Devil's Creek

De: Todd Keisling

Narrado por: Danny Campbell

About 15 miles west of Stauford, Kentucky, lies Devil's Creek. According to local legend, there used to be a church out there, home to the Lord's Church of Holy Voices - a death cult where Jacob Masters preached the gospel of a nameless god.

And like most legends, there's truth buried among the roots and bones.

In 1983, the church burned to the ground following a mass suicide. Among the survivors were Jacob's six children and their grandparents, who banded together to defy their former minister. Dubbed the "Stauford Six," these children grew up amid scrutiny and ridicule, but their infamy has faded over the last 30 years.

Now their ordeal is all but forgotten, and Jacob Masters is nothing more than a scary story told around campfires.

For Jack Tremly, one of the Six, memories of that fateful night have fueled a successful art career - and a lifetime of nightmares. When his grandmother Imogene dies, Jack returns to Stauford to settle her estate. What he finds waiting for him are secrets Imogene kept in his youth, secrets about his father and the church. Secrets that can no longer stay buried.

Contains mature themes.

©2020 Todd Keisling (P)2021 Tantor

Small Town life meets Big Time Horror

This book was wonderfully told. I hope this is taken as a compliment, but I felt like I was reading a classical Stephen King book. You had the small town with a lot of POVs from different characters, an unearthly creature haunting the town, and a group of people coming together to stop it.
This book deserves a whole lot of praise, and I will be reading more by Todd Keisling.

Great job!

Excellent piece of folk horror paired with cosmic horro

If you like weird cults devoted to nameless gods, creepy folk horror monsters with black worms pouring from their bodies, and mind rending cosmic horror devouring reality around you, you will love this book.

That Old Time Religion

After reading Scanlines by Todd Keisling, the bar was set quite high. Devil’s Creek absolutely did not disappoint.

Old-time religion never seems quite as horrific and awful as it does in stories of small, backwoods towns, and Keisling captures that magnificently with this story. Decades ago, a twisted minister, Jacob Masters, preached an unholy gospel of sacrifice and cruelty, turning members of families against one another as he sewed his seeds within the flock. Six children he fathered were rescued by their disillusioned grandparents, who were far too late to save their own children…just before the church went up in flames and its congregation went to a mass grave.

In the present day, we revisit the town of Stauford, Kentucky as Jack reluctantly returns home to handle the estate of the grandmother who saved him from the cult Masters had built. But old wounds aren’t as healed as they might have seemed, and something troubling seems to be stirring at Devil’s Creek.

What Jack finds instead of closure, are secrets that threaten to shatter not only his sanity but the world around him. As Jack’s nightmares become a reality, he and his half-siblings are forced to take sides and take a stand against a nameless horror that waits beneath the unhallowed ground where the old church once stood.

The story Keisling weaves is a compelling one, and he further displays his knack for crafting something that gets under the skin and sticks with the reader long after the end.

Danny Campbell provided excellent narration for the audiobook edition of the novel and made it easy to follow the cast of characters as they descend into the pits of a nightmarish hell on earth.

I used to hang out on Devils Creek!

I’ll admit, I’m A LOT bias when it comes to this book! Devils Creek and Corbin was where I grew up. Corbin is the actual name where this was set, as well as where the writer is from.

Devils Creek was a right of passage as a teen for a lot of people! Go to the cemetery at the old church site and see if you could stay all night, or go over to the arches at the head of Dog Slaughter and party!

I haven’t been home in over 15 years or so, so it was good to here about the old home town. Even if it was over run! LoL! I loved the story, but it got a bit out of hand there with sex and things, felt a little rough listening to teenager kids and sex. The incest stuff didn’t bother me, because if you’re from Corbin… there was a lot of that goin around!

The small things like calling the characters, mamaw and papaw, really hit it dead on. Just small things that the characters would say, were right on the money for how we all talk from there!

Only complaint or dislike really. The narrator wasn’t the greatest! NOT TERRIBLE! Just wasn’t my favorite of all times! I will listen to this again at some point I’m sure!

My only complaint, was the narrator. Wasn’t terrible, and

Great Story

I really enjoyed this book! The storyline was a little naughty at times, but still awesome! I enjoyed the narrator too, especially since some authors are choosing AI to read their stories. That sucks to me so a real person reading was great!

Great story

The story was great. I struggled with the narrator though. His voice wasn’t pleasant to listen to.

GREAT Unique Story

Aside from the hoarse narrator, this was outstanding listen. Very Lovecraft-ian in story telling. Characters well developed and a story told in a way that kept me wanting to hear more. I look forward to more unique stories from this author!

Listened All Through but Too Explicitly Graphic

narrator's performance wasn't bad but the explicit descriptions of certain scenes is too much...

yawn

Hard to get through without falling to sleep, story drags in places and jumps around to the point of making no sense.

Just ok...

I really do believe that if the narrator would have been different, the story would have resonated way more than it did. Please don't mistake me, the narrator was good... just not for this book.