A group of students encounter a supernatural terror while on a road trip through Appalachia in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the “unforgettable and scary” (Harlan Coben) Chasing the Boogeyman.

1983: Three students from a small college embark on a week-long road trip to film a documentary on roadside memorials for their American Studies class. The project starts out as a fun adventure with long stretches of empty road and nightly campfires where they begin to open up with one another.

But as they venture deeper into the Appalachian backwoods, the atmosphere begins to darken. They notice more and more of the memorials feature a strange, unsettling symbol hinting at a sinister secret. Paranoia sets in when it appears they are being followed. Their vehicle is tampered with overnight and some of the locals appear to be anything but welcoming. Before long, the students can’t help but wonder if these roadside deaths were really random accidents…or is something terrifying at work here?

I read Richard Chizmar’s “Chasing the Boogeyman” last month, and while it didn’t blow me away like it did others, I enjoyed it enough that I was looking forward to checking out other works by the author.

This book sounded right up my alley. I was one of the few who saw “The Blair Witch Project” the night it opened in theatres and had no idea it wasn’t real. I seriously thought I was watching an unscripted, found-footage documentary, and it terrified me. When I read that this book had a Blair Witch vibe, I was super intrigued and immediately added it to my Aardvark book box this month. While I enjoyed it, I wasn’t as blown away or as creeped out as I’d hoped to be.

The book focuses on three college students – Melody, Troy, and Billy – as they set out to shoot a documentary on roadside memorials for one of their college courses. They plan to travel through the Appalachians to Billy’s hometown, but what starts as an innocent documentary project soon takes a dark turn. The friends feel as though they are being followed and watched and when they begin to notice the same mysterious symbol popping up on memorials, things go from creepy to unsettling for them very quickly. What does the symbol mean, and are they really being watched? And if so, why and by who?

Chizmar wracks up the tension and paranoia as the students face increasingly strange occurrences, from their vehicle being tampered with to strange figures in the trees, crazy dreams, and suspicious locals. He also does a great job of painting a vivid picture of the eerie landscapes and menacing atmosphere. His attention to detail helped place me right there in the van and the woods with the lead characters.

As far as characters go, the core three are well-developed and relatable. In fact, the relationships that developed and the bond these three shared were one of the best parts of the book. As the students uncover more about the dark history behind the roadside memorials, they are drawn into ancient secrets that threaten to consume them. The twists and turns in the plot kept me guessing and on my toes.

Now, for my problems with the book. First of all, I felt this one was really slow. The book is nearly 500 pages long and doesn’t need to be. There were some really creepy events that happened, but I felt that the book would start to get creepy, and then we would be back in the van with our characters as they moved to their next stop, and the pace would slow way down. Then, we would get another creepy event a while later before the pace would slow again. It really made the book feel uneven. I like white-knuckle tension. I’m okay if tension slowly builds to that point, but I like it to build to the point that we can barely catch a breath before the next thing happens, not constantly ebb and flow until the end. Honestly, by the time I got to the end and the big reveal, I was kind of ready for it all to be over. Was the reveal shocking? Kind of, but I had started to lose interest by this point and was pretty much over it.

Overall, I enjoyed the concept of this one, and I really loved the three main characters. On the downside, I felt it was way too long and the pacing was uneven. I skimmed a lot of the slower sections so I could get back to the creepiness. If you like a slow-burn horror that reads more like a mystery with a side of chills, this might be a good book for you.

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