This book was interesting. I really enjoyed the story overall but it could have been better. I would definitely read something from this author in the future though.

3.5 stars.

I will admit that I was not confident that I would enjoy this journey because of the beginning of the story. I was expecting the story to continue to be prophecies and supernatural and thankfully it didn't continue strictly down that path. However it was fairly enjoyable read and though it took me months to pick it back up (Thanks C19!) I did finish the rest of the book in one read.
Here's what I enjoyed about it:
The mystery of Arwen.
Kaiser.
The exploration of nature and the feelings that the time spent outside gave him. I very thoroughly enjoyed the revelation and descriptions of the outdoors in this book.
The small backstories.
The connection between Lucien and Maura felt real.
The terminology fit perfectly- the phrases and locations were definitely Northern Minnesotan.
The coding references and explanation were well addressed.


Here's what did end up bothering me:

Anyone who suffers migraines knows how unsafe driving would be when you feel one coming on. You literally lose your vision in addition to the numbness and pain. You are putting others at risk more than just yourself.

At times, it seemed very disjointed but then- thoughts aren't always clear.
At times, it seemed very unreasonable- he lost his way quite easily but I think in a vulnerable state it would be easy to surround yourself with people who felt like family.
I didn't like his last interaction with Noah- why wouldn't you explain yourself beyond being "sick" of having to explain things?

I received this as an ARC from netgalley/soho press. This is the first book I’ve read written by Thomas Maltman. This book has great imagination and creativity with some symbolism thrown in for good measure. This novel has convinced me to read Maltman’s other books.

Our main character, Lucien Swenson, has survived a car wreck to find that his married lover has robbed the bank they worked at and vanished. As he recovers, he finds a job as a housesitter with ambitions of completing the video game he is creating as well as discovering what happened to Maura, by attending the church where her husband is pastor prepping his flock for the end of times. Will Lucien find the answers to all his questions before the apocalypse?

I enjoyed the flow of the story. Found the prose to enhance the story as a whole with exception to the migraine attacks. Though they are important to the story, I kept wondering why he waits for the pain to set in prior to taking his meds when sumatriptan users generally take meds immediately when the aura develops.

I think it is just personal opinion and preference, but this book was just lacking something for me. I liked the way it was written and I liked the overall writing, but it just didn't get a full 5-stars for me. I did enjoy the cover art; it really pulled me in and made me want to read this book. Surely, other people did love it and I am very thankful to have read it. Trust me, I really wanted to love this one because the premise sounds great!

After a car wreckage, Lucien starts to suffer from headaches accompanied with visual auras that can be interpreted as apocalyptic prophecies. In this onirical state of mind, he meets a sect of white supremacists. With the secret purpose of finding out more about her lover's disappearance, he infiltrates the group and learn about the radicalized ideas sustained by the sect.
In the process he meets a young woman that may or may not be the ghost of a deceased person that is buried in the grounds of the house that he is sitting. All these with the background of the ending of the millennium and the fears of the Y2K.

I really enjoyed this novel. Some of the images will stay with me for a long time. The prose is flawless and beautiful.
I hope that the book and the author get the attention they deserve.

So this was an interesting read and different then what I normally gravitate too. It sounded super interesting and shows what happens when a lonely and isolated man finds himself believing and enjoying the white supremacist church community that he is infiltrating and while he just joined trying to find Maura woman he had a affair with whose abusive husband was part of the church. All in all a interesting mystery that is set in late 1999 when we didn't know what what gonna happen with Y2k and gives us a glimpse of what that time was like with people believing the world would end by the year 2000.

Thanks to Soho Press and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book in e-book form. All opinions in this review are my own.

The Land is an entertaining mix of genres. Call it a "neo-noir psychological thriller with religious and apocalyptic overtones." The protagonist has migraines as well as visions, His dreams are filled with dread and he also experiences apocalyptic real-life nightmares, like a sky full of ravens turning on one another and attacking one another for no reason. The real and the fever dream blend in a single scene. A girl shows up who may be who she says she is, or she may be a ghost. A religious death cult in the woods might know where the mysterious "Maura" is, or they might not. I loved the uncertain, unreliable "what is real?" quality of the narration.

Maltman writes in a straightforward style, and yet a lot of the story isn't straightforward at all. I enjoyed reading the novel quite a bit, and was only slightly let down by the ending, which was still very good, but where Maltman, I think, felt a need to resolve all of the novel's mysteries. Personally I would have been very happy to have those mysteries all left hanging in the end, left for me to decide just how much of the story was a lonely man's fever dream of grief and confusion, and how much was 'real.' But then again, an open-ended and ambiguous ending might have satisfied me, but would disappoint readers who prefer their mysteries solved in the end.

One thing I admired very much here was the realism of the religious language, in sermons and conversations that take place in this novel. The rhythms of religious feeling in the novel are satisfying, where it feels like Maltman has a lifelong familiarity with religious faith. The religious community at the heart of this novel happens to be a scary apocalyptic survivalist group living out in the wilderness, but Maltman takes the time to develop their faith on the page, for instance, early in the novel the protagonist listens to a sermon, and as I read the words of this sermon I felt like it had been written by an author who understands the compelling power of faith, and who understands how faith can persuade believers to follow bad people.

THE LAND is an exploration of how young people can become radicalized into the white supremacist movement, despite their initial beliefs that such ideology is wrong. the story follows Lucien, a young man recovering from a bad car accident that has left him with a limp and appalling migraines. Lucien is trying to find Maura, the women with whom he was having an affair, whose abusive husband was a member of the movement. But Lucien is lonely, and isolated, and actually begins to welcome the warmth and comradery he find with others in the movement. Tension builds as Lucien begins to fear that his true identity will be revealed. Set in the last months of 1999, in the shadow of Y2K, THE LAND gives a snapshot of a time and place that is still, and perhaps more relevant today.

I love, love loved The Land. Growing up in Northern Minnesota, I really enjoyed the writing and I felt like it was very accurate as well. I was so thrilled by Lucien's story and I couldn't put it down. I ended up finishing the book in just a couple days which is always a good sign for me. I am so excited for this book to come out in October!