chuck wendig – Pleasant Nights

Title: Black River Orchard

Author: Chuck Wendig

Genre: Horror

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book. In my effort to read all the Stokercon final ballot books, I was pleased to see I had this one on my Kindle. I’m a big fan of Wendig’s work (see The Book of Accidents and Wanderers ) and was excited to read his newest.

I had no idea what this book was about when I read it. The fact that it was a Stoker nominee was a pretty good selling point, though. The story is told from multiple third-person perspectives: a teenage girl (Calla), a wife in a same-sex marriage, a wife in an open marriage, and a wandering man. Calla’s dad has created a new apple and soon the entire town is eating it, craving it, and will do anything to get it. Those who don’t eat the apple are witnessing terrible changes in their loved ones and friends.

This book is long, but it never felt too long. The plot is tightly written and the characters shine. Wendig is a master storyteller. I absolutely loved this book.

The Book of Accidents

Title: The Book of Accidents

Author: Chuck Wendig

Genre: horror

Thank you Netgalley for this book!

I’ve been meaning to read Chuck Wendig for awhile. I follow him on Twitter. I own Wanderers. I just haven’t gotten around to it, yet. But when I saw this one available on Netgalley, I jumped at the chance to read it. Topping out at over 500 pages and heading for vacation for a week, this book took me forever to read. But if I had had more time, I would have gotten through it much faster because it was excellent.

From Goodreads: Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

I’ve been reading so many thrillers lately that I forgot this was a horror book at times until something, well, horrifying happen. It also reads a lot like a thriller with a mystery to solve. This book is full of great characters and a really creative plot. What I really appreciated was that things that happened early on in the book that didn’t really make sense were fully explained by the end. The entire plot came together well. I’m glad the horror genre is getting more of a spotlight these days. A lot of people judge the books as just “gross” or “graphic,” but this one had a great plot, a lot of heart, and was well-written. I really enjoyed it.