The Hill in the Dark Grove: A Novel

by Liam Higginson

Carwyn and Rhian – the last in a long family line of sheep farmers – are living out a brutal year in their hillside farm, deep in the mountains of Eryri, North Wales.

When Carwyn stumbles across a stone circle and some sort of burial mound in one of the fields on their land, he quickly develops an obsession. His wife, Rhian, meanwhile, is confronted with the growing realization that the man with whom she shares her life and home is slowly becoming a frightening stranger.

As the harsh mountain winter closes in, Rhian finds herself alone with her increasingly peculiar husband, the mountains and the looming megalithic stones . . .

Exquisitely written and impossible to put down, The Hill in the Dark Grove is a gorgeous story embedded in Welsh folklore. It is about love, growing old, a lost way of life and the lengths we go to to protect what we know.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Folklore, Thriller, Adult, Mystery Thriller

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 8, 2026

Reviews

[Claire Fuller]

Literary horror, dark and creepy (with little or no body horror) is just my thing, and Liam Higginson delivers. Carwyn and Rhian are Welsh sheep farmers living in a small isolated community. When Carwyn comes across two lost hikers he subsequently discovers a prehistoric mound in an old patch of woodland and excavates a carved stone head. The mound begins to obsess him and Carwyn begins to neglect the farm and his sheep until Rhian realises that something about him has changed. I was a sent a proof and then a gorgeous hard copy. This is my quote:
"A slow-burning, reeking creep of a novel about eerie ancient places and dangerous interlopers. I loved it.'
I'll be interviewing Liam at a book festival later in the year.

[Ruth Brookes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some stories are waiting to be told. Unearthed from the land. ‘The Hill in the Dark Grove’ unfolds like something ancient and forgotten. Its bones lying dormant in the shadow of vast mountains and open skies. Born from the Welsh landscape, thrumming with history and echos of the past. A land of Cymraeg, drenched in song and story, legend and superstitions.

On a remote North Wales hillside, within sight of Yr Wyddfa is the Gwynnant farm, sheep roaming its craggy fields, tended by Carwyn and his wife Rhian. An older couple, farming in their blood. Their lives a continuation of heritage going back hundreds of years. It is hard work. Humbling. And they are the end of the line. A generational full stop. There is no one to continue the work, no children to take stewardship of the land. No-one to remember them.

Late one night, two walkers get lost on their land. Crossing the neglected lower pasture, unused and overgrown, Carwyn discovers something buried. An old figurehead, granite, ancient worn and imposing. And beneath that, a megalithic stone circle. But it isn’t all he has unearthed.

A quiet, uneasy tale of mounting dread. Of man, landscape, herd and home, haunted by a mystery. A myth. A prehistoric Celtic horror, buried and unremembered. Perhaps it should stay that way.

It’s also a love story, of two people bound inexorably to the land and each other. Battling with the elements, fighting to preserve a way of life, growing old together and discovering the lengths they will go to in order to protect everything they know and love.

It truly is exquisite writing. Brooding, lyrical, haunting and utterly enthralling, Liam Higginson’s debut is quite astonishing. It crawled beneath my skin, took up space and I didn’t dare look away.

Listen, just read it.

“Cofiwch, people say - remember - but remembering is a forgotten art.”

[Livvy Cropper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is an exceptional debut and I will be eagerly waiting for more of Liam Higginson's exquisite writing.

The Hill in the Dark Grove is a gothic folk horror, set in rural North Wales and packed with layers upon layers of Welsh mythology, history and tradition. Anyone who loves Wales will find lots to get lost in here. But it's not all cwtches and cariad, because there's something out there just waiting to crawl under your skin.

Whilst still fiercely original, I found echoes of various influences from Bronte's Wuthering Heights to King's The Shining. The ability to draw on so many literary giants and still come out with what I think is likely to be the most memorable book I've read this year is no mean feat.

