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Synopsis:
From Bram Stoker Award–winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a chilling novel about three childhood friends who miraculously survive the night everyone in their suburban neighborhood turned into ghosts—perfect for fans of Yellowjackets.
The Velkwood Vicinity was the topic of occult theorists, tabloid one-hour documentaries, and even some pseudo-scientific investigations as the block of homes disappeared behind a near-impenetrable veil that only three survivors could enter—and only one has in the past twenty years, until now.
Talitha Velkwood has avoided anything to do with the tragedy that took her mother and eight-year-old sister, drifting from one job to another, never settling anywhere or with anyone, feeling as trapped by her past as if she was still there in the small town she so desperately wanted to escape from. When a new researcher tracks her down and offers to pay her to come back to enter the vicinity, Talitha claims she’s just doing it for the money. Of all the crackpot theories over the years, no one has discovered what happened the night Talitha, her estranged, former best friend Brett, and Grace, escaped their homes twenty years ago. Will she finally get the answers she’s been looking for all these years, or is this just another dead end?
Award-winning author Gwendolyn Kiste has created a suburban ghost story about a small town that trapped three young women who must confront the past if they’re going to have a future.
Review:
The Haunting of Velkwood starts with a street that is haunted, with researchers trying to figure out why nobody can cross onto the block from the end of the street, and those that have feel sick. They have spent twenty years trying to learn more about the eight houses and the ghosts that still live in this impenetrable area and what events led up to the entire street being filled quarantined and with ghosts. The researchers have also tried for years to get one of the three survivors who escaped the street right before it turned into a ghost to go back into the haunted street for research purposes. Grace went back a few years earlier and has not been the same since. Brett has told the researchers there was no way she is going back. This leaves Talitha as their only option. Talitha has been drifting between dead end jobs and dead end boyfriends, not really doing much with her life but running from her past at Velkwood. When a researcher proposes money and the chance of saving her eight-year-old sister Sophie, who has been trapped in the area, she reluctantly agrees.
Gwendolyn Kiste has appeared on a few podcasts in promotion of this novel (This is Horror and Dead Headspace are the ones I have listened to), and she has repeated on both that she was half way through writing the novel when she realized she was writing a novel about her history of struggling with her bisexuality. Kiste has feelings from her teenage years that are explored through the relationship of Talitha and Brett, and in the end, the haunting of Velkwood is really a love story, with Talitha and Brett being brought back together and the haunting of the street is about resolving the problems that they were running from as teenagers.
I liked the story and the writing. I thought the premise was interesting, and I did enjoy the Velkwood Vicinity in the beginning with the researchers and the mysteries. It reminded me of the mysteries of The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, Once Talitha started going back to the street, the story shifted focus away from the area and more on the people inside of it. The story is good, but I did not attach to the teenage girls in the love story much. This story was not much for me, but there might be a young person reading and struggling with the same feelings as Talitha. This could be the story to encourage them to follow their heart. We could always use stories like this.
I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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