"The Broken Places" by Blaine Daigle is a haunting tale that immersed me in a chilling and atmospheric exploration of a twisted family legacy set in the Yukon wilderness. I felt the descriptions and slow burn (it did move along quite slowly overall considering the short length of the book) steadily built up the suspense - the book delivers a satisfying horror experience that, while flawed, left me chilled.

From the very beginning, the allure and unease of the woods are palpable, which captivated me. The old hunting cabin in the Yukon wilderness becomes a character in itself, housing secrets and horrors waiting to be discovered.

I mentioned earlier the very slow vburn - "The Broken Places" has a very slow burn which I assume is to allow readers to become acquainted with the complex dynamics between the main characters, Ryne, Shawn, and Noah and to slowly build that tension. I just feel it could have done more with less.

I really enjoyed the author's descriptions of environments and characters that helped me become immersed despite the pace of the book, so I can't fault pacing issue that too much (I know I've said itma few times' and I apologise', but read it and you'll see). To his credit, Blaine is certainly a skilled horror writer who understands the genre and uses horror themes and tropes successfully throughout.

The ending of "The Broken Places" is satisfying. It ties together the narrative threads. Without revealing spoilers, it can be said that the conclusion feels organic and fitting.

Special thanks to Blaine Daigle, Wicked House Publishing, and NetGalley for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

I really need to lay off horror novels for a while and go read something nice and fluffy and light instead, perhaps involving tiny kittens or frolicking unicorns. Because, man, I have read some really bleak books lately, and The Broken Places is right up there with the bleakest of them. I mean, I suppose most people don't read horror expecting sunshine and rainbows, but this one was particularly dark. The characters are broken people with broken lives, and the woods at the heart of this story are filled with broken creatures.

That's not to say that this novel wasn't riveting – I finished it in under twenty-four hours. But at the same time, I can't say that I exactly enjoyed it. It was engrossing, for sure, but also depressing and more than a little bit repetitive. Did you know that Noah died in a grain silo? Well, you're going to because it's going to be beat into your head for the entire book. I don't know what it was about the grain silo incident either, but it ripped me out of the story every time it was mentioned. I think because drowning in grain is such an unlikely thing to have happen?

Despite my criticisms, however, this novel also had its strong points. The setting , for one, was fantastic. How many books have you read that are set in the wilds of the Yukon? And the descriptive writing was great – I felt as if I were right there with the characters in the cold with the snow swirling around me. Also, the plot, while not entirely original (it was very reminiscent of The Ritual), was certainly captivating. Finally, as a big fan of Robert Frost, the inclusion of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” was a welcome bonus.

And now the TL;DR summary for those of you that skipped over my novella above: it was entertaining but bleak and somewhat repetitive. There was poetry.

Thanks to NetGalley and Wicked House Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book to review!

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy of the broken places. this was an interesting horror book, i dont usually go for horror but i was not let down.

A little bit of a slower pace than what I typically like, but once it got going, I was invested. Part horror, part folk-tale, this was a bleak story of tremendous loss.

Ryne inherits a cabin deep in the Yukon wilderness. At first, he wants nothing to do with the cabin. But, after having a tough year, Ryne decides to venture up to the cabin with his two best friends, Noah and Shawn. Just as the men settle into the cabin, a viscous winter storm moves in. Strange things start happening - the animals in the woods are behaving in an unnatural manner and whispers echo through the woods and cabin. By this point, it is too late to leave the cabin. The storm is unrelenting. The three men have to figure out what or who is behind all the creepy occurrences.

This book was just okay for me. It was a slow burner and a bit dry at times. For being a horror novel, I did not find the creepy. I think the book would have been much more effective had it been shorter. The writing was somewhat weak. The premise itself is interesting, but it just felt a bit long-winded and receptive. And most importantly, lacked a lot of the horror elements.

Thank you Wicked House Publishing and NetGalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

An isolated cabin in the woods with three friends trying to recuperate from their lives? What could go wrong? This title delivers a story that is simultaneously menacing, claustrophobic, and compelling.

The Broken Place was amazing. It’s wilderness, folk, generational curse, and everything you want to be scared by.

When Ryne and his two best friends make a last trip to the cabin he inherited from his uncle, they discover he’s inherited far more than he bargained for.

