The Chill by Scott Carson
📚📚 Synopsis 📚📚
In this terrifying thriller, a supernatural force—set in motion a century ago—threatens to devastate New York City.
Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lays beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee reservoir. Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far, and some didn’t move at all…
Now, a century later, the repercussions of human arrogance are finally making themselves known. An inspector assigned to oversee the dam, dangerously neglected for decades, witnesses something inexplicable. It turns out that more than the village was left behind in the waters of the Chill when it was abandoned. The townspeople didn’t evacuate without a fight. A dark prophecy remained, too, and the time has come for it to be fulfilled. Those who remember must ask themselves: who will be next? For sacrifices must be made. And as the dark waters begin to inexorably rise, the demand for a fresh sacrifice emerges from the deep…
👻👻Review👻👻
The writing style on this book reminded me a bit of, dare I say, Stephen King, especially when it comes to the characterization. The main character in this book, I thought, is well fleshed out. I, particularly, enjoyed reading about his past in the marine and everything that came after that. His commentary, I find compelling out of all the characters. His relationship with his father, especially, I find well-written and realistic.
“How did that happen? You could dream something so real that it made your heart race and sweat spring from your pores—so real that you woke with a raised hand and a turned head as if expecting a blow… and then the dream was gone. How could that happen so fast?”
The creepy atmosphere in here is so well done as well. Consistent from the very first page up to the last one. The problem, though, is it never really evolved into something more than just feeling creeped out. I never really got that ‘scared to shit’ experience reading the book and that, kind of, disappointed me. The build up was there, I was anxiously waiting for the climax to burst into something ‘full on horror’, but it never really did. In the end, it felt more like a disaster/survival read rather than a horror book. And I get it, it was actually marketed as that but it did promise to deliver with the ‘horror element’. And boy! The disappointment.
“Those were the memories, at least. But memory was a shifting thing, fluid and deceptive, and it had a way of carrying facts from one place to another so subtly that you didn’t recognize the redistribution until too late. One summer the sandbar had been over there, and the next summer you were running aground on it over here. That was memory. You navigated with it, but it was shifting all the while.”
Did I feel like I wasted my time? No. Not at all. I, genuinely, enjoyed the writing style in here. I only wished it never stayed stagnant to that creepy tone. I wished the horror factor was showcase aggressively, if that makes sense.
Do I want to read more from this author? Probably, yes. We’ll see.
A solid 3-star read. A Creepy and Character-driven book.
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