Black River Orchard

I received this book for free from the publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
Narrator: Xe Sands, Brittany Pressley, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Cindy Kay, Kalani Queypo, Gabra Zackman, Victor Colomé
Published by Penguin Random House Audio on September 26, 2023
Genres: Fiction / Horror
Length: 22 hours 17 minutes
Pages: 640
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A small town is transformed when seven strange trees begin bearing magical apples in this masterpiece of horror from the author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.

“This masterful outing should continue to earn Wendig comparisons to Stephen King.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there.

Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.

Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?

Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.

But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

I thought that this book was incredibly well done! I can be a bit of a mood reader and decided to pick this one up when I was in the mood for a bit of horror. I was also hoping for something a little different, and I think this book fits that description. I know one thing for certain -I will never look at apples the same way again!

This story is told from multiple points of view. There are a lot of characters that play a key part in this story, and each of their perspectives adds a lot to the overall story. There were times that I had no idea which direction the story would take, and I loved the fact that there were some pretty big surprises worked into the plot. It was mind-boggling how a town could go so crazy over something as innocent as an apple.

The cast of narrators really knocked this one out of the park! I love the way each of the narrators was able to bring their characters to life. I never had any difficulty knowing which perspective the story had switched to, and I thought that their voices all complimented each other’s nicely. There were some pretty creepy scenes in this story and I thought that their narration really heightened that experience. I am certain that their performances added a lot to my enjoyment of this book.

I would recommend this book to fans of horror. This was the creepy apple book I didn’t know I needed. This story was full of surprises and enough scares to keep things very interesting, and I genuinely cared about the characters and hoped they would be okay in the end. I hope to read more of this author’s work soon.

I received a review copy of this book from Penguin Random House Audio.

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