“The dead don’t walk. Except, sometimes, when they do.”

I have been meaning to read T. Kingfisher’s books for ages and it was high time I did so. I was able to get this one on Amazon and found another book (Thornhedge) in Belgium for a really good price. The first I wanted to read was this one as my mood was very much into horror. And fungal horror, oh heck yes.

In this book we meet Alex, a person who used to be in the army and who is now on the road to meet their friends who are in trouble (oh if only he knew how much trouble). He quickly finds out that there is something very wrong. His friends are practically skeletons, especially Maddy, she is just barely there. A wisp. And there are strange things happening with Maddy. She talks in strange voices, wanders around at night, sometimes just sleeps for days, and let’s not talk about what is growing on her (is it hair… or something else). Things really got spooky, especially since the home is so remote. There is a village not that far away, but it isn’t the easiest to go to, so they are pretty much cut-off from things. I loved the whole atmosphere of the book and I loved seeing things get more and more tense, scary, and horrifying. I mean, if you thought Maddy was terrifying or seeing what was happening to Roderick was oh nope, then wait until you get outside. With a spooky lake that seems to be made out of dark void mucus but also the hares. The hares fucking scared the wits out of me. Thank you to my mind. I could just see them. I was there with Alex when they were in that clearing.

I loved the various characters, even Maddy when she wasn’t acting like a possessed being. The guy who always helped Alex, Hob the horse, Denton (when we got to know him a bit better), but a special spot was for Eugenia. She is drawing mushrooms/fungus and knows a whole lot about her, she was such an interesting character and I love how determined she was.

I loved how things got more and more dark as the book went on. The latter part especially just terrified the heck out of me.

The ending was fantastic! That is one way to solve the problem. I hope that the problem is solved btw. I have some worries.

There were some parts that had me almost vomiting. With the fish. But also the hare part at the last part. EWW. But that adds to the atmosphere and I can only applaud that the author didn’t shy away from things.

I had to get into the book as the writing style at times was a bit odd? Not sure if I would call it that exactly but I am not sure what other word to use. The whole sworn soldier still confuses me and that the pronouns the book uses (ka/kan/va/van) didn’t work for me at all. It pulled me out of the story several times, especially when at times sentences didn’t seem to make sense.

But despite the writing style I had a good time reading this one and I am definitely in for reading more T. Kingfisher. I would recommend this one for all looking for a creepy horror with fungus.