Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

 

A woman is awake in the middle of the night. It is just her and her children in their home. She hears a thud. She knows every creak of every board and that sound came from where a tall person would bump their head coming up the stairs if they don't know the house well. They aren't alone. 

Nightwatching is the stuff of nightmares, and the first 150 pages are incredibly taut with suspense. Sierra alternates between short chapters of present tense and flashback, and I never felt that the flashback sequences detracted from the plot. Chapter by chapter, she is building a story not just of a home invasion, but what it is like to be a woman not believed. 

Then the narrative really sinks into that theme, to a degree that slows down the plot and my interest wavered. It became repetitive. The final third of the book picks up in action, delivering a climax the reader wants. 

It is a very neatly constructed thriller, worth it for the first 150 pages alone. I read it in just a couple of sittings over the course of two days. 

- Michael G. 

Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon

 

A painter, his wife, and their teenage daughter move out to the country for a new start, landing in the idyllic New England village of Cornwall Coombe. After a summer restoring their 300-year home and getting to know their neighbors, it's time for the harvest festival! But what it entails is more than square dancing and a husking bee, and much more serious...

In folk horror, you usually have a naive outsider, like Ned Constantine and his family in Harvest Home, entering a rural setting and encountering the superstitions of the people that live in that isolated place. It's usually a beautiful setting, with a strong sense of community and tradition. What seem like remnants of a bygone era, like folk songs, dances, and symbols, are seen as eccentric. And there's a comforting draw to all of this, at first. Isn't it nice, isn't it quaint, isn't it good to be so connected to nature? Yes, the nearest hospital is pretty far, but Widow Fortune seems to have an herbal remedy for anything that ails ya (including asthma). It seems like a good place to bring up your children. Fresh air! Horseback riding! Polite youngsters who value hard work! Hallucinogenic mead!? Secret rituals in the woods!?!

But if you don't fully respect the old ways, look out! Dread builds as conflict increases between modernity and the surviving pagan practices. What you thought was dead and gone is actually alive and well, and it is not going anywhere. 

-Michael G.