I wanted something tense and creepy. Between the blurb and the cover (which evoked very strong memories of the covers from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and sequels) this seemed like a good choice. I had some reservations in the beginning, but this turned out to be a wonderful read. Exactly the kind of horror book I was hoping for.
The premise: Mina is driving through the remote Irish countryside when her car breaks down. In trying to reach somewhere (anywhere) on foot, she ends up in a dense, creepy forest. As the sun is setting, she finally sees a structure. Where a woman screams at her to get inside before the sun goes down, and as the woman slams the door Mina hears the forest suddenly fill with terrifying screams. She finds herself in a bunker with three other people, all with similar stories of how they got there. Whatever is out there in the night can’t endure the daylight, so they’re safe as long as they’re in the bunker by nightfall. But escaping requires reaching the edge of the dense, trackless forest before nightfall. The prologue is actually told from the perspective of a 5th person who tried to make a break for it; it doesn’t go well.
My initial skepticism came from two things. One was the writing in general; A.M. Shine likes his similes, and he really lays them on thick in the first part of the book. Luckily it doesn’t take that long before the simile:sentence ratio drops to something less than one, and after that the writing was fine (though definitely shading towards purple). My other issue is a moment, early on, when Mina describes her thoughts looking at a self-portrait she had sketched. The whole thing gave me very strong /r/menwritingwomen vibes; luckily, that was a one-time thing.
In the end, this was a gripping page-turner of a horror novel. Horror isn’t usually my preferred genre, but I was in the mood and this fit perfectly.
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