Christopher Buehlman's masterful debut novel opens with an unsettling preface: "He came out to see me in the cage because I belonged to him."
Were it not for that tip-off, one would think that Buehlman had written "just" a fine novel about a couple from Chicago moving to a small Georgia town in the mid-1930s. Buehlman's prose is moody and lush--sun gleaming through the pines, honey-thick air, the whirr of locusts, sweat- and sex-damp sheets, a milky moon. He can jolt with a few finely honed lines about the war: the Huns "ready to send a rosary of lead that could make whole companies kneel." And he can be witty: when Frank asks the storekeeper for wine, he's told there's no wine in Morgan County--"All we drink is the blood of the Redeemer."
Story, sense of place, drama, sensuality, smoldering prose, characters in both senses of the word, pitch-perfect dialogue--these elements alone would be enough to recommend Those Across the River to readers. But as the preface infers, Buehlman has a few chilling curves to throw into a seemingly straightforward tale. Why did his aunt insist he sell the house? Why are the woods considered "deep and mean?" What is the monthly Chase of Pigs? And why was a boy killed under the next full moon?
In this spellbinding tale of terror, Christopher Buehlman traces with impeccable pacing the arc from the happiness of a new beginning for Frank and Dora, through hints of lurking strangeness in their new town, to full-blown horror as evil is unleashed. Buehlman has written one of the best books of the year, filled with sorrow, beauty and terror. --Marilyn Dahl, book review editor, Shelf Awareness
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