Absolutely loved it, easy five stars, and impatiently waiting for his next book.

The woods have always fascinated me and yet thoroughly creeped me out, so when I read the description of The Broken Places and saw that it takes place in an old hunting cabin in the Yukon wilderness, I was keen to read it. Coupled with that chilling cover, I was completely sold.

It's a bit of a slow burn to begin with as we learn more about Ryne, Shawn, and Noah and the brotherly but somewhat strained dynamic between them. But when our characters reach Ryne's family cabin just outside the town of Wolf's Bone, things slowly begin to go very, <i>very<i> wrong, and the sense of dread grows with each page. Piece by piece, we begin to learn more about the strange-behaving animals and wilderness surrounding the cabin and the history of Ryne's twisted family legacy there. There was some great classic horror blood and gore in this book (but not too over the top) and some body horror sprinkled in for good measure!

A real strength of The Broken Places was Daigle's use of descriptions, particularly for the various environments and settings - it really helped me imagine each scene as I read. As an Australian, my experience with the bitter Yukon cold detailed in this book is extremely limited, so I especially appreciated Daigle's use of imagery and descriptions for the ominous, snowy winter storm outside the cabin.

Finally, I won't discuss the ending here because I really think it should be experienced first-hand, but I will say that I was satisfied. To me, it felt like we had been building towards that conclusion throughout the course of the story, and so I finished the book feeling somewhat saddened that it was over but glad that I had read it.

Thank you to Blaine Daigle, Wicked House Publishing, and NetGalley for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93038460-the-broken-places" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Broken Places" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1675192641l/93038460._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93038460-the-broken-places">The Broken Places</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/25085884.Blaine_Daigle">Blaine Daigle</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5552033150">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
The Broken Places was…just wow. I’m in awe of this book, from the cover to the last page, I didn’t expect it to be this good.<br />First, you have the set up, and this particularly one will always suck me in: a remote hunting lodge in a remote part of the world with snow and storms and some friends and oh no! there’s something weird in the woods. I immediately thought of The Ritual by Adam Neville, and because I love both that book and movie, I was pretty jazzed.<br />The story opens with Ryne in a cabin with his dad and uncle. He wakes up at night and can’t find his uncle, but finds the front door open. Outside, he sees his uncle, naked in the snow, and something with antlers. His father immediately intervenes and puts him back to bed, explaining that his uncle had been out there investigating an animal in a trap or something like that, and he must have been dreaming the rest of it. As Ryne is going back to sleep, he can hear his father and uncle arguing about whether or not the “time is right” for Ryne, with his father vehemently against whatever is happening, and the uncle for it. <br />We then jump forward to a weekend getaway. There are three friends in this story: Ryne, Noah, and Shawn. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and Ryne recently inherited his family’s cabin after his father and uncle died. All the friends have had a very hard time recently, almost to the point of unbelievability, as if they were somehow cursed. We know something terrible besides his father’s death has happened to Ryne, as he thinks about it often, his friends dance around it, and a terrible police officer in the remote village near the cabin remarks on it, but we don’t have the full story.<br />The story weaves in and out of various timelines and character POVs, but it never felt too confusing to me. We get more of a backstory on the three men and on the village. We find out a Robert Frost poem can be insanely creepy. We find out that you should never eat meat you killed in the forest. We know that the villagers look at Ryne and his friends strangely, and that there’s something up with the church. And we know the animals are acting…very weird.<br />The animal behavior is one of the starting events in the book, and I don’t remember ever reading such a long passage about an animal, particularly its eyes, and being terrified the entire time. It was at this point that I thought, “Reading this in bed on my phone in the dark alone was probably not THE BEST idea,” but it’s rare that a book just viscerally creeps me out the way this one did. More and more events start happening as the men realize they are becoming trapped in the cabin due to the storm and other forces, and more and more strange events are happening. Reading it is like being in a fever dream.<br />I honestly couldn’t believe that this was the author’s debut novel. It’s simply fantastic. It’s creepy, well written, it has a good ending, and it leaves some things unexplained, but in the best way – you don’t always need everything spelled out, especially in a horror novel. I can’t wait for the next book from this author!<br />
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After finishing this novel, I read it has been described as The Ritual meets The Terror. To me, this story felt like The Ritual meets The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones in some ways. In saying that, it definitely stands on its own without need for comparisons. The author did a great job making the setting feel like its own character and the cold and despair are palpable at times.

