Four old university friends reunite for a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. No longer young men, they have little left in common and tensions rise as they struggle to connect. Frustrated and tired they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. A place of dark ritual and home to a bestial presence that is still present in the ancient forest, and now they’re the prey. As the four friends struggle toward salvation they discover that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees… This week I am taking a breather from new releases so I can review a horror novel that has been sat unread on my books shelves for far too long. Luke, Hutch, Phil and Dom are taking a break from the rat race. They are getting back to nature, and away from the trials of modern living. Though they have known one another for years, they have grown apart. Some…

Molly wakes her mother to go to the toilet. The campsite is strangely blank. The toilet block has gone. Everything else has gone too. This is a place with no sun. No god. Just four families remain. Each has done something to bring them here – each denies they deserve it. Until they see what’s coming over the horizon, moving irrevocably towards them. Their worst mistake. Their darkest fear. And for just one of them, their homecoming. Imagine waking up one morning and everything you are familiar with is absent. Only a handful of other people remain. Like you, they have no idea what has happened. Is this change going to be permanent? What, if any, action should you take? How long would it be before that thin veneer of civility goes out the window and Darwinism kicks in? The latest novel from John Ajvide Lindqvist explores that premise. When there is nowhere else left to go, are you capable of confronting your innermost fears, accepting them and surviving? I Am Behind You is an ensemble piece. The cross section of people left on the campsite feels like a tiny microcosm of society. The actions and reactions to their predicament…

One foul night while her husband is away, an old friend turns up on Claire’s doorstep and begs for her help. She knows she should refuse, but she owes him. Despite her better judgement, Claire finds herself helping to bury something in the woods. The question is, will it stay buried, and can Claire live with the knowledge of what she has done? I’ll begin with an admission. I was late to the party when it came to The Three by Sarah Lotz. Once I read it though, I quickly realised I was going to be a fan of her work. I devoured Day Four, it was also superb. Since then, the prospect of a new title by this author has filled me with a near uncontrollable glee. Recently I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of Sarah Lotz’ latest novella from NewCon Press, and the good news is that it’s another masterclass in storytelling. There is something endlessly fascinating about watching a character unravel. Claire starts this story content with her life. After years of uncertainty she has settled down and is happy with her lot. When an old friend appears unexpectedly she quickly finds her life, and…

Hell on earth is only one click of a mouse away… The Dark Net is real. An anonymous and often criminal arena that exists in the secret far reaches of the Web, some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies and music, or traffic in drugs and stolen goods. And now an ancient darkness is gathering there as well. This force is threatening to spread virally into the real world unless it can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew: Twelve-year-old Hannah — who has been fitted with the Mirage, a high-tech visual prosthetic to combat her blindness– wonders why she sees shadows surrounding some people. Lela, a technophobic journalist, has stumbled upon a story nobody wants her to uncover. Mike Juniper, a one-time child evangelist who suffers from personal and literal demons, has an arsenal of weapons stored in the basement of the homeless shelter he runs. And Derek, a hacker with a cause, believes himself a soldier of the Internet, part of a cyber army akin to Anonymous. They have no idea what the Dark Net really contains. Set in present-day Portland, The Dark Net is a cracked-mirror version of the digital nightmare we already live in,…

Please note, The Devil’s Colony is the final part of the Fatal Folklore Trilogy. It is entirely possible if you haven’t read books one and two then this review could contain some minor spoilery type elements and stuff. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Ben McKelvie had a good job, a nice house, a beautiful fiancée . . . until a bloodthirsty shapeshifter took everything away. Ever since, he’s been chasing supernatural phenomena all across the country, aided by dedicated zoologist Lindsay Clark and wealthy cryptozoologist Richard Severance. Now they face their deadliest challenge yet. In the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a man named Henry Drexler operates a private compound called Välkommen, which is Swedish for “welcome.” Indeed, Drexler welcomes all visitors—so long as they’re racists, neo-Nazis, or otherwise in cahoots with the alt-right. But Drexler is no mere Hitler wannabe. Once he was Severance’s mentor, and his research may well have summoned a monster to the Pine Barrens. To find out the truth, Ben and Lindsay must enter the camp incognito. There, under the watchful eyes of Drexler’s bodyguards and sociopathic son, they will learn that the most dangerous beasts lurk in the human heart. Back at the tail…

