Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham

Have you ever read a book that you loved so much and wished the characters of said book were real? Well, Winterset Hollow is exactly about that. Though, maybe not in the fluffy and cheery way you’d imagine. After all, some things aren’t as full of sunshine as they appear to be. In fact, they may even have a dark past you’d never imagine.

The book starts simple enough, you’re introduced to the protagonist and his two best friends; a couple named Mark and Caroline. Having grown up in the woods and not thrusted into the real world until his early teens before being thrown into the foster care system, our protagonist- Eamon- definitely did not have a normal childhood.

Once in the system and beginning to settle into normal life, he was mysteriously mailed a copy of Winterset Hollow; a fairytale of sorts that shares the same name as the novel. Eamon, like many others, falls in love with the book.

Flash forward a dozen years or so, and Eamon and his two friends are on their way to Addington Isle off the shore of Washington, and the place where the author of the beloved story took place. But they soon realize that everything is not as it seems.

I’m going to be honest, I didn’t really become fascinated with the book until the trio of friends arrived on the island. I mean, leading up to that point was so boring to me. While listening to it, I couldn’t help but think ‘hey maybe we can get a move on this thing’. Thank god my prayers were answered and I was given the action I was looking for.

Now, I did not realize that this book was of the horror or dark fantasy genre until the chase began. Though, that’s my own fault considering I didn’t look too much into the book before deciding it was something I was interested in. I mean, I was just looking for a shorter audiobook to listen to. By all means, a 9-10 hour audiobook may not seem very short, but compared to what I’ve been listening to, it was a lot shorter and quite a quick read (or listen).

I quite like that the book was narrated by the author himself. I thought that was cool and thought that Druham did a pretty good job. And once the chase began, I found myself a lot more interested in the book. But that may be because I’m into a bit of blood and gore. I mean, my favourite manga is Gantz for god’s sake. Of course I would be into people being killed by demented animals that stand on their hindlegs.

I also quite like the twist that was at the end of the book too. So besides the fact that the beginning of the book was a bit slow going, I enjoyed Eamon and the crew getting to meet the characters out of their favourite storybook and liked even more the deception and chase. I saw that somebody described this book as a “fractured fairytale” and I quite agree with it.

Considering I was a bit worried about how much I would like this book after attempting to read Hazelwood (a bit of a dark fantasy storybook turned real) book much like this one, I thoroughly enjoyed it and think it deserves a solid 4 stars. Kudos to the author for the good writing and the unexpectedness of the ending and a bit of gore.

I read this book for pleasure and all thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

 As always, my review can be found on Goodreads here.