Synopsis:
‘There’s a delightful bit of sleight-of-hand at the heart of the novel that I particularly enjoyed.’ – Owen King, co-author of Sleeping Beauties
It begins with a ghost story around a campfire. Teenagers out on a walking trip, trying to act brave in front of each other.
But as the walk gets underway and the boys begin to fall out, odd things start to happen.
Noises in the night. A severed rabbit’s foot outside someone’s tent.
Soon, the boys begin to disappear.
As panic sets in and a storm approaches, the remaining boys must band together to face a darkness not even the local ghost stories could help them predict.
Via Goodreads
Review:
The Moor is Sam Haysom’s debut novel and though it seems to have pretty high ratings, I found it to fall short of my expectations. The book encompasses the story of a handful of thirteen-year-old boys on a hiking trip through the moors. During this trip, things go wrong and… well, that’s where it tries to be two stories at once: a ghost story and a creature feature.
The ghost story side of this book is fantastic. It’s written in a way that captures the reader’s imagination and honestly, I could picture the details quite well. What I didn’t like was the creature feature side of the book. The monster that makes up this horror tale should be terrifying, but instead I found it to be one dimensional–in fact, every single time the creature shows up, it’s described the same way which really put me off.
I felt no emotions or connections to the boys in the book, and this greatly diminished the emotional/fright factor of the novel for me. I really wanted to taste the fear that these teenaged boys were going through.
I’d like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 💀💀