There is masterful building of tension and suspense throughout, making it gripping and unputdownable. The pace is fairly slow, with frequent reflections and reminisences that flesh out the characterisation of the two main characters, but that added a lot more to the story than simply packing in more contemporary "plot points", and led to a strong focus on their isolation and corruption. This is all set against the changing landscape - both within a year and over many years. (The cyclical 12 chapters, and backwards-moving historical vignettes at the head of each chapter, reinforce this very well.) Something that positively shines through the often dark and dreary imagery is the imperfect but strong and lifelong love between Carwyn and Rhian, who I deeply cared about right off the bat. The ending isn't what I expected (or necessarily hoped for), but it is tonally fitting and satisfying in its ambiguity.

One of my only major complaints is that this is the kind of book I have always dreamed of writing (right down to featuring a creepy sheep farm, chilly Welsh coast and ancient church), so I am jealous that this is a far better execution than I could ever achieve!

I definitely see myself reading this one again, and have already started recommending it to friends with a penchant for folk horror. Certainly one of my top reads this year.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This debut novel is described as 'Welsh Folk Horror', but actually it reminded me more of novels such as Seascraper, The Colony by Audrey Magee and Clear by Carys Davies about a disappearing way of life. It follows a couple of old sheep farmers, Carwyn and Rhian, facing a series of hardships and becoming increasingly isolated. But when mysterious historical objects are being discovered on their land a possible improvement may be in sight.

The book does have its fair share of Welsh mythology as well as strange dreams, especially towards the end (and it's not really my thing), but by then I was already fully absorbed in the story of the couple, one of who is clearly losing their grip on reality...but who?

Highly recommended, and I am pencilling it down for a possible Booker longlisting this summer.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very well-written and I can see why people love it. You'll probably love it! Go ahead and read it! But while I liked it, I did not, alas, love it.

The plot surrounds a couple of 60-something Welsh farmers, Carwyn and Rhian. They live a challenging but lovely life together running the farm...until Carwyn digs up some weird, ancient artefacts in one of their fields and starts becoming obsessed by their origin.

I found it a bit slow-going and just so...bleak. Both in terms of the well-drawn grimness of the North Wales winters and the direction the plot was travelling in (it's fairly apparent where this one is gong from early on).

The supernatural side was all kind of hinty and vague - shadows glimpsed, strange noises, movement in peripheral vision, etc. There was definitely an ominous feel to the book but I'm possibly a less subtle individual and prefer actual monsters to appear in plain view and run amok. :-)

What I actually did love about the book were the sections outlining how Carwyn and Rhian got together. These are touching and beautifully written. In fact pretty much all of the non-scary stuff was excellent, I just wasn't feeling the supernatural parts.

I'll definitely keep an eye on Liam Higginson as there was a lot of talent on display here.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is it peeps. This is quite possibly the most unsettling book I have read this year. The fact that this is a debut novel is impressive. It is a well written, tension filled, haunting tale.
The setting for The Hill in the Dark Grove is North Wales, an area of natural beauty that is steeped in folklore, and many of those stories, such as the tale of Gelert, form part of the narrative of the novel. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
The main protagonists are Carwyn and Rhian, who breed sheep on their isolated farm, which has been in Carwyn's family for generations. There is one area of the farm that Carwyn has never set foot on, until now. Suddenly, strange things start to happen, and people begin to disappear 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
The pace of the story is slow, but as the unease builds, the pages almost thrum with tension. The changes in Carwyn are unsettling, and Rhian's dread is almost contagious. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
This won't be for everyone, but if you love folk horror and/or Welsh myths and legends, as I do, you will definitely want to read this gem. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
Thanks to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for the digital ARC.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brooding, moody and quietly unsettling. Just what you want in a folk horror.

The Hill in the Dark Grove is a story of love, loyalty and survival, with obsession and sinister dealings thrown into the mix to craft out a menacing tale. The haunting descriptions of the way of life in rural Wales and the relationship dynamics between the main characters were at once achingly beautiful and fraught with tension. Full of foreboding, brutal landscapes and ominous folklore, this was an edgy, gritty and raw look on the unrelenting passage of time.  There is a sprinkle of cosiness here and there but a cloying one that only made the story all the more threatening.

This was a quiet one, one I took a while to settle into but it crept up on me until I was in thrall and found myself in its tight grip.

[Justin Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the start of this book I wasn't sure whether I was going to manage to engage with it.

