The horror aspects of this book were phenomenal. It scratched the same horror itch that The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones did for me where it was a slow, creeping horror punctuated by moments of violence with a sprinkle of body horror on top. Road of Bones does lean more into the thriller side of things because the characters we're following are well aware of being pursued by these supernatural forces. I especially loved the fact that our group of characters is running away but the horror elements are just following them at a steady pace which creates this stifling feeling of almost hopelessness while reading. The supernatural horror elements don't come in until about the 25% mark, so the first quarter of the book was a lot of set up to these characters as well as the harsh environment they find themselves in. While the supernatural elements are the forefront of the horror in this story, the environmental horror is also very well established. The characters are constantly discussing the weather and the cold and how both are going to affect the trip and the cold becomes another force against them while they're trying to escape - if their car crashes, they die. There was a really great push-pull dynamic between the survival horror and the supernatural horror in this book that I think really worked well to highlight both parts. For me, it very much felt like as soon as I was getting a little burnt out reading about one kind of horror, the other would become the larger threat and vice versa.
I do want to acknowledge that Golden does utilize the native people and native folklore in this story and while I thought was handled well, I'm not a member of that group so I can't say for sure. Since I read an ARC, the acknowledgement section was not completed in my copy so I'm not sure if he went and spoke with anyone the Yakut native group (his bio on his website doesn't list him as being a member of this group so I'm assuming he's not). The book opens following two Americans - Teig and his cameraman Prentiss - as they are on their way to meet their guide. Their guide is a native man in his 20s named Kaskil and this guide tells them about some of the local legends and customs. The supernatural element of the story is from the native folklore and there were a few times where it felt like we might be leaning toward the trope of native horror being entirely evil and needs to be overcome by this white American trying to save this little girl. However, the place where the story ended up at the end was a much more careful integration of these creatures into the overall narrative. I was also a little worried about veering into the 'native burial ground' trope because of the focus on the story behind the "Road of Bones" name (hundreds of thousands of people died/were killed while constructing the road and were simply buried below the road). However, this aspect also turned out to be handled in what felt to me a much more respectful and sympathetic way.
The characters, to me, were the weakest part of the book but I also think this was very much more of a plot-driven book more so than a character-driven story. Teig and Prentiss have known each other for years and they did have some good banter back and forth mostly at the beginning of the book. Then when Kaskil joins and we eventually run into other characters, they are basically strangers to Teig and thus are also strangers to the reader. The whole story takes place in less than 24 hours and there wasn't a lot of time to sit around and tell each other their life stories so it makes sense that the character development was a bit shallow. That being said, Golden does a fantastic job at writing the emotion of these characters that the reader barely knows. For example, we had just met Kaskil only a few pages earlier, but the panic and despair he feels when he finds out his hometown is mysteriously abandoned is palpable. I think Teig, being our main focus for the story, had the most character development but even that felt a little forced to me. There was one moment from his past that kept being mentioned so it was really obvious that it was going to be significant in the story at some point. It, of course, does end up being important but I think the balance of how often it was mentioned during the story didn't quite line up with how significant it ended up being at the end.
I found the pacing of the story to be really tight which I think is essential in this sort of horror/thriller story. The beginning 25% does start a little slow with a lot of talking while driving a car but as soon as our characters arrive at the abandoned town it is pretty much full steam ahead. There were enough quiet moments in the bulk of the story to give the reader a moment to settle and have a bit of a breather before the next round of action. Since our characters are actively trying to escape these entities chasing them, we do have some great thriller moments and close calls in the story. There is so much action packed into these 24 hours in the story (and 240 pages of a book) that it really felt like a much longer read because there was so much packed in. We even got a nice slow down in the resolution after the climax that I appreciated.
Overall, this was a great horror/thriller read that was a little slow to get started but then it went from 0 to 100 in no time. I really enjoyed the progression of the horror and the integration of native folklore into the story. There were some great gut-punch moments and the pacing was incredible and well-balanced. I'll be checking out more from Golden in the future and I have added a few of his backlist titles on my TBR now.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC
Expected publication date is January 25, 2022
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