The Watchers: A thrilling Gothic horror soon to be a major motion picture
£3.80
You can’t see them. But they can see you.
This forest isn’t charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina’s is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams.
Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn’t reach the bunker in time.
Afraid and trapped among strangers, Mina is desperate for answers. Who are the Watchers, and why are they keeping the humans imprisoned, keen to watch their every move?
A spine-chilling debut horror adventure set in the remote and sinister forests of Ireland, from critically acclaimed Irish writer A.M. Shine.
‘A dark, claustrophobic read’ T. Kingfisher, author of Paladin’s Grace
‘Readers get an intimate glimpse into the fraying edges of each character’s psyches, the constant hunger, the paranoia, the loss of hope, and far worse… The Watchers will appeal to fans of Kealan Patrick Burke, Josh Malerman, and Scott Smith’ A.E. Siraki, Booklist
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Additional information
| Publisher | 1st edition (14 Oct. 2021), Head of Zeus — an Aries Book |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 2389 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 281 pages |
by Bogz
I don’t think I’ll be going into the woods ever again.
Excellent horror tale set in the woods of Ireland.
by Lora Corr
The overall story is very good with an original concept. However, there are huge tracts of narrative with little dialogue, which can make it feel as though we are being told traits or characteristics of various characters without experiencing them through their interactions with other characters. This heavy narrative also meant I was able to figure out certain elements of the plot quite early on. There was also some points where it felt that the most obscure or verbose word was used in place of something more straight forward. Now, I am all for using more obscure words and not treating the reader as a child, but overwriting can disrupt the flow of the prose and become quite jarring.
It is plot driven but would have definitely preferred more character development as I didn’t feel particularly invested in any of the characters.
I know that gothic fiction is, ironically, encourages quite a flowery writing style, however, it felt like every other sentence was a similie or metaphor which I started to skim past by the last 1/3 of the book.
That being said, it was a good story and was easy to read in a day.
by Book Wormess
I’ve been gripped by this book from start to finish. Having obtained it through kindle unlimited, I didn’t hold high hopes. But I was wrong!
by Dave
The idea for the story was fairly good and it might have been a good book if the writing wasn’t so poor. It felt like it was written by a high school student who has just learned about similes and metaphors. Literally everything is described using bizarre (often nonsensical) comparisons, which makes the prose feel awkward and confusing. There is a lot of stuff written about the characters, yet they remain very two dimensional throughout the book. The relationships formed between the central characters were superficial and lacked depth, despite being repeatedly told that they were supposed to be deep and meaningful. Use of pronouns is very strange, characters are referred to as things like ‘the boy’ in the middle of sentences and they have a parrot which is referred to as ‘the yellow one’, which really makes no sense in the context. The chapters are written from different characters perspectives, but the writing is so bland there is no discernible difference between them. Within these chapters there are paragraphs that seem to written as if from a narrator, but they feel very out of place and jarring, including descriptions of things that feel suddenly shoehorned in.
The main issue however were the gaping plot holes. It’s reasonable to expect to accept a few inconsistencies in a horror/sci fi, but the holes here were nothing short of chasmic.
Characters that stumbled into the story after a few hours of walking are then unable to leave the way they arrived for some reason that is never explained. Technology doesn’t work in the setting but then suddenly it does half way through. Characters know details about things that they have never experienced or pick up objects that have been earlier lost or destroyed. The central characters are bound by a set of rules that make the historic creation of the environment completely unbelievable.
It goes particularity wrong around half way, when the writing gets considerably worse, the plot loses direction and it becomes difficult to plough on. I managed to get to the end but it was a real slog after 62%.
I have absolutely no idea why so many people gave it 5 stars and wonder how it made it through editing. Maybe the author has a relative in the publishing world…..
by damppebbles
When Mina is promised a couple of hundred euro by a bloke in the pub for delivering a Golden Conure to a collector in Connemara, she finds it hard to refuse. But the promised easy drive, along with the draw of easy money starts to look a lot like hard work when her car breaks down at the edge of a forest. Armed with the bird and little else, Mina sets out to find a mechanic to get her back on the road. The first person she sees however is a woman who screams at her to take shelter. Because this forest isn’t on any map and all cars that approach the area break down at the treeline. The woods and the night belong to the watchers. And now so does Mina….
The Watchers is a beautifully written horror novel which will send shivers down your spine and make you think twice before turning the light out. With shades of the epic Bird Box, this creepy and claustrophobic story gets under the readers skin. Mina and her fellow captives are watched like animals in a zoo on a nightly basis. They’re starved of sleep by the ever present light which remains on during the hours of darkness, whilst being subjected to the most terrifying screams as the creatures try to scratch and claw their way through the glass wall. Escape from the creatures is impossible. The trek out of the forest too vast to conquer within the hours of daylight. The risk of failure too terrifying to contemplate. The tension is perfectly pitched, the eeriness is sublimely written and the sense of desperation from the characters was palpable.
Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. The Watchers is a beautifully written classic horror novel with a gothic feel and poetic prose which I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved the tension, the suspense and how utterly unnerving I found the story. I was drawn to this book thanks to several factors. Two of the main reasons being the gorgeous cover and the incredible reviews from fellow bloggers and reviewers. The hype is real. A stunning, creepy setting, eerie creatures to make your skin crawl, superb characters who the reader really gets the measure of. And a shocking, well-penned twist which left me reeling. It’s a stunning debut from an author to watch and I cannot wait to get my mitts on a copy of the author’s next book, The Creeper, when it publishes in September.
by Daryl
i loved this book. the author did an exceptional job of writing such horror & claustrophobia that i found myself anxious for the characters.
In a way, this book couldve ended around the 75% mark and still been just as great. The last 25% didnt drag by any means but it felt we had been offered two endings which was necessary but still enjoyable