However I was glad that I continued to read on, as it started to grow on me like the sense of unease and menace that was always present throughout.

I couldn't help but get sucked in to the characters story, and having the weather as almost its own character provided a general sense of foreboding. It's worth mentioning that this book feels like it should be read during wintery months due to its setting.

I've seen some reviews that indicate this is a horror, but if you don't enjoy horror but don't mind something a bit darker than your average tale,then you may enjoy this one.

Hard to believe this is a debut by this author as it feels very accomplished, so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

[Dave Musson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly excellent bit of folk horror that’ll have you yearning for a trip to North Wales before quickly revising those plans.

The writing in this novel is stupendously good. It doesn’t rush, but takes its time to paint a beautiful but vicious landscape against which to set this story. Just as our main characters have lived on the mountain for decades, so do we become embedded in that unforgiving nature.

This book lives and dies on the lead pairing of Rhian and Carwyn, the old, loveable and haunted couple battling to make ends meet and keep their farm ticking along. You feel invested in them from the start and care deeply for them throughout. Through memories and flashbacks you learn of their courting, of their love for each other, and of their hardships. As the story goes on and their relationship changes, all of that emotion you’ve invested in them makes it all the more harrowing to read.

There is plenty of folklore to be found here too, unearthing evocative and unnerving tales from that ancient land the same way Carwyn digs treasures from it. It all adds to the world-building, and I really appreciated how unashamedly Welsh it is - it has everything: the mountains, the weather, the disdain at English folk buying up houses for holiday homes, and the swathes of traditional stories, including a chilling sequence about the Mari Lwyd tradition…this book has rarebit, dragons and rugby union running through its veins.

And so to the horror, which is subtle at first, ambiguous throughout, and thoroughly compelling by the end, when it leans fully into The Shining-ness of it all. Yet perhaps some of the most haunting moments are connected to farm life: the opening of a terrible lambing in awful weather, or the grisly death of a sheep covered in maggots, or the horror of the livestock auction…these are told with such blunt language compared to that used to describe the landscape that they are all the more shocking scenes. Oh, and a sequence where Rhian wants to cook some eggs taken from their own chickens and each one becomes more and more horrific, a manifestation of the rot that has gripped their farm, was truly nasty.

Throughout this book, I became more and more unsettled by Carwyn, as he became more and more obsessed with the stone head he pulled from the ground. It gives the tale a sort of possession element that I really enjoyed, as well as evoking parts of The Tommyknockers…but in a good way!

Most of all, though, it’s a story about legacy, about making your mark and of the fear of being forgotten. Our couple has no children, and the grief at having no-one to pass your life onto runs throughout this book, and feeds into their desperation the longer it goes on. It adds a slice of haunted, Gothic sadness to this novel that really works.

This one is, without doubt, a slowburn. But that build over the first two thirds of the book makes the disturbing and sad ending all the more effective. If this isn't among my favourite releases of 2026 come the end of it I’ll be very surprised. A fantastic debut and one that will sit with me for a while.

Huge thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy!

[ThatBookish_deviant · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5

“a pet was borrowed happiness that someday had to be repaid in grief.”

‘The Hill in the Dark Grove’ is the debut novel from Welsh writer, Liam Higginson. With its slowly unfurling sense of dread, the natural landscape becomes a sinister and foreboding main character. Fans of folk horror will certainly appreciate Higginson’s beautiful prose and storytelling. At just 290 pages, this was a quick read. The momentum and suspense really picks up from page 183 onward, I couldn’t stop reading.

“Beyond, the night was lingering. How curious it was, she thought, that some nights - for no reason you could put your finger on - something about the darkness made your hackles rise. Broomstick nights, her granny used to call them.”

Most similar comps: If you’ve read and enjoyed Andrew Michael Hurley’s ‘The Loney’ and/or Kate Worsley’s ‘Foxash’, consider adding ‘The Hill in the Dark Grove’ to your TBR.

“He wondered how much kinder all humanity would be if any day the rich and powerful might find themselves the lowest of the low, and those they used to trample suddenly in charge.”

“Hindsight was just a multiplier of regrets.”

