book review: The Hill In The Dark Grove by Liam Higginson

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 5/5

Thank you Random House for providing an ARC for review consideration via NetGalley! All opinions are my own.

The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson is a folk novel that captures the immense beauty of the Welsh mountains through vivid descriptive detail. It introduces a slow-building, eerie darkness that befalls Carwyn and Rhian’s remote farm. The sheep become sickly, an unpleasant earthy smell intensifies, strange dreams overtake their nights, and they begin to question what they see and hear. As Carwyn becomes more obsessed with digging up artifacts discovered in an unused part of the farm, the strange occurrences and dread only get more intense. 

The couple reminisces about their early life together while pondering generational folklore that may shed light on what they are encountering during this hard, strange year. Ancestral history of the land is also interjected into the book. Both providing a full and invested yearning for the reader to hope this couple can pull themselves to the other side of this darkness. 

I had so much fun looking up the Welsh words in the text and finding recipes for cawl, wimberry pie, and bara brith bread. This extra layer immersed me much deeper into the book. I do wish the ancestral history was tied a bit more neatly together as a complete story so that I could fully understand how it connected to the excavated mound. Doing so might have rounded out the ending by giving a glimpse into what became of the couple and how the site might affect future inhabitants, while still remaining vague.

Despite these small notes, this book absolutely deserves a 5/5. I was astounded by the imagery and the author’s ability to evoke so much about these characters lives through the written word. Readers who love literary works will appreciate this, and those that enjoy lore, witchcraft, or horror will love it even more. I highly recommend this debut novel and so look forward to anything future this author might release.

book review: The Plot & The Sequel

I'd like to introduce you to an author, Jean Hanff Korelitz, I probably should have been familiar with since she has released many popular novels going back to 1996. Out of these, two have been adapted to the screen - Admission, released in 2013 and starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, and the book You Should Have Known, released in 2020 under HBO's rename The Undoing and starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Donald Sutherland, and Noah Jupe. Two other adaptations, The Plot and The Latecomer, have been picked up as well, but no dates have been set.

Back to the actual books and the author behind them! Jean Hanff Korelitz is a brilliant storyteller. This past few days I raced through my to-do list so I could spend all the spare moments reading two of her books, The Plot and The Sequel. That says quite a lot about a "new to me" author! 

First off, the story is simply unique - A struggling writer takes/misappropriates/steals (whatever word you prefer) the concept of a novel from one of his writing students. However, this decision leads to an unexpected chain of falling dominoes.  

Not only is the plot unique, but the story the protagonist stole is actually interspersed throughout the two books, creating a book within a book. It was so gratifying to be able to read excerpts from the actual book that was creating all of the chaos.

All of this is capped off by the authors expert use of dialogue and internal monologue to immerse the reader in the characters and set an urgent pace.

Normally, a sequel falls flat to the first book. That was not the case with this series. Both books were a strong 5/5!

 

Waiting five years after their release dates to read these was a blessing in disguise; knowing The Sequel (literally and figuratively) was already out meant I could immediately devour the next phase of this story. Both books can stand on their own, yet together they provide a perfectly wrapped conclusion to the saga. So, I would recommend reading them in tandem for the most fulfilling experience. If you love complex thrillers and a the dichotomy of a book within a book, this series is a must-read! Just be prepared to add the authors entire backlist to your TBR!