The novel opens with a stinger prologue that immediately raises all the fine hairs on the back of your neck. We then cut to our heroine, Mina, a struggling artist who makes most of her money at the gambling tables, and who spends her days and evenings at a local pub sketching strangers. She's a watcher herself. She takes a job from a barfly friend: transporting a parrot to a buyer in Connemara. She never reaches her destination. Instead, her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, her phone dies, and after a cold night spent in the car, she sets off on foot...into the dark and scary forest.
Pro tip: don't ever go walking through the dark and scary forest.
What follows is genuinely terrifying and pulse-pounding at moments. I, admittedly, read the bulk of the book in the daylight, and saved less hair-raising books for just before bed. There's two twists, one I anticipated...and which turns out not to be as twisty as I expected. The horrors are not, in fact, manmade. I was anticipating a Cabin in the Woods situation, but it turns out nightmares are real. Yikes. And the second twist is The Sixth Sense-worthy, and very cleverly woven into the narrative. The type that makes you reflect back on all that came before with an "ooooh. Okay. I can see it now." And which doesn't make you feel foolish, only delighted by the author's cunning subterfuge.
Without spoiling too much, I'll recommend this novel to anyone who likes a dose of fairytales and folklore with their horror, and who enjoys the Irish flair for lushly drawn environments and introspective characters.
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