The Log House

by Baylea Hart

Penny is a survivor.

She's had to be.

The world is different now. Unsafe. Humanity has been forced into hiding, locking themselves away from the dangers outside. The dangers lurking within the shadows.

Penny has spent her whole life locked away, safe within the walls of an old manor house she shares with hundreds of others. Safe alongside her son. Her miracle.

But there are more monsters than the ones outside the house. Jealously watching Penny's every move, Mary waits for her opportunity to strike. An opportunity she takes one autumn evening.

When Penny wakes that morning careening down the Death River, head throbbing on a leaking makeshift boat, she knows Mary is responsible. Mary, who has already ruined her life once before. Mary, who will not be rid of Penny that easily.

But in order to get revenge, Penny must first navigate the deadly forest she has spent her life hiding from. And Penny is not alone. Between the thick trees, inky eyes follow her as she moves. Their smiles growing.

The Log House is a character driven horror novel about revenge and survival. With a morally ambiguous main character, things lurking in the darkness and a story that spirals ever onwards towards the place it all began. Mary, Penny, and the log house.

• ISBN13: 9781911586463
• Publish Date: 24 January 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 12 July 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Unbound
• Imprint: Unbound Digital
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[kalventure]

Watch for the silence, said the voice in her head. It's the only warning you'll get.

This is a terrifying premise: it's some time in the future where fertility is nearly non-existent and creatures lurk in the woods. People live in groups, their communities having strict rules of conduct that they abide by to keep one another safe. If you break those rules you are exiled from the community, sent down the river.

Penny is tricked outside and left for dead just as the sun was setting for the day. She awoke miles away down the river in a makeshift boat as those who had been exiled, only she hadn't been exiled. This horror novel follows her journey through the dangerous woods as she makes her way back home. And that part of the storyline is captivatingly terrifying and atmospheric: every time all sound was non-existent my heart began to pound. The writing is beautiful and haunting, particularly in the description of the creatures. 'Haaa' scared the poop out of me, okay?

The world really needed more development for me. While this story and the horror is largely in Penny's trip back home, there is a good amount of backstory provided via a few "before" time jumps to explain the Penny & Mary relationship... I would have loved some of that time had been dedicated to overall worldbuilding. How did the group get settled in their shelter? What are the rules? Why do they exile people and essentially send people to their deaths? In a world where one child had been born in 27 years, why would those survivors not value the lives of the people in their group? While there was a brief explanation of where the creatures came from via a side character, I would have liked that to be explored a bit more in depth as well.

Where the story wasn't as strong for me was in the overall worldbuilding, but I would have forgiven that if the story really had just been about the horror of her being abandoned outside in the dangerous woods and fighting her way back home - but there was this additional plot thread that unravels through the 'Before Jumps' that just made me incredibly uncomfortable. Penny's attitude towards her son really bothered me and she really only wants to get back to him because she doesn't want her arch nemesis Mary to have him. There are inferences that Penny hasn't been the most kind of parents and she is certainly with her vindictive flaws. She isn't really a character that I found myself rooting for and her sacrifice at the end meant nothing to me emotionally. In the end this is about whether or not Penny is worthy of reuniting with her son and I just... I don't know. I didn't like that bit of the book at all. It wasn't for me.

cw: there was a scene where Penny threw rocks at a dog (ugh WHY) and her parenting is in question

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