Old Country

By: Matthew Query, Harrison Query

Narrated by: Juliette Goglia, Kiff Vandenheuvel

Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

An instant classic horror novel.

Harry and Sasha found their dream, a beautiful small ranch in an unspoilt valley nestling beneath the Teton Mountains in Wyoming.

It's perfect.

Except for the neighbours, an apparently cute old couple, who have some truly crazed ideas about a timeless spirit which asserts its power over the valley in different terrifying ways, with the coming of each different season.

The only thing for Harry and Sasha to do, obviously, is to forget about the weirdos and start building their new life in their new home.

As they look forward to the arrival of spring.

With a deeply sympathetic feeling for the ancient rhythms of the natural world and the stunning landscape of the Western United States, allied to a sharply perceptive sense of the psychology of memory and the effects of PTSD, Harrison and Matthew Query have written a novel that is at once a rivetingly simple narrative and darkly complex supernatural thriller.

©2022 Fort Mazie, Inc. and Columbine Mountain, Inc. (P)2022 Hachette Audio

The true horror is how boring the story is

I (initially) liked the setup, the general weirdness and the piecemeal lifting of the veil as it were. However, the book should probably just have been a novella. There just isn't enough material for the 12 odd hours of listening. The characters are very one dimensional. Only the male protagonist has any backstory to speak off, and even that is limited. The 'mystery' stopped being interesting about halfway through, and developed SO SLOWLY. Few of the character interactions made sense either. The male protagonist is generally unlikeable and makes ridiculously bad choices, causing distress and harm to people around him, but everyone is intent om giving him a pass each time. There are plenty of Deus Ex Machina moments as well, I suppose to inject drama into the bland story.

At least the performance of the voice actors was good. There's that I guess. It's the only reason I gave this two stars instead of one.

A good casual read

I really liked the varying perspective between the two main characters. The end was a little abrupt in my opinion but I enjoyed getting there. Some of the spirits are really creepy once you get thinking about them. Definitely a story for someone who has a good imagination.