“They waited in the clearing in the moonlight, solemn as a parliament of owls. She did not know why they assembled here and neither, she supposed, did they. Tradition, its roots lost to time, continuing to draw them here the way that ghosts might haunt a house long fallen into ruin.”

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just like a horror steeped in folklore should be. Set in the rural Welsh countryside, we follow an old couple fighting to make a living as sheep farmers when the world wants to move forward, and something in the ground wants them to join it…

It’s eerie and atmospheric and it was absolutely perfect to read on snowy and wintry January nights. It’s not the most scary, it’s more the uncertainty and the unknown. And a feeling.

This is the first novel I’ve ever read from Wales and I loved learning more about Welsh history, mythology and sense of self.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Picador for an advance copy of this book.

I found ‘The Hill in the Dark Grove’ a little slow starting - it is, after all, a story of a man digging a little decorative head out from the undergrowth. But this book has thorns, and they hook you in. What starts as a curiosity project soon occupies every waking moment of Carwyn’s life and as his obsession grows, so too do the strange happenings on the farm.

Written from a dual perspective, I appreciated the inclusion of Rhian’s point of view. While other books may have focused solely on Carwyn’s discovery and unravelling, Higginson’s highlights the *impact* of this behaviour too. He exposes the “invisible” labour of women in these stories, and how average people can be torn apart by something quite mundane. While this is rooted in folklore, it’s the human element which makes this book so unsettling.

Altogether, a wholly disquieting reflection on aging and isolation through the lens of family politics, folklore, and obsession. What an accomplished debut! Higginson is certainly one to watch.

[Marta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I genuinely admit I absolutely loved this book for many different reasons. For a long time I've been on the hunt for an atmospheric novel which takes place in a rural community in Wales and which also has got some ancient magic in it. When The Hill in the Dark Grove turned up on Amazon, I thought - this is it! This is the book I'm after. I got excited about reading it and admittedly Liam Higginson did not disappoint.

I've given this book the highest amount of stars (And I don't do it very often) because it has ticked off all my novel requirement boxes.

-action taking place in Wales - tick!
-close-knit communities - tick!
-ancient forces at play - tick!
-prehistoric stones - tick!
-sinister, unsettling atmosphere, dark undertones - tick!
-folk horror features - tick!
-rugged landscape, snow, wind, rain- tick!
-bleak, gritty, edgy, visceral - tick!
-protagonists with secrets and traumas from the past - tick!
-solitude, loneliness, nostalgia - tick!
-folklore and myths - tick!
-lino cut cover - tick!

Oh how I loved those Welsh lambs and little Eira- a hard working sheep dog and the lifetime long relationship Rhian and Carwyn had. Knowing that they were the generational full stops filled me with sadness and nostalgia. The Gwynnant farm generations coming to an end with no one to continue so I deemed the ending of the novel the most befitting. It felt to me like a life circle has closed up. Kind of.

The short historical vignettes sprinkled throughout the book and going backwards in time was another thing I loved in the book. Taking us deeper and deeper down the historic timelime, to the very core. To the beginning of it all.

What else? This book is bursting with Welshness and teeming with deeply rooted Welsh folklore and myths. It has tested my knowledge of Wales and my (mostly primary school) Welsh after 19 years of living in Cymru. But what is important is the fact that I've learnt something new from it as well as I was researching some facts alongside reading. I was able to relate to some places (Ffestiniog, Snowdonia), customs (Mari Lwyd) and concepts (Cynefin) from this book so in a way it felt a bit personal and familar.
I would highly recommend it to someone who is trying to understand and embrace the Welsh culture and customs.

I will definitely be keeping my eye on this promising author and see what he will write next!

[Missy (myweereads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If we don't leave our mark, we'll be forgotten."

Liam Higginson's novel is about Carwyn and Rhian, deep in the mountains of Eryri, North Wales, they are the last in a long line of sheep farmers living out a brutal year on their hillside farm. When Carwyn discovers a buried prehistoric ruin in one of the fields on their land, his curiosity quickly becomes obsession. His wife, Rhian, meanwhile, is confronted with the growing realisation that her husband is becoming a frightening stranger.

