By Wesley Thomas
What I noticed immediately when reading this novel is that the picture of the story is very vivid. I have never read such clear and vivid descriptions. From the actions, the appearance of the characters to the breathtaking scenery. These expressive descriptions of every aspect create a naturalistic atmosphere, you can almost smell the salty sea water, see the majestic height of the cliffs, and imagine the bright lighthouse in your mind. It is as if the writer sat in the chaos, noticed every tiny pixel, and conveyed it with facts and imagination. The drastic change of locations, from the woods, the lighthouse, the house, the bar, the laboratory, the church and other places, maintains a relentless mood and cooperation with various other senses of each venue.
The story itself is perfectly written, from the moment you arrive at the village and are surrounded by a group of passive, eerie, quiet and slightly threatening locals, suspicion sets in. These incomprehensible villagers threaten and scare the reader, which is strange due to their slow reaction, and the reader is intrigued as they chase innocent tourists. This is the first of many sharp hooks that draw you into this twisted fictional world.
A series of puzzles emerge, some stimulate your intellect, others are frightening, but your unhealthy curiosity seeks answers, driving the reader into the Welsh war. It is great to set specific segments and storylines in the woods. You wonder if they will meet, and the woods are the best place to create tension because the enemy is able to hide in the dark or behind trees.
The antagonists’ use of Welsh becomes unsettling and disturbing, especially considering the villagers are portrayed as robot-like, showing no glimmer of humanity or emotion through their cold faces and monotone voices.
Each of the main characters is portrayed extremely well, with their respective motivations for visiting the islands varying from one another, each eager to learn about their own crazy history. The histories of some of the characters will undoubtedly give many readers a degree of sympathy as they deal with a variety of different issues. Mention must be made of the character of Lord John. Hatred is so cleverly expressed through him that we as the audience come to loathe and despise him and his supposedly infinite wisdom and self-deceiving sense of superiority. At the same time, his motivations and his didactic take on the world from his perspective are undoubtedly fascinating. But also shocking, conveying his true sadistic, chauvinistic, and righteous nature. But even at the end, we are still fed some of the characters’ pasts and given more information, creating real characters driven by traumatic experiences or family mysteries rather than fictional one-dimensional characters.
The big revelation is that the strangely quiet village is undermined by a conspiracy, which is slowly injected into the story in a mindless slaughter.
The proverbs and quotations in the opening chapters provide a profound complement to the techniques and conventions used. The author must be thanked for inserting the Welsh language, which not only required considerable research but also really gives the book an unexplainable feel, a feeling you can’t quite put your finger on.
There are moments of pure terror hidden in this novel that will hold your breath and paralyze you with fear. They will seep into the anxiety of the unknown and leave a scar in your subconscious memory.
An underlying theme of the novel is power, with most characters craving some form of power, whether physical or intellectual. Others pretend to have power to construct a sense of social status. If you dig deeper into the true driving force behind each character, you’ll find a constant power struggle in the story.
This story will relentlessly torture and chip away at your sanity, then lock you in a dark room and subject you to the aberrations until they destroy you.
Don’t miss this one, get it right here!
grade: 4.5/5