One of the better horror reads for me in a while!

This is under 300 pages and yet it felt more like 500 or something because it was extremely slow-paced. With the horror genre, if it’s slow-paced, I’m more inclined to like it if it’s a movie than a book. Nothing really against the book or its author – just my personal preference.

The book focuses on 3 friends who travel to a secluded cabin – it’s in the family of one of the men. I very much could not tell the friends apart, whoops, so I can’t really tell you anything about them? I remember things that happened to them before the book – leg injury, something about drowning or ice? But I can’t tell you their names or which name belongs to which character (and who had which incident happened to whom). Which, this book is like 98% solely these three men; so I should’ve known their names before the 50% mark or something. That’s half on me and half on the book, in my opinion? Like, of course you should make an effort to remember their names (even if your memory is bad like mine) and differentiating the characters and such. But also it’s up to the writer to make sure no two (or three) characters are the same.

The horror was well-written, I’ll give it that. It’s a very slow one but it has all the elements of “spooky things start to happen and we start to notice them”. That’s something I like a lot. It’s fun to see the weird things happen – often before the characters do, because of course, they don’t know they’re in a horror book so they often don’t think xyz is weird until the weirdness increases/an actual injury occurs.

There was a big Indigenous/folk tale subplot but unfortunately it happened in the second half of the book – when I was already bored of most things – so I didn’t pay as much attention as I should’ve. I did like what I read – most of what I can remember – I liked. It tied in a lot with the main character’s family, but as I said, I don’t remember much so I think it made it all the more confusing to try to remember anything.

I am sad that I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would because when I saw the comps I thought “oh wow yup I’ll love this extremely”. And it let me down because I didn’t really care about the characters much. I forgot most of the plot and basically everything that happened but the other books I read around the same time as The Broken Places I remember much better.

A bit of a slow burn for a plot that is not hard to figure out but well written and the characters are fleshed out well. I would have liked more back story on the family and the forces in the town. It almost felt like "why are they doing this again?" Seemed to gain very little but I read this fairly fast and give it a 3.5. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Books like this are the reason I get freaked out when booking a cabin in the woods kind of holiday.

After inheriting an old cabin deep in the Yukon woods, Ryne and his two friends, Shawn & Noah, travel the cabin on a hunting trip, and end up spiralling into a dark place of isolation and creepy folk-horror.

I'd heard a lot of people comparing The Broken Places to Adam Nevil's The Ritual, and whilst the stories may share similarities, I can say for sure that they are both their own. Each possesses its unique essence, setting them apart in a league of their own. Personally, I found The Broken Places to be extremely unnerving, and enjoyed it much more than The Ritual.

Daigle does an ace job at character development and world-building. The dialect all feels so real, and it really felt as though I were in the room with them.

I'm definitely looking forwards to picking up more by this author!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Broken Places by Blaine Daigle is a horror novel that takes readers on a thrilling journey into the depths of the Yukon wilderness.

Ryne Burdette inherits his family’s old hunting cabin and decides to go on a weekend hunting trip with his two best friends. However, there is something eerie about the woods, particularly as a winter storm approaches. The animals start behaving strangely and the natural laws of the wilderness seem to unravel. Whispers suggest that something is watching them.

As the storm intensifies and darkness envelops the woods, the trio must confront the dark secrets of the Burdette family lineage. The horrifying truth lies in shadowed places that have never been explored.

So I just finished reading The Broken Places by Blaine Daigle, and let me tell you, it was a wild ride! First things first, can we talk about that cover? It’s absolutely perfect. I’m obsessed with it.

Now, here’s the thing. This is Blaine Daigle’s debut horror novel, and I seriously couldn’t believe it. It was mind-blowing. The whole story just oozed this creepy atmosphere that had me on the edge of my seat. And let’s not forget about the setting - remote, bleak, and totally unforgiving. It was like a character in itself; that’s how well it was described.

The writing style was top-notch too. The pacing was spot-on, keeping me hooked from start to finish. And the characters? They were so intriguing and well-developed. I loved getting to know them throughout the book.

