This Wretched Valley

By: Jenny Kiefer

Narrated by: Megan Tusing

Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Indie Next Recommendation

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.

©2024 Jenny Kiefer (P)2024 Blackstone Publishing

More of a thriller.

If you enjoy stories about doomed excursions, wilderness thrillers, malicious spirits and A24 vibes, this may well be your book. There is a rising feeling of hopelessness, the deeper in to the novel you get, with the reader aware well before the characters that nothing good is waiting for them in the woods. Will I read it again? Possibly, as a lazy comfort read. Would I recommend it to seasoned horror fans? Probably not; it's fairly tame. I might, however, recommend it as a starter novel for people who want to get into horror but aren't sure what their spooky tolerance level is.

The good: if you like monster movie casts (a walking buffet for the plot to dispatch in a series of gory and graphic ends?) Check. You get four characters with enough surface-level development to be invested in whether they live or die. If isolation as a horror element interests you? Check. The backdrop to this story is, itself, creepy and not a place I'd be in a hurry to spend a night in, and the further the novel goes, the more claustrophobic the environment becomes.

The not-so good: I've seen this title compared to 'The Ruins' and while I agree that I'd likely keep them on the same shelf, I was disappointed to find it somewhat toothless in its horror element. I picked it up hoping for spine tingling, page-turning chills and thrills, and the story just didn't get me there. There are definitely creepy moments, but not the 'dread inducing horror' I'd heard advertised about it. I also found the nature of the 'monster / entity' to be inconsistent and unclear. By the end I had more questions than answers, but because the novel failed to really engage me, I didn't really care that I didn't get those answers. I felt like the story was setting something up and the conclusion felt weak underdeveloped. I didn't get the sense that the author was confident about what they wanted it to all mean.

I enjoyed it

There’s not a lot of fat in this. Straight to the point horror. Good performance and good pacing

Haunted forest!

This story is wild! It started off slow but once the group of 4 got to the forest, the story takes off at a faster pace. Told from many POVs and in alternating timelines, each character’s experience was creepy and terrifying. There were some gory scenes straight out of a zombie movie but it was fantastic! Megan Tusing did an incredible job narrating with all the different characters, her voices for each were distinguishable. Kudos to her!

Favorite kind of horror

I’m a sucker for idiots getting lost in the woods. Great flow to the story.

Ready to have nightmares??

I love camping. I love going out into nature and getting lost for a bit…but now I’m not so sure.

What a friggin debut novel, truly terrifying and the pace is just perfect. The descent into madness feels slow at first but there were clues all along the way. The last third of the book is horrifying and so good. Gave me nightmares for sure! Bravo Jenny Kiefer.

great story, narrator needs work

the narrator kind of ruined this book for me. I feel like a could have been a great horror novel, however there was hardly any change to the emotions in her voice, no ominous, or fear inducing tone. the scary scenes blended into the other scenes to seamlessly that you didn't even know it was supposed to be a scary scene in the book. I feel I would have enjoyed this title more if I had read it myself with no narration.

Solid

trengths:

- Good opening
- interesting premise (climbers trapped in a remote area, getting stuck in a loop of sorts)
- concise writing style
- strong moments of horror (including body-horror)

Things that didn't work for me:

- characters: on the flatter side, unlikable (except for the dog)
- uneven pacing
- the resolution; I understand why some will love it, but it felt slightly too gory. I guess I prefer my horror subtler :)

In all, a solid horror read inspired by the Dyatlow Pass mystery.

Worst language in 6 years

This book was hyped by the NYT I’ve been a member for 6 years the author throws so many unnecessary words and foul words into her work that makes it annoying and 100% distracting from story I for the first time after 300 paid books, want my money back

Disappointing

This was a novella at best. I don’t wish to spoil the story for those that may read it, so will only say that the actions of the protagonists are highly repetitive. So like their journey in the valley, there’s lots of retreading the same path!

An Unorganized Mess - Not Worth It

I had high hopes for this new author after hearing her interviewed on NPR recently. Unfortunately, this novel was a total mess. I found during the last 2-3 hours I just wanted it to end. This story was a puree of overwrought and overly written gory vinettes in search of a plot. The focus was on a series of unorganized barely-relatrd mashups of gory scenes instead of a story and characters that made you interested in the story or the outcome. There really was no explanation or valid reason for a variety of scenes that seemed glued on in an attempt to make an unstructured, non-existing, and uninteresting plot something other than that. None of the characters were of interest or likabe. Worse, they were all so whiny I was happy to see them go.

The narrator was way over the top in many passages, mostikely due the poor material she was working with.

I hope the author rapidly improves her story-yelling by staying focused on a plotlinee and character development instead of loading the story up like an over-decorated Christmas tree that falls under its own weight.