"After losing her young son in an accident, Rachel Kennan throws herself into her career as police chief of a small Virginia town to avoid focusing on her grief. Meanwhile, her husband, Finn, a washed-up writer whose alcoholism led to the devastating tragedy that changed everything, struggles to redeem himself before his family completely falls apart. Their two daughters are the only things keeping Rachel and Finn together, but the girls have demons of their own. At the same time, a disturbing crime rocks their tightknit, religious community, sending Rachel chasing leads in a place that does not take kindly to outsiders. When an ominous force in the forest starts calling to the children, fear spawns hate among the townspeople, placing the Kennan family directly in the line of fire. Left with no choice but to rely on each other, Rachel and Finn must come together to face threats inside and out. A haunting family saga and a disquieting horror debut, Nowhere draws from Appalachian folklore to caution us that true terror is what we bury in our own hearts."
This was absolutely a sleeper hit of a horror read. I didn't expect to get sucked into this book as much as I did and I loved every minute of it. Folk horror is my favorite horror subgenre but I do usually find it to be quieter and slower paced than some other subgenres. However, this read really had the pacing on point and we get right into the mess of horror taking over this small town. We spend the first 25% or so setting up the character relations and the start of the horror mystery but even this set up portion is full of emotional highs and lows and some great reveals into the lives of these characters. I could not read the last 25% of the book fast enough because there was so much happening and so much at stake. I can't believe this is a debut and I look forward to reading more books from Gunn in the future.
Our main character - Chief Rachel Kennen - falls squarely in the 'unlikable main character' trope and I loved it. And to be clear, all of the characters in this read are flawed in various ways but having our main character be a woman who is grieving the death of her son be so angry, brash, rude, and straight up unhinged at times was fantastic. Rachel is the kind of character who is doing the right things but with little regard to the feelings or opinions of the other characters and I always find that sort of dynamic super interesting. The cherry on top is that this is a small town and Rachel and her family are viewed as outsiders. Even more so after some significant information is found out in the aftermath of their loss. Religion and religious judgement come into play a few times throughout the read which is another layer to Rachel being unliked by the locals. The other characters we see are all similarly complex and through the horror elements, we get to learn about their own dark pasts.
The horror elements are fantastic and so visceral. A lot of the horror centers around the children of this town and I think it would hit even harder for readers with kids of their own. I loved that we get into the horror so quickly. As I said before, I expected this to be more of a slow burn sort of read but it really kicks off quickly. Despite the horror elements getting introduced early on, I still couldn't guess the severity of where we would end up by the finish of the book. There were a number of times where I thought to myself that it couldn't get any worse. That from here on out, the rest of the book would be the characters overcoming the horror. But the horror just kept escalating or twisting in new ways so that by the end, I was holding my breath to see what could possibly happen to make this worse. I liked that even when we were following characters who had been directly impacted by the horror, that the exact details weren't revealed until later in the book. It was like the reader was investigating right along side Rachel and we learned most details when she did. This meant that by the end, the reader and the characters understood the full scope and weight of what the horror in this read was and could turn into.
Overall, this was an incredible read and I absolutely loved it from start to finish. Fantastic use of horror, very complex characters, and perfect pacing.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC. Expected publication date is March 25, 2025.