If I had one tiny nitpick, it would be that I wished there was a bit more exploration into the backstory of both the town and the Burdette family. But hey, considering this is Blaine Daigle’s first novel, it was still pretty darn impressive.

I seriously can’t wait to see what this author has in store for us next. Keep an eye out for this author because he has got some serious talent!

**ARC Via NetGalley**

Talk about a book full of creepy atmosphere. I was absolutely taken by the story and writing from page one. The Broken Places is a story that will definitely stay with you after you finish reading it.

Ryne Burdette inherits his family's hunting cabin, located in the Yukon wilderness. He has second thoughts. The last year was extremely hard on Ryne, and a weekend with his two best friends is just what he needs. Unfortunately, old forgotten memories start to resurface, and of course, there's the issue of the unsettling wilderness. Not only do they have to worry about the upcoming snowstorm, but the group starts to hear eerie and mysterious voices deep within the forest.

This story will definitely stick around with me for a long time. It is the perfect book to read in summer and in a cold winter's night. You will not be ready for that ending and make sure you never get caught face to face with true evil.

What an incredible debut novel!

As someone who has lived my entire life in a tropical country, one of my ultimate dreams is to see and experience snow. Yet after reading The Broken Places by Blaine Daigle, I fear that I may have developed an irrational fear of snow or wintry weather. The setting of an isolated, small town in the middle of the winter made the story believably creepy. As if that was not chilling enough, Daigle added random stares from the townspeople and strange behaviors from the wild animals.

Through his lyrical writing, Daigle created characters with such depth and complexity; they felt like real human beings. Ryne Burdette and his two friends have gone through life-altering events in their life. How they tried to cope with grief, loss, and trauma were also well-depicted in the story. I found myself empathizing with them and hoped that they would overcome the horrible ordeal they faced.

The story started slow, but when the feeling of dread set in, it was relentless until the very end. I’m at a loss for a better word to describe the ending, but it sure did break my heart a little bit more.

I highly recommend this book!

Thank you Netgalley and Wicked House Publishing for the ARC.

An engaging fusion of supernatural horror and raw human emotion. While the narrative occasionally stumbles in its pacing, the book skillfully uses its isolated Yukon setting to build a sense of creeping dread, punctuated by eerie phenomena and whispers in the wilderness. Despite its chilling premise, Daigle's exploration of secrets and personal healing provides a potent undercurrent to the haunting tale, making it an intriguing read for those unafraid to delve into the shadowy corners of human experience.

Ryne has inherited a family cabin in the Yukon where he has memories of his childhood. Ryne takes his lifelong friends Noah and Shawn with him for a hunting trip, but the timing isn't great with the winter solstice and an impending winter storm. All three are reeling/processing their own grief, loss, and trauma as they go on this trip together.

There are alternating POVs and nonlinear timelines. The storyline starts off eerie and becomes more dire as the winter storm rages on and reality becomes more unhinged for the characters.

The pacing in the beginning of the book felt a little sluggish while Daigle set the atmosphere and character development, although both were done very well. Ryne, Noah, and Shawn were all likeable and I was rooting for them. The second half was faster paced, great visualizations and overall I loved this story.

Horror tropes you will find in this novel: an isolated place, nightmares that may have been real, splitting up, inclement weather, alone in the dark, feeling of being watched, "I'll be right back"

First a thank you to NetGalley and wicked house publishing for giving me an early copy of the book to read.

This book kept me guessing up until the end, not knowing what was going on, struggling to come up with theories and I love that in a book.

The relationship between the three men at the heart of story was really beautiful and not really something I’ve read about before, each character felt unique and yet I could feel the shared history.

The setting was wild and creepy from the beginning, all the side characters added to its very off atmosphere. And though certain aspect felt similar to other stories it’s twists and turns made it very unique.

The writing was well done, the dialogue felt natural and the descriptions were great balancing between painting a picture and the other over done description I find in some other books.

A great book overall, with a compelling narrative and an exciting mystery, mixed with dread and terror in a perfect way. A book I didn’t want to put down and couldn’t wait to pick up.

This title is atmospheric and creepy. The victorian-esk language adds to the Gothic feel.
Mid-paced, intriguing from the first page and with interesting MC's, this title is perfect for you if you are looking for a atmospheric thriller.