This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
Horror
304 Pages
Published by Quirk Books (16th January 2024)
Purchase from | Amazon AU | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Fishpond AU* |
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Actual rating of 4.75
Dylan is ecstatic. This is the big break she’s been waiting for. Her friend Clay found untouched, unmarked rock that is just ripe for the climbing. And Dylan is going to be the first person to make that climb. With her boyfriend Luke, friend Clay and his research assistant Sylvia, Dylan is going to document her achievement on Instagram and make her mark as the next rising star of the rock-climbing world.
Four climbers went into the Kentucky wilderness, 7 months later, three mangled bodies are discovered. Were their deaths just an accident? Or did something sinister happen to them? Why are the three bodies all in different, varying states of decay? Some of Dylan’s Instagram followers reported seeing disturbing live streams from her before she disappeared. Were the climbers murdered? Did something else happen that forced the team to turn to desperate measures? Above all else, where is Dylan? And could she hold the answers to everything?
I had originally requested this off Netgalley but was unfortunately knocked back for it. I’m not even mad though because I loved the sound of it that much that I was going to buy it as soon as it became available. Which I very clearly did. I’d been on the lookout for this one to drop for MONTHS.
I’m a massive fan of survival horror, as in, horror stories set in the wilderness or in forests or ruins or anything like that. Think The Ruins, basically any of Jeremy Bates’ novels, that kinda thing. So, when I saw that this one was set in the Kentucky wilderness and that the climbers disappeared for months only for their bodies to turn up in varying states of decay that just didn’t add up and I was sold. This book is inspired by the very real Dyatlov Pass incident of 1959, which is an unsolved mystery that I’ve been fascinated by ever since I first heard about it, so I was keen as and bumped this right to the top of my very high and incredibly judgmental TBR pile.
This story is told through the alternating POVs of Clay – the geology student who found the rockface; Sylvia – Clay’s assistant who will be cataloguing flora and fauna in the area; Dylan – a rock climber who is aspiring to be the next big thing, and an Instagram influencer who has just signed her first big sponsorship with a rock climbing equipment label; and Luke – Dylan’s partner, and assistant while climbing. It’s one of those stories that I found to be fast paced, mainly due to me needing to know what happens, yet is able to achieve a slow build of dread and hopelessness. The climbers ending up in the situation that they did, built palpable tension and urgency which slowly switched to a bone deep dread. We know how the story ends, as that’s how the story starts, but I still found myself hoping against all hope that maybe they wouldn’t meet the dreadful end that I knew was waiting for them. I’m a big fan of stories, mostly horror stories, that begin at the end and then take us back to the beginning so we can see the path that got us to that point. This was a story that did this very well and I enjoyed every second of it.
One of my only triggers is animals. And while, yes, Dylan and Luke do bring their dog along, he runs off, so he’s not used as a shock factor addition which I was fine with. There is a building terror and dread that permeates this story, and I was here for it a hundred percent. The different things that the characters were experiencing really added an unreliable narrator feel which I loved. I will say here that there is a bit of descriptive gore and violence, so if this is something that you struggle with, tread with caution. I was surprised at how descriptive some of it was, I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t expecting it. It’s needed for the story, however, and I don’t feel that it is used willy-nilly just for shock factor. It’s to genuinely illustrate how much danger these characters were in.
I really enjoyed the characters for different reasons, and at the same time, I wanted to throttle each and every one of them for various different reasons and at different times. I can understand that there were forces outside of themselves that lead them to make certain decisions and do certain things, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to throttle them, even though I knew that they were ultimately doomed in the end anyway. I enjoyed the desperation and blind focus of Dylan, all she could see was her goal, her potential career at doing something she loved. Luke was so hyper fixated on finding his dog, and I felt that. I’d have been the same. Clay was so determined to get what he needed in order to not only finish his study, but to also cement a path for himself in the future, and Sylvia, I felt for her. She had such a passion for her field of study, and she was ultimately just collateral damage. Each personality was different and very pronounced. I had zero difficulty telling them apart and they each had a very distinct voice.
I don’t want to go into too much detail with this because even though you know how the story ends, I felt like I enjoyed it more, not knowing the full extent of what was going to happen, or even really having any preconceived idea on what path the story would take. So, all in all, this was exactly what I’d hoped it would be. There was a lot more dimension to the why than what I was expecting, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kiefer did a fantastic job at building tension, dread, and hopelessness that was woven through a story with a rich atmosphere. I made the mistake on many nights of reading this when I jumped into bed, I didn’t expect to be sufficiently creeped out by this story, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was. I still have some questions, but I’m okay with not knowing the answers, I feel like it’s better that way and leaves the reader pondering the left-over threads long after they’ve finished the book. At least, in my experience, I have been. This is a book that pops into my head a few times a week, so I say that it has succeeded. If you’re a fan of horror stories set in the wilderness that have vibes like The Ruins, give this one a go.
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