Kat Murphy is a private detective tortured by demons. Real ones. She is serving a death sentence in Lost Angeles, the dark and depraved city in Hell where a beast known as a Torment forces her to relive, night after night, the moment she killed her lover and put a bullet in her own skull. Kat longs to make amends for her sins. So when the city’s Chief Administrator hires her to retrieve a stolen box with a mysterious power, offering to call off her Torment in return, she gets the chance to do just that. But if Kat has learned one thing, it’s that every case has a wrinkle. As she trawls drug dens, casinos, and fighting pits in search of the thief, she discovers that both box and city contain secrets darker than she could ever have imagined. And with time running out, Kat must choose between her own desire for peace and the fate of the world above in Hell’s Detective, the electrifying new mystery from award-winning author Michael Logan. I’ve been a fan of Michael Logan’s writing for a while now, I can heartily recommend his magnum opus Apocalypse Cow and its sequel World War Moo….

When terrorists threaten to detonate a nuclear device outside RAF Lakenheath, Kelly Wells races for a nearby office block, frantic to find her sister in their last moments. At the same time, a handful of others do the same—all desperate to make it to loved ones before the bomb goes off barely fifty miles away. In the frozen second of the explosion, Kelly, her sister, and three strangers are trapped in that instant and trapped in the building. But they are not alone. A sleeping evil from the deepest pits of the earth has awoken. Stalked by a creature that knows their most private secrets and fears, the group are lost in a world of their individual Hells. Try and imagine looking out of a window and seeing the world end in a flash. One moment everything is trundling along as normal, and the next your entire world has irrevocably changed. Would you be immobilised by a crushing despair or driven into immediate action. In Ascent by Luke Walker a small group of people, Kelly, Simon, Rod, Dao and Alex experience that exact scenario. One of the things I particularly enjoyed about this novel is the internal journey that each…

Please note Skitter is a direct sequel to The Hatching and if you haven’t read that then there is a distinct possibility that this review may contain something akin to spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Tens of millions of people around the world are dead. Half of China is a nuclear wasteland. Mysterious flesh-eating spiders are marching through Los Angeles, Oslo, Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, and countless other cities. According to scientist Melanie Gruyer, however, the spider situation seems to be looking up. Yet in Japan, a giant, truck-sized, glowing egg sack gives a shocking preview of what is to come, even as survivors in Los Angeles panic and break the quarantine zone. Out in the desert, survivalists Gordo and Shotgun are trying to invent a spider super weapon, but it’s not clear if it’s too late, because President Stephanie Pilgrim has been forced to enact the plan of last resort: The Spanish Protocol. America, you are on your own. Last year I read The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone. I loved it. Horror has always been my favourite genre and I like nothing better than a bit of nasty, flesh munching evil. Fear of spiders gets a checkmark…

Meryam and Adam take risks for a living. But neither is prepared for what lies in the legendary heights of Mount Ararat, Turkey. First to reach a massive cave revealed by an avalanche, they discover the hole in the mountain’s heart is really an ancient ship, buried in time. A relic that some fervently believe is Noah’s Ark. Deep in its recesses stands a coffin inscribed with mysterious symbols that no one in their team of scholars, archaeologists and filmmakers can identify. Inside is a twisted, horned cadaver. Outside a storm threatens to break. As terror begins to infiltrate their every thought, is it the raging blizzard that chases them down the mountain – or something far worse? Isn’t just always the way; you discover a centuries old burial site that could hold secrets relating to one of ancient history’s biggest mysteries and before you know it a blizzard has arrived, everyone is trapped and one by one they start to die. Is there a deranged killer amongst them, or is there something far more sinister? Christopher Golden’s latest, Ararat, is a masterclass in slow burning tension. The thing I like most about this author’s writing style is the attention…

