Little Heaven

by Nick Cutter

[Lianne]

I was approved an ARC of this book by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at my blog, eclectic tales: http://eclectictales.insanitysandwich.com/blog/2017/01/17/review-little-heaven/

Little Heaven is a slower burn than his previous books, starting in 1980 but then does a flashback to the 1960s to show what happened in the past that led to the characters’ present predicament. So getting a sense of the characters, getting to know them, and their situation–and what the general situation is–takes a bit of time, which may confuse readers at first (and perhaps contributed to me not reading it straight right off the bat). But once the story takes shape and the characters are on the road to Little Heaven, the story does pick up a notch and hits its stride.

And it is creepy. Throw in a religious cult living in the middle of nowhere (complete with a human antagonist with a hard childhood instilled with religious severity and discipline and a taste for torture =S ), weird “creatures” living in the forest, an old malice, and Nick Cutter’s signature icky happenings and yeah, this book is quite the horror thrill ride. The characters seem pretty generic and there’s not much of a character arc happening except for Micah, but nonetheless it was interesting to read the three main characters interact. And again, the ending is quite the signature Nick Cutter ending in that it wraps up the story but it’s tinged with defeat with victory, if that makes any sense…

So while it took me a while to get around to it, Little Heaven was an interesting and chilling read. It felt a little more ambitious than his previous novels in that the scope is wider, covering a back-and-forth timeline of events and a wider range of characters. If you’re a fan of horror novels, definitely check out this book and Nick Cutter’s other books!