Review: THIS WRETCHED VALLEY

THIS WRETCHED VALLEY [Release January 16, 2024] is an immensely, delightfully, engrossing Supernatural Folk Horror set in rural Kentucky. On the surface a gentle account of four young persons, two of whom are graduate students, one a budding influencer-rock climber, plus her dog-devoted boyfriend/assistant, this novel is surprising both in its depth and in its breadth. Suspension of disbelief is immediate, compelling, and continuing, as the hapless quintet (four humans plus an Australian Shepherd) find themselves inextricably trapped in an increasingly unreal and impossible "reality." Each time I tried to get a handle on what's happening, the author delivers yet another revelation of intensity and terror. Also, although this tale is set in March in rural Kentucky in 2019, the group supplied with cell phones and GPS, the relevances and parallels to the February 1959 Dyatlov Pass Tragedy in the Ural Mountains of Russia are amazingly pertinent.