NetGalley ARC | This Wretched Valley

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

First, let's admire that cover. Absolutely perfect and I love when a cover truly matches the contents inside. I admit, I am a cover snob and have been sorely disappointed in the past. Not so here. AT ALL.

I love nature survival horror because it's something that would never happen to me. I don't like being in nature, I don't like nature to touch me, I am firmly an 'indoor girl', unless we are at the pool. It also helps that I am forever obsessed with the Dyatlov Pass deaths and this was billed as being inspired by that very incident.

So, this book was creepy as fuuuuuuck and I loved it.

Dylan is determined to cement her place as a skilled rock-climber among professionals and has found the perfect way to do so. Her friend Clay is a geology student and in his research stumbled upon a seemingly untouched cliff somewhere in the depths of the Kentucky wilderness. Dylan will be the first to do so, and see her career really take off. So the two of them, plus Dylan's boyfriend Luke and Clay's research assistant Sylvia, prepare to trek into the forest surrounding the cliff to document Dylan's journey.

But things do not go as planned. OF COURSE.

Seven months pass before three bodies are discovered not far from the highway that took the group to their destination. And the bodies are not what anyone would expect, each in its own state of decomposition - all that's left of one is a perfectly white skeleton, another has had all its organs removed, and the last has had its eyes, ears, and tongue removed and fingers cut off.

None of these remains belong to Dylan. She is missing.

The plan had been to document her climb on Instagram, and some of Dylan's followers report having seen disturbing livestreams in the months since the team vanished. Others in the area swear they've seen her moving through the woods before disappearing into the trees. Despite searches, no trace of Dylan has ever been found.

The fact that this is a debut novel amazes me. The author was able to not only bring the four human characters to life and give each of them depth and really individualize them, but the setting as well. The valley and cliff became their own characters early on and it is such a testament to an author's talent when they can pull this off. It felt almost suffocating, because there is no escaping the setting, whereas the characters could take time apart from one another if needed. But the valley, the wilderness, the cliff? They were always there, always watching. That only adds to the foreboding, because all those little red flags that the group ignored on their hike-in stick in your mind as the story unfolds. Superbly done.

Despite my love of horror, I don't like gore. Yet I did not find this to be over-the-top or too much. While descriptions were graphic, it all made sense in the context of what was happening, so I didn't feel the need to vomit every five seconds, which is also a win. I guess I would say it is not gore for the sake of gore. It was necessary to show what was happening to move the story along.

Even knowing the fate of Clay, Sylvia, and Luke, I was compelled to keep reading because I had to know what was really going on in this place where nothing really made sense, though at times it was hard to know what was real and what was not. It kept me off-balance in the best way because there were times I had no idea what was coming next. The author leaves some of those questions unanswered, something I say I hate but secretly like, because sometimes not knowing is worse - your mind comes up with all kinds of horrifying options all on its own.

Highly, highly recommended.