1987, THE HEIGHT OF THE COLD WAR. For Captain Vadim Scorlenski and the rest of the 15th Spetsnaz Brigade, being scrambled to unfamiliar territory at no notice, without a brief or proper equipment, is more or less expected; but even by his standards, their mission to one of the United States’ busiest cities stinks… World War III was over in a matter of hours, and Vadim and most of his squad are dead, but not done. What’s happened to them, and to millions of civilians around the world, goes beyond any war crime; and Vadim and his team – Skull, Mongol, Farm Boy, Princess, Gulag, the Fräulein and New Boy – won’t rest until they’ve seen justice done. This week’s flavour of armageddon is brought to you by a splash of nineteen eighties nostalgia, a dash of Cold War paranoia, and a big old chunk of flesh eating zombies. The latest from Gavin Smith pits a squad of mismatched soldiers against, well, just about everyone frankly. Let the madness commence! Captain Vadim Scorleski is the consummate professional soldier. He has spent years honing his craft and is now a killing machine. The captain will follow orders to the letter because…

Only a rag-tag team of gargoyles stands between humanity and extinction. Hell has released its ravening horde of demons, leaving most of humanity a puke-spewing, head-spinning mess of possession. Humanity’s last hope? A team of misfit gargoyles—including a cigar chomping, hard-ass grotesque—come alive and ready for battle during the End of Days. They guard the last cathedral-turned-sanctuary atop a bald knoll in the North Carolina mountains. Gargoyle protection grudgingly extends to any human who can make it inside the Sanctuary, but the power of the stonecutter blood magic, which protects the sanctuary, may not be enough when a rogue grotesque and his badly-wounded ward arrive. All the hounds of hell are on their heels. The last Sanctuary is about to fall. Ahh, my favourite fictional sub-genre – the end of the world. Always a joy. I may have mentioned this before, I can’t remember? I do love me some apocalyptic fiction. The latest Armageddon to grace my review pile is Stone Cold Bastards by Jake Bible. The gates of Hell are open and they are spewing forth a demonic horde. Our last line of defence? A mismatched collection of humans and living gargoyles. The main story focuses on a monster…

When the sudden appearance of a dark figure shatters his idyllic coastal life, he soon realizes that the murky past he thought he’d left behind has far from forgotten him. What’s more unsettling is the strange atmosphere that engulfs him at every sighting, plunging his mind into a terrifying paranoia. To be a victim without knowing the tormentor. To be despised without knowing the offence caused. To be seen by what nobody else can see. These are the thoughts which plague his every waking moment. Imprisoned by despair, Seb fears his stalker is not working alone, but rather is involved in a wider conspiracy that threatens everything he has worked for. For there are doors in this world that open into unknown places. Places used by the worst kind of people to achieve their own ends. And once his investigation leads him to stray across the line and into mortal danger, he risks becoming another fatality in a long line of victims . . . A new Adam Nevill book is always a cause for celebration here at The Eloquent Page. I am a relatively recent convert to his work, but every story I’ve read has been masterfully told. His…

In a world where long drinks are in short supply, a stranger listens to the voice in his head telling him to buy a lemonade from the girl sitting on a dusty road. The moment locks them together. Here and now it’s dangerous to listen to your inner voice. Those who do, keep it quiet. These voices have purpose. And when Pilgrim meets Lacey, there is a reason. He just doesn’t know it yet. I’ve said this in the past and I’ll say it again now – I have a soft spot in my heart for apocalyptic fiction. I love nothing better than a good apocalypse. Last year I read about half a dozen books that had a distinctly end of the world type vibe. The Fireman by Joe Hill, The Ship by Antonia Honeywell, and The Last of Us by Rob Ewing were all extremely good examples. Why this fascination with the end of all things as we know it? It’s simple. I am consumed with wanting/needing to know what happens next. For me, the very best examples of apocalyptic fiction suggest to us how humanity will change. It is all about questioning our place in the universe. What…