This story gave a tender insight into the lives of this couple. Those moments of peace are however quickly disturbed by the supernatural horrors that will plague them.

It was a slow burn and you could feel the tension when Carwyn began to display signs of not being himself. These parts were unsettling for Rhian. The suspense was palpable, the bond of this couple is tested and it shows as the story progresses.

I did like this story, the folk horror aspects with the shift between this couple was interesting and creepy.

[Ben Dutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liam Higginson's debut novel The Hill in the Dark Grove is set in the mountains of North Wales, where sheep farmers Carwyn and Rhian are trying to survive a brutal year on their hillside farm when Carwyn discovers something ancient on his land. This unsettling, haunting novel - both an elegy to a way of life coming to an end in the face of modernity and to old age - is beautifully rendered by Higginson. You can taste the mountain air, can feel the grit in the characters, both of whom are crafted well on the page. I know this landscape of North Wales very well - living there as Higginson does - and he has captured the beauty and mystery of the magnificence of Eryri. The sense of dread escalates as the novel progresses and Higginson maintains a tight grip on his reader, and this Welsh folk-horror novel really got under my skin by its end. I finished the novel in one sitting, fully enraptured with this tale.

This is a very fine debut and I'm very keen to see what he does next. Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe this is Hiiginson's debut - it is masterful. Welsh-oriented novels published by mainstream publishers (beyond Wales) are still a rarity, and this shows that they should absolutely not be! I would describe this as Welsh folk-horror, and it was genuinely chilling, as well as informative - no sheepish stereotypes here, but plenty on the rich history of North Wales and its myths. The set-piece with the Mari Lwyd, 'a grisly hobbyhorse', will endure in my memory for a long time - not least because my own mamgu (the Southern equivalent to Higginson's Nain in North Welsh dialect), was in charge of boiling down the horse's skull for this ceremony within very recent family history. The book reminded me of Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills (which I also rated highly) in its subject matter, but it goes further, deeper, darker than that. I took so many notes, and I'm now digging down a Wicipedia (Welsh Wiki!) rabbit hole...

[Syndrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d say that this is one of those stories where the horror lies more in the unseen than the seen.

There’s no obvious boogeyman character to fear here, just an ever-growing sense of unease that permeates through the pages as you watch one man devolve from a kind and friendly soul into a man caught in the throes of obsession over a prehistoric ruin. This is not a story of axe murderers, it’s a story about how an even bigger horror is watching a loved one transform into somebody you no longer recognize.

I would not have guessed this was a debut novel if I didn’t already know it was before picking it up! The writing is wonderfully atmospheric and Higginson did a fantastic job at setting the scene — the story told here perfectly fits into the backdrop of an isolated sheep farm deep in the Welsh mountains. Carwyn and Rhian were also both well-developed characters that truly felt like real people. In-between the creepy stuff happening in the present day, the novel intermingles flashbacks of their story from their first meeting up through married life that really helps readers get to know each of them properly — which makes the main story hit that much harder. And although I would say this story is a little slow-paced, I’m also saying it as a compliment. Everything is given just enough time for the plot to fully develop and for all that tension to really build up to a proper climax at the end. There’s also some folklore elements that really add some extra intrigue to the story and really help flesh everything out just a bit more (if you aren’t already familiar with the Mari Lwyd, you’re about to learn).

So if you like folk horror, and don’t mind a bit of a slow burn, then I highly recommend picking this one up! (And I’ll most definitely be putting Liam Higginson on my list of authors to keep an eye out for going forward.)

[Aoife Cassidy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate January. It's dark, it's cold, it's gloomy, it's long - oppressively long! All the more reason to lean into winter reads and hibernation. And so I picked up this literary thriller by Liam Higginson, having been invited to read it on Netgalley by the publisher Picador Books.

Carwyn and Rhian come from a long line of sheep farmers in Wales. They met as teenagers and have eked out a happy but simple life on their farm over years. As they age, things grow increasingly difficult - their mobility is impaired, the extreme winter weather hampers their ability to run their isolated farm, and it's becoming ever harder to survive economically through the harsh Welsh winters. On top of this, when Carwyn has become consumed with some ancient buried relics he uncovers on their farmland, Rhian begins to see the husband she knew fade before her eyes.

