⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 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.
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