Black River Orchard hit me like a combination of Stephen King and really good Magnus Archives episode, in the best of ways. For my fellow booksellers, this book is a mix of Stephen King’s IT and Faust — like if Faust was an apple farmer, and then mix up layers of horror–there’s psychological horror of domestic abuse and being trapped, of seeing people change for the worse. There’s body horror. Hooo boy, there’s body horror. And on top of all of that, I learned about apples!
Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig, (List Price: $29.99, Del Rey, 9780593158746, September 2023)
Reviewed by Alex Mcleod, The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, Alabama