This was a tough read with very little light in it to counter the darkness. I hung in there, hoping for some relief but the heavy story built steadily to a dramatic Shakespearean ending. I think lots will enjoy this as very well-written litfic with some Welsh mythology knitted into it- it may even appear on a few prize lists - but the story did little for me and my winter mood. It reminded me a little of Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (a masculine tale that doesn't shy away from visceral descriptions and dark themes). While the story was not a favourite for me, the writing is undeniably excellent. 3/5 stars

*Many thanks to the publisher Picador Books for the invitation to read The Hill in the Dark Grove on Netgalley. It was published earlier this month (January 2026). As always, this is an honest review.

[Zuky the BookBum]

a really fabulous debut of creeping, ancient horror. it's a slow burn but it's very much worth it. it's a story with so much heart alongside it's horror. I really grew to love the characters and their relationship, which makes the descent this book takes all the harder to read. hope we get more from this author!

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most unsettling, dread-filled ache of a novel. You can feel the Welsh folklore permeate through it's pages and nestle deep in your bones.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unsettling story - a slow burn read that moves inexorably towards its inevitable conclusion. I enjoyed it!

[Wenz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book that I've read in the last few years. If I could give more stars then I would.
Beautifully written, atmospheric and deeply unsettling.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the opening pages this book sets the mood - eerie, ominous and isolated. A lot of the shape the plot takes is somewhat signposted throughout, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to journey through.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the free review copy!

The Hill in the Dark Grove is a strong start to my reading year, not only taking a five-star rating but establishing itself as a contender for My Favourite Book of the Year (yes, I know it's not even been ten days). This book is a masterful tour de force in slow, creeping horror, the kind that sneaks up behind you and then stabs you in the back with a hell of a finale. This is unsettling, psychological gothic horror, so steeped in its sense of place that I could at times hear the characters' Welsh accents coming to life in my head as I read their dialogue. If there is to be such a thing as North Wales Gothic, Higginson has mastered it.

What gripped me from the very beginning was the poetic, soaring way Higginson uses language. He already seems a master at his craft, and it's hard to believe this is only his debut novel. The language manages to be poetic and descriptive, painting word pictures without ever edging into overblown or purple prose. It's the exact kind of prose that gives you a perfect picture or feeling, that makes almost every sentence a joy to read, but which stops exactly where it needs to.

Of course, the skill employed in the language only gives more weight and depth to its setting. The setting in the North Wales mountains is the beating heart of this book, both in the sense of the characters' individual lives and the horrific thing that haunts them. The Hill in the Dark Grove is steeped in Welshness, and it's not afraid to revel in the deep joys of that while also exposing its aching pains. It's a novel about what we leave behind and how much we should care about it, as well as about how places shape us and how times change. It's a very smart novel in many ways, railing justifiably against the changes taking place in the country while acknowledging that they are just more in the series of changes that have swept the land, and how railing against them didn't change anything then. It raises many uneasy questions about the places we live, the culture we have, and how we treat others' cultures, and, crucially, lets you figure out your own answers. There's such depth to the Wales Higginson presents, a sense of layers of time and people caked over each other so deeply, of standing in the places your ancestors stood. He begins each chapter with a brief flashback to how the Grove was used or what happened nearby in earlier centuries, which I think can often be a strategy that risks boring the reader, but Higginson pulls it off perfectly. He creates intriguing little snippets of character, place, and action without ever lingering long enough to make the reader feel dragged away from the main story.

The Hill in the Dark Grove is definitely not for you if you like lots of action sequences, loud and obvious horror, or monsters in the night. This is a creeping, insidious type of horror; in fact, up until the end, you could make a strong argument that there was no 'presence' of any kind on the mountain, and everything that happened was the product of Carwyn's slow sink into despair and derangement. Higginson builds the horror up perfectly, piece by small piece, slowly chalking up the unsettling occurrences until it becomes clear something is Very Wrong - but of course, in the way of all the best horror stories, it's already too late to fix it.

