Old Country
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In this terrifyingly twisted thriller, a young couple discovers the horror held within their newly purchased dream house.
It’s the house of their dreams. Former marine Harry and his wife, Sasha, have packed up their life and their golden retriever, Dash, and fled the corporate rat race to live off the land in rural Idaho. Their breathtaking new home sits on more than forty acres of meadow, aspen trees, and pine forest in the Teton Valley. Even if their friends and family think it’s a strange choice for an up-and-coming pair of urban professionals, Harry and Sasha couldn’t be happier about the future they’re building, all by their lonesome.
That is, until their nearest neighbors, Dan and Lucy Steiner, come bearing more than housewarming gifts. Dan and Lucy warn Harry and Sasha of a malevolent spirit that lives in the valley, one that with every season will haunt them in fresh, ever-more-diabolical ways. At first, it seems like an old wives’ tale. But when spring arrives, so does the first evil manifestation, challenging everything Harry and Sasha thought they knew about the world.
As each season passes, the spirit grows stronger, the land more sinister, and each encounter more dangerous. Will Harry and Sasha learn the true meaning of a forever home before it’s too late? Haunting and bone-chilling, Old Country is a spellbinding debut in the horror genre.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A young couple’s bucolic dream turns into a supernatural nightmare in this chilling horror novel. Hoping to escape big-city life and be more connected to the land, Harry and Sasha Blakemore move to a secluded Idaho ranch. They’re understandably skeptical when their new neighbors show up to convince them that they must perform special rituals to ward off the deadly, malicious spirit that possesses their property, but they’re quickly forced to put their misgivings aside. Co-authors Matt and Harrison Query craft an uncommonly frightening story rooted in some of our deepest fears about our place in the natural world. We read with a building sense of dread as Harry and Sasha struggle with each bizarre new form their supernatural nemesis took. (We still shiver thinking about the scarecrow they burn.) Old Country puts a fresh spin on terror.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Query brothers debut with a propulsive horror novel based on Matt Query's viral short story, "My Wife & I Bought a Ranch," which sees a family encountering ghosts from within and without after they drop their urban lives to move into an Idaho ranch. War-traumatized Harry, his wife, Sasha, and their faithful golden retriever, Dash, move to the Teton Valley to fulfill their long-held homesteading ambitions—but they quickly realize there's something off with their new home: with the changing of each season comes a fresh set of horrors that emerge from the valley. The couple must defend against these threats or risk losing themselves to the ghosts of the Teton Valley. The Querys nicely work the worldbuilding into the action, and though the genre conventions are trod to the point of cliché, when the horror elements hit, they hit hard. There's a late twist that won't work for everyone, but the Querys stick the landing with an ending that feels earned and satisfying. Fans of Joe Hill and Paul Tremblay will want to check this out.
