Old Country

Reviews / Votes

This is classic supernatural horror, made freshly compelling with believable characters and perfect pacing. It is almost impossible to put down * Guardian * A stonking great slice of American folk horror: modern trauma layered with ancient evil * Daily Mail * I admired the way the authors wrote about these completely impossible events and still managed to make them plausible, frightening and totally compelling * On Magazine * What started as the spookiest of tales on Reddit-I should know, as I love them-sparked a tour-de-force of a novel that perfectly renders the tensions of living in isolation and the unforgiving passage of the seasons of the natural world. On top of that, Old Country delivers an unyielding sense of dread and suspense. I can't wait for more from the Query brothers * Thomas Olde Heuvelt, author of HEX and Echo. * Who cooks? Who cleans? Who kills? Old Country ramps up our day-to-day household rituals to dizzying heights of horror. Domestic bliss has never been more terrifying * Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Whisper Down The Lane * If you're a fan of creeping, atmospheric folk horror, the Brothers Query deliver. This book will have you peering out your window at the dark spaces between the trees, certain that someone - or something - is out there watching you back. Highly recommended * Ronald Malfi, author of Come with Me * An artful chiller. Old Country stirs up our primal dread of a hostile wilderness, indifferent to man, that's reminiscent of such great works as Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo * Lincoln Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author * An extraordinarily assured debut: uncanny yet real, both lyrical and brutal, rich with truth about life and death * Michael Rutger, author of The Anomaly * Action-packed horror . . . Fans of Stephen King and Paul Tremblay will find this a satisfying escape into the woods * Kirkus Reviews * [Old Country] captures the incomprehensible terror of an ancient supernatural entity with great skill. The set-pieces are physically and emotionally brutal, and many times I genuinely found it very hard to put down. More than that, Harry's and Sasha's attempts to rationalise something that makes no effort to be accommodating becomes a powerful metaphor not just for their attempts to cope with the aftermath of his war-trauma, but also for humanity's relationship with the natural world. I like that there's no cosy resolution - no happy-ever-after, no world-consuming nihilism; this is a tale that says we must make our own peace with the horrors that we find, and so I suppose it's quite a celebration of the strength of the human spirit. Is there such a thing as humanistic horror? If not, I think these guys might have just invented it * James Brogden, author of Hekla's Children *