This mystery/horror follows Brigit and Ian - friends and fake paranormal investigators. After Brigit receives a call from her hometown about a potential job, her and Ian head to Ellis Creek. When they arrive, they learn about the recent missing persons search for two teens. At first, it isn't clear why Brigit, specifically, was asked to come help. But with a connection between the current missing people and her sister's suicide 16 years prior, Brigit finds herself confronting a long kept secret that may be the secret to finding and ending the string of missing children from Ellis Creek for good.
TW/CW: suicide on page
For the first half of the read, this felt like a pretty straightforward mystery. Brigit and Ian were investigating by non-paranormal means such as interviewing locals and doing some research at the local library. As the plot progressed, the horror elements came in and slowly escalated until by the last 75%, we were in a straight up horror movie and it was fantastic. Evans does a great job of using the horror elements to heighten the emotional points of the plot. This makes the stakes feel so much greater and I found myself holding my breath while reading because I was so stressed about these characters. The mystery investigation was well done and I really enjoyed that it was equally rooted in the regular investigation as well as the paranormal investigation.
The actual horror elements were pretty solid in the folk horror category - complete with creepy forests and unnamed entities within. As mentioned above, the horror creeps into this read in bits and pieces. The first few times, it is easy to chalk it up to Brigit maybe being mentally impacted by being back in her hometown after so long or the trauma of losing her sister resurfacing. For a while, I was wondering if this would turn into an unreliable narrator read where we aren't sure if the horrors are real or imagined. The scene where the horror elements were solidified as being real is a scene I'm not going to forget soon. I'm not sure if the folk horror entity in this read is based on any real local legends, but it was very unique and Evans fleshed out the lore and rules surrounding it very well.
Brigit and Ian were wonderfully complex characters and I loved getting both of their POVs. For me, most reads are pretty easy to label as either character-driven or plot-driven. In this case, I think Evans does a great job of balancing both of these aspects. We certainly get a lot of character work but the mystery investigation plot is also very well developed. We are dropped into this read in the middle of Brigit and Ian working a job and the plot takes off from there. We don't get much of any sort of summary of their relationship or history - rather, Evans sprinkles in details throughout the story and by the end we have such a great understanding of them as individual characters as well as their relationship. All of the side characters we see, as well, are incredibly detailed and complex.
Overall, this was a fantastic read and one I don't think I'll forget about easily. Complex characters, good mystery plot, and great horror elements. I'd love to read more from Evans in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley and MIRA for the ARC. Expected publication date is March 5, 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment