By Grace Viall
This is the author’s first published book and it comes across as polished with a tight story that doesn’t get lost combining a contemporary office romance with a paranormal adventure in the deep country of Appalachia.
The book starts off with our protagonist Alexys who works in HR, overseeing employees in the field with an overwhelming case load, a work BFF and an annoying counterpart, Nic, who just can’t help but get under her skin like a recurring rash. You know, the typical office romance story – will Nic’s demands ruin Alexys chances for the promotion she’s gunning for? He’s always complaining about her paperwork, she’s always complaining about him not sending her his research files in a timely manner. But underneath they both find the other quite attractive – if only they were less stubborn, more friendly and helpful, blah blah fucking blah. Contemporary office romances are not typically my thing because it brings back bad memories of my own office days. I was not on a career trajectory and never met any hot men in the R&D dept.
But, whatever, lets pretend that the world works as it does except all those cryptids, aliens, lake monsters and conspiracies that people phoned into Art Bell’s Coast to Coast show back in the day were actually real. And a company would take your report (and your money) and send well trained men and women to your area to investigate and hopefully disperse whatever supernatural nuisance was bothering the locals. Jersey Devils, Sasquatch, Mothman and Jackalopes would be categorized and dealt with by people in the field called Wardens, who would then dutifully submit reports to the HR department, who would then assign teams to disperse of the dangerous entities, or invoice their clients once the problem has been investigated, categorized and filed away for future research.
For reasons, Alexys has to do a in field evaluation of one her new wardens whose territory covers the appalachians somewhere in West Virginia. I’ve been through West Virginia and when the author says there is old magic deep in them thar hills, I have to believe it. it’s remote. And so this is where our contemporary romance turns into more of a horror story. Alexys is plagued by nightmares, and now her warden has gone missing in the back country even though she told him to stay put. And what he was chasing is Nic’s big white whale, so he may have told him to check it out and hurries out there to do more research. Much anger and obstinate behaviour ensues. Voices are raised, names are called. And then they find themselves on a back country trek together on the missing man’s trail.
This is a good story and the author doesn’t hold back on details, we’ve got a lot of slow burn, enemies to friends tropes here – they are very attracted to each other but nothing happens between them other than some longing looks and a kiss under duress. But the tension is a good build up for all those readers who like excrutiating slow burns. Because, while the mystery of the missing warden is solved, many new questions are raised and left unanswered and the ending is only the beginning it seems. While the book isn’t listed as part 1 of the series I would hope that there is more coming because the romance, the workplace issues and the monster in the woods (with new monsters!) have not been resolved at all.
This is ultimately disappointing because the story is well plotted, decently paced and the author drops a lot of cryptid knowledge, but in retrospect I have to wonder did we really need some of the supernatural sub plots, like introducing Nic’s ex in a long roundabout way? Or the mysterious Reaper employees? Or Alexys’ dead father’s legacy? it’s all good things, there are just a lot of them.
The final complaint I have is that as a back country backpacker/ trekker it drove me nuts that the author clearly has never been deep in the bush. Nic claims to have campcraft background and Alexys clearly is an idiot who relies on cell phone service. Neither brings sufficient gear for a 2 or 3 day trek in the woods. People got lost and die stepping off the Appalachian trail to find a place to pee. I didn’t like how dismissive the author was about outdoor exposure when such a significant portion of the book takes place out there. I see in her acknowledgments she had some push back from an editor so I can only imagine what it was like before, but the author should have done some backpacking herself to realize the importance of hydration, for example.
I would have loved to give this a higher rating because the story, characters and writing were well done, but the lack of a satisfactory conclusion and the bad camping mojo had me rate this a 3.75 out of 5. (rounded up to 4 on Netgalley
