Little Heaven

A Novel

By: Nick Cutter

Narrated by: Corey Brill

Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

An all-new epic tale of terror and redemption set in the hinterlands of midcentury New Mexico from the acclaimed author of The Troop - which Stephen King raved "scared the hell out of me and I couldn't put it down...old-school horror at its best."

From electrifying horror author Nick Cutter comes a haunting new novel, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and Stephen King's It, in which a trio of mismatched mercenaries is hired by a young woman for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven. Shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. Stirrings in the woods and over the treetops - the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall. Paranoia and distrust grips the settlement. The escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral towards madness. Hell - or the closest thing to it - invades Little Heaven. The remaining occupants are forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has cast its dark eye on Little Heaven is now marshaling its powers...and it wants them all.

©2017 Nick Cutter (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

I was hesitant to purchase this book

Based on the reviews I had read. I am glad that I decided to purchase it! Let me say that I loved Mr. Cutters first book The Troop. His second book The Deep started out pretty scary to me but then it just didn't tie together for me in the end and I considered it a miss. With one hit and one miss I figured I had a 50-50 chance of enjoying this book. I am happy to say that it was a hit.

My best advice is this - This is one of those books where you need to take a chance and decide for yourself. You will either love it or not. If you love it - great! If you don't - well then you can always return it.

I am finding more and more lately that I either have wholly different taste then other readers or that reviewers simply are being overly harsh or overly complimentary. Neither one does a prospective reader a favor. If in doubt do what I do - DONT WRITE THE REVIEW.

Visceral Effectiveness

Nick Cutter has once again penned a horror story to rival some of finest novels ever written in the genre. He crafts his his storytelling and prose with the grace and cleverness of writers like Peter Straub and even at times like Cormac McCarthy.

This story is told in two different time periods. The present (which is the nineteen-eighties) and the past (the mid nineteen-sixties). The majority of the story takes place in the past.

Micah, Minerva, and Ebenezer are three hardened, rival mercenaries who are hired by a woman to check in on her nephew. The boy’s father has taken him to Little Heaven, a christian survivalist camp in the wilderness of New Mexico. This camp lays at the foot of a black monolithic peak where the darkest of evil dwells. This evil morphs into many different, grotesque forms. The being has also turned the wild life into twisted amalgamations; an extension of itself that only wants to buzz-saw and absorb anyone who goes into the woods. H.P. Lovecraft would shudder at the description of these creatures.

The three mercenaries and the woman find themselves battling and running for lives just to make it to Little Heaven. But things only begin to worsen once they reach the camp.

Nick Cutter develops his unique characters in such a way that the awfulness each one of them experiences makes the reader's nerves light up that much more. Because of this, the horror is so much more effective than most scary novels. It takes a very talented writer to create such a visceral feeling with his words. Nick Cutter is one of the few who can deliver.

5 Stars *****

This book is Horror to the max

I loved this book so much!! I listen to a ton of audiobooks and a majority of them are horror. It can be hit or miss. This book is everything I look for in a horror novel . It is great. Great characters, great story, great ending. I really liked The Troop and was a little iffy about The deep but damn Little Heaven seals the deal I am a Nick Cutter fan for sure.

Nick Cutter is by far my favorite horror writer

absolutely loved this story, just like I loved all his novels. if I had to classify Nick Cutters books, I would classify them as extreme tragic psychological horror.. he sure knows how to draw you in and get you emotionally invested in the characters, and then kick you right in the nutsack of your heart..

What????

I'm a horror fan and have read a lot of books suggested by other Audible listeners. They're usually pretty spot-on with their reviews. In the case of this book, I don't know what happened. No, really, I have no idea what happened. It was such a convoluted mess of a story that I could not follow it. Worse, the characters and plot were so unlikable, I had no motivation to try and figure it out. I confess that I didn't finish it, but I almost did. I kept holding out for some sort of resolution, but it wasn't there.

great!

Great story! Well written, well read, very enjoyable horror story. Will be looking for more books by Nick Cutter!

My nightmare

Trio of badass gunslingers.
Indescribable demons.
An ending that mirrors my worst nightmares.
Well done.

just gore porn

very slow, relies on excessive blood, gore and gross-out scenes to scare the reader. Very little given to developing the origins or purpose of the monsters. narrator sounded like he was trying to perform as if he was in extreme pain.

The plot is as smooth as the streets of East Orange NJ

The over-complication of the book was pathetic, unorganized, and makes you just want to cringe. A high school sophomore, writing long form, could have done better.

The novel starts off with animals getting infected by a disease. Or so it seems, then the animals morph together, and you think it’s an alien creature consuming animals. Then it eats people. Then out of left field the author attacks a Christian cult, almost as if it was a personal vendetta of his to destroy Christianity lol.

He then tries to rip off Stephen King by horribly attempting to connect the monster to religion by making it a demon who grants wishes? (Sounds like “It” when Pennywise was begging Bill and Richy to spare her life, and in return she will grant them long lives). Oh! And 3 hit men who are reckless sure sounds a lot like the “Dark Tower” series.

At the end you STILL don’t know what the hell this antagonist is. Is it an alien? A demon? It never reveals itself. Horribly written, horrible execution.

I Just Couldn't Stay Interested

In theory, this story has it all - creepy country folk with a dark mysterious type evil, three protags who dislike each other but bond together, gun fights, crazy people...

Maybe, in the end, there was way too much going on that didn't seem to congeal into an interesting story. Or maybe it was the almost literal copy of 'Salem's Lot scene where the kid is at the window?

I can't really tell you what this story lacked. The narrator was good enough I guess? But while stuff happened, there never seemed to be a story - a thread - through the book.

Of course, I'm only half-way through it... but at 15 hours long, I finally gave up at the mid-point, after trying at least a dozen times to come back to it.