The Sea Hides Its Dead
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Trapped in an underwater cave, a group of academics must face a series of deadly, supernatural trials—each one demanding they confront their darkest sins—in this chilling aquatic cult horror debut from Megan Bontrager.
“Dark, bone-chilling, and utterly twisted.”—Deena Helm, author of Our Cut of Salt
Grad student Caro has no idea what she wants to do with her life, but when the opportunity arises to act as a research assistant on an anthropological expedition for her professor and lover, Edward Beck, she doesn’t hesitate.
Beck assembles a team of academics and professionals to study the ancient sea-based Cult of the Leviathan, and the expedition descends into the sea caves where the cult is said to have dwelt.
But when the cave entrance collapses, trapping them inside, the expedition will find they are not alone in the darkness. An ancient trial has been set in motion. One by one, the members of the expedition will be tested and forced to atone for their greatest sins . . . or die.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An anthropological expedition turns into a nightmarish ordeal in this disappointingly parochial tale from Bontrager (Eye of the Ouroboros). Narrator Caroline Destler is a graduate student assistant to anthropology professor Edward Beck, whose obsessive belief in the existence of the biblical Leviathan and an aquatic cult that venerates her as a god has long been met with skepticism from his academic colleagues. But when a monstrous monolith emerges from the ocean off the coast of Maine, Beck seizes on it as validation of his research and hastens an investigative team to the site. The supernatural force animating the monolith proves to have a macabre mind of its own: it traps Beck's crew inside its cavernous interior with a rock slide and subjects them individually to personal trials that force them to confront "the darkest and most diseased parts" of their selves made flesh. Though Bontrager sets the reader up for a Lovecraftian story steeped in the "cosmic knowledge" underpinning Beck's studies, the novel quickly devolves into a familiar survival scenario. The author delivers some shocks as her characters meet horrific fates, but it's never clear what beliefs the Leviathan cult stands for, or why the god would emerge so spectacularly just to terrify a select group of victims. This misses the mark.
