Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, never leaves.

Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children's beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she's there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.

The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into a dark nightmare.

*ARC received from Goodreads*



* May contain spoilers! *


Wow...its been a long, long time since a book unsettled me, especially from the outset, & it certainly had me hooked. However, for me it was a book of two parts - being before & after Katherines stitches were cut.

So for "part one", the atmosphere of Black Rock was really well depicted & the way the villagers coped with Katherine's chilling appearances with such irreverence at times, bought some great touches of humour to the tale. And what exactly was Katherine? She died 300+ years ago but wasn't a spirit as she had a physical presence, (solid enough to have a dishcloth thrown over her face!) & yet could vanish in a moment.....I made the mistake of starting reading it in bed at night....once I'd turned the light off all I could think of was the possibility of Katherine & her sewn up features appearing at the bottom of my bed *shudder* - not conducive for settling down for a goodnights sleep ;o)

I loved the whole concept of a modern town being haunted in this way. The townsfolk are used to Katherine but are careful not to touch her or to listen to her whisperings. Her every move is monitored by surveillance cameras & apps as its vital that her existence is kept secret from the outside world at all costs & this creates restrictions on their lives. Once in the village they are there for good - they find they are unable to leave the village for any length of time without feeling suicidal (although I didn't find this very convincing). While internet access is monitored to ensure that images of Katherine don't turn up online, a group of teenagers play a trick on her & film it, needless to say things in Black Rock begin to go horribly wrong.
As events escalate, things build up to what I was waiting for with baited breath...who dares to cut Katherine's stitches open?

Now as much as I loved the book, Part 2 was a bit disappointing in that I didn't find it as creepy or quite as convincing (Jocelyn's & Matt's flight from the hospital didn't work for me) Once Katherine had been "freed" from her stitches all hell broke loose in Black Rock but these scenes didn't grip me in the same way, it lacked the originality & humour I was loving & of course the deadly deed had been done so the tense air of anticipation that I'd had for so long had gone. Even so it was still way ahead of many books I've read & Steve's discovery of his sons sucide & subsequent breakdown is quite emotional in parts.

In all honesty, more often than enough I find the endings of horror tales leave me feeling a biflat, I think its because the wonderful world I've been immersed in is now gone! In this case, despite finding the last few chapters not as good as the rest of the book, I loved how this finally ended, very monkey's paw :o)

After finishing the book, I looked up other reviews & was sad to see that the setting for the story had been changed, presumably for an English speaking audience. Why? I would have preferred to have the original Dutch setting, so the book was translated exactly how the author had written it. Surely the story will have got altered in some way? As I can't read Dutch I'll never know!....

Overall, probably one of the best horror books I've ever read & certainly one of the most original - Katherine's image is one that I won't easily forget. I'd certainly recommend this book & will be on the hunt for more by this author