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They say you should never judge a book by its cover but “Elmwood”’s striking cover image of a slick yellow raincoat, a dark empty void where the face should be, against a dark and ominous forest and under the grinning visage of the full moon appealed to me almost as much as the Stephen King-esque font. “Elmwood” follows married couple Aiden and Laura, who are still very much in love despite having been through some strife. Things have recently taken a turn, though; since Aiden discovered a headless body in the middle of the road, he’s been plagued by nightmares and has taken to hiding the true extent of his suffering, so he jumps at the chance to escape the busy and dangerous city for a getaway in rural Elmwood.
Once there, Aiden is won over by the picturesque town and their quaint Lake House, but things quickly aren’t all as they seem in Elmwood; some of the inhabitants are unnervingly rude, there’s an unexplained number of missing persons, and Aiden hears folktales about how the Lake House and its neighbouring woods are thought to be haunted. Although neither of them put much stock in this, Aiden’s nightmares increase in their intensity; he sees dark shapes stalking him, has vivid dreams of daydreaming out to the dark forest and stumbling across a trench full of dead bodies, and hears an ominous voice calling to him from the darkness. When Aiden turns to the local police department, he finds them less than enthusiastic and even pointing the finger at him after Laura is abducted by mysterious, robed individuals wearing animal skulls following a car crash.
There’s a little bit of everything in“Elmwood”: it’s a murder mystery, a supernatural thriller, a story of grief and loss, and there’s a shadowy cult seemingly behind everything and targeting Aiden to appease some dark and ancient ritual out in the forest! The author does a really good job of setting the scene and establishing his characters; focusing primarily on Aiden and Laura is a fantastic way of keeping things grounded. I liked that they were both supportive and still had a bit of spark in their lives and it really made Aiden’s desperate search for Laura all the more palpable.
Although primarily a psychological, supernatural thriller, “Elmwood” isn’t lacking in visceral horror. We’ve got decapitated corpses, eldritch symbols carved into flesh, gruesome imagery of blood, mass graves, and some pretty startling and effective scares. The Lake House itself becomes almost a living character, with basement doors creaking open and a number of tangible presences looming around every dark corner, to say nothing of the dark and looming forest and its devilish whispers. By the end, the author really escalates the terror as the macabre cult comes to the forefront and the book descends into a nightmarish sequence of human sacrifices. For me, this all landed really well; I enjoyed the escalating sense of tension, horror, and mystery and “Elmwood” had me gripped throughout.
Once there, Aiden is won over by the picturesque town and their quaint Lake House, but things quickly aren’t all as they seem in Elmwood; some of the inhabitants are unnervingly rude, there’s an unexplained number of missing persons, and Aiden hears folktales about how the Lake House and its neighbouring woods are thought to be haunted. Although neither of them put much stock in this, Aiden’s nightmares increase in their intensity; he sees dark shapes stalking him, has vivid dreams of daydreaming out to the dark forest and stumbling across a trench full of dead bodies, and hears an ominous voice calling to him from the darkness. When Aiden turns to the local police department, he finds them less than enthusiastic and even pointing the finger at him after Laura is abducted by mysterious, robed individuals wearing animal skulls following a car crash.
There’s a little bit of everything in“Elmwood”: it’s a murder mystery, a supernatural thriller, a story of grief and loss, and there’s a shadowy cult seemingly behind everything and targeting Aiden to appease some dark and ancient ritual out in the forest! The author does a really good job of setting the scene and establishing his characters; focusing primarily on Aiden and Laura is a fantastic way of keeping things grounded. I liked that they were both supportive and still had a bit of spark in their lives and it really made Aiden’s desperate search for Laura all the more palpable.
Although primarily a psychological, supernatural thriller, “Elmwood” isn’t lacking in visceral horror. We’ve got decapitated corpses, eldritch symbols carved into flesh, gruesome imagery of blood, mass graves, and some pretty startling and effective scares. The Lake House itself becomes almost a living character, with basement doors creaking open and a number of tangible presences looming around every dark corner, to say nothing of the dark and looming forest and its devilish whispers. By the end, the author really escalates the terror as the macabre cult comes to the forefront and the book descends into a nightmarish sequence of human sacrifices. For me, this all landed really well; I enjoyed the escalating sense of tension, horror, and mystery and “Elmwood” had me gripped throughout.