I was particularly impressed by the finale - it's always hard to handle the transition from creeping horror to all-out strangeness, but Higginson does so in a totally believable yet totally terrifying way. Rhian's final walk through the fields, where ghosts of the past seem to haunt her with every step, was the perfect way to encapsulate the book's themes and call back to the opening of each chapter. And while the resolution was sad in its own way, it had that undeniable, perfect quality of being, in hindsight, the only way the characters could have ended up.

[Milly Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent slow burn of a debut novel that creeps up on you. Set in North Wales, the author paints a landscape that is in turns beautiful, brutal, mysterious and brimming with folk horror. Our main characters are Rhian and her husband Carwyn who are both in their 60s. They have livedin their farm on the mountain for many years and you see their struggle to keep the farm going in this unfriendly landscape as the bailiffs threaten. There are flashbacks throughout the novel as well as vignettes about the land at the start of each chapter that go backwards in time. In the flashback you get to know this couple and become attached to them. You see their first meeting, their courtship and their married life as they cope with all the curveballs that nature and the landscape throws at them. You also see the anti-English feeling of that time when they were younger when the burning of second homes bought by the English as holiday homes was prevalent. You also see the folk lore of the area and the traditions, the grey mare that terrified the young Rhian. So you get to know this couple who are in the winter of their lives as you start to see the horror that is threatening. The beginning describes a terrible lambing during horrendous weather with sheep caught in drifts and so the ‘bad luck’ continues. Be warned, ther are some grisly images. Then Carwym comes upon a stone head half buried and this becomes his obsession almost as he wants to find if there is anything else. He digs and digs and digs and Rhian finds that she no longer recognises the man she fell in love with. There is also a supernatural element in here with the myths and legends that coat the Welsh landscape and at times there is an unsettling tension with the pages. At the heart of this, I think, is Carwyn’s desire to be remembered, to have some sort of legacy. He is almost grief stricken that he has no one to pass his life, his memories onto. You become attached to this couple and you live their hardships with them and the ending is sad and that’s all I’m saying. Rounded up to a 5*

[Georgina Reads_Eats_Explores]

This is a bleak, cerebral novel that settles in your chest and refuses to shift. Just under 300 pages, yet it feels longer, through the sheer weight of atmosphere. The slow burn is deliberate, oppressive, and ultimately unforgiving.

Carwyn and Rhian are the last of a long line of sheep farmers, eking out a hard, narrowing life on an isolated Welsh mountainside. Their marriage reads as functional rather than romantic, a partnership born of necessity and endurance. When Carwyn uncovers a prehistoric carved stone buried in their land, curiosity tips into fixation, and Rhian begins to watch her husband slip into someone frighteningly unfamiliar.

The horror here is both seen and unseen. There is a constant, looming dread, but there are also moments of explicit, graphic animal cruelty that land hard on the page. These scenes are not gratuitous, but they are confronting, and the combination of what is shown and what is merely implied makes the reading experience genuinely unsettling. This is not cosy folk horror, it’s raw, visceral, and often deeply uncomfortable.

Welsh folklore and myth pulse beneath the narrative, with each chapter opening on a fragment from the mountain’s past. These glimpses across time initially disorient, but soon reinforce the sense that this land remembers everything. Time is fluid here, and the mountain feels vast, ancient, and utterly indifferent to human suffering.

As winter closes in, isolation tightens its grip. Carwyn’s obsession deepens, Rhian’s world shrinks, and the novel moves with grim inevitability towards an ending that is ambiguous, frustrating, and entirely earned. The dread builds quietly but relentlessly, until you can feel where it’s heading long before it arrives.

This is stark, beautiful, and punishing. A novel about land, legacy, folklore, and the violence that seeps through old stories. I admired the craft enormously, even when the darkness overwhelmed me. Readers of literary folk horror will find a lot to admire here — just don’t go in unprepared.

[Silver Star · Rating 5 out of 5]

“To be Cymraeg meant carrying the embers of a dying torch”

This is a haunting gothic tale set in the windswept mountains of North Wales.

Carwyn and Rhian are getting older and still living and working on their isolated farm beneath the mountains. When Carwyn discovers ancