Darker Days is a chilling new folk horror novel from the Hugo Award-winning author of HEX, Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Here, Cambridge Edition writer Charlotte Griffiths shares her review.
Everything always goes well for the residents of Bird Street, a quiet cul-de-sac in the Pacific Northwest. Promotions, academic grants, child prodigies: you name it, these lucky families get it. Life is sweet. But every year, at the start of November, their bill for all this good luck comes due and the Darker Days are upon them.
It requires a huge sacrifice to settle the debt and the sooner the payment can be made, the better – because the longer the Darker Days go on, the worse it gets, as the families’ good luck unravels and the more desperate they all become to return to their usual state.
Thomas Olde Heuvelt is a master at ratcheting up the horror and suspense. You’ll find yourself re-reading sections after an odd word or turn of phrase catches your eye in an otherwise- normal-seeming passage (all of which is expertly translated from the author’s original Dutch) – and like the occupants of Bird Street, you might have to cover your own mirrors in case you spot something sinister lurking in the shadows.
One for fans of Stephen King and suburban horror, this brilliant novel forces the residents and readers alike to confront just how far they’d go for their own family’s happiness… but can you ever be truly happy if someone else has to suffer for your good fortune?
Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt will be published on 22 October. Pre-order your copy at penguin.co.uk.