to notice them”. That's something I like a lot. It's fun to see the weird things happen – often before the characters do, because of course, they don't know they're in a horror book so they often don't think xyz is weird until the weirdness increases/an actual injury occurs.

There was a big Indigenous/folk tale subplot but unfortunately it happened in the second half of the book – when I was already bored of most things – so I didn't pay as much attention as I should've. I did like what I read – most of what I can remember – I liked. It tied in a lot with the main character's family, but as I said, I don't remember much so I think it made it all the more confusing to try to remember anything.

I am sad that I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would because when I saw the comps I thought “oh wow yup I'll love this extremely”. And it let me down because I didn't really care about the characters much. I forgot most of the plot and basically everything that happened but the other books I read around the same time as The Broken Places I remember much better.