This Wretched Valley
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2.5 • 4 Ratings
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
2024 Bram Stoker Award®️ Nominee for Superior Achievement in a First Novel
“A hallucinatory nightmare of a novel that blends adventure, horror and historical fiction, and isn’t shy about violence or strangeness.”—New York Times
“If you love wilderness horror, This Wretched Valley is a must-read.”—Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger and The Fervor
Take only pictures. Leave only bones.
This trip is going to be Dylan’s big break. Her geologist friend Clay has discovered an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness, and she is going to be the first person to climb it. Together with Clay, his research assistant Sylvia, and Dylan’s boyfriend Luke, Dylan is going to document her achievement on Instagram and finally cement her place as the next rising star in rock climbing.
Seven months later, three bodies are discovered in the trees just off the highway. All are in various states of decay: one a stark, white skeleton; the second emptied of its organs; and the third a mutilated corpse with the tongue, eyes, ears, and fingers removed. But Dylan is still missing—and no trace of her, dead or alive, has been discovered.
Were the climbers murdered? Did they succumb to cannibalism? Or are their impossible bodies the work of an even more sinister force?
This dread-inducing debut builds to a bloodcurdling climax, and will leave you shocked by the final twist.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kiefer's debut heralds the arrival of a major new horror talent. In October 2019, the remains of graduate student Sylvia Burnett are discovered in an eerily quiet patch of Kentucky woods, seven months after she was last seen alive with three companions at a Livingston diner. Her bones are oddly immaculate ("not one scrap of skin left"), baffling local authorities. The bodies of two of her companions—fellow grad student Clay Foster and professional climber Luke Woodhaven—are discovered next, both having sustained horrific injuries. ("How had his ribcage come to be folded outward like cabinet doors, as if a set of hinges existed on either side of his body?" the authorities wonder about Foster.) The only trace of the fourth member of the group, another climber named Dylan Prescott, are some bloodstained clothes. From there, Kiefer flashes back to the origin of the trip, which was spurred by Foster's hopes that he might be able to use light detection technology to identify undiscovered rock formations that could become the next "climbing hot spot," and chronicles how it all went horribly wrong. Through vivid descriptions of the creepy setting and thoughtful character portraits, Kiefer maintains a feeling of unease and nail-biting tension throughout. Devotees of daylight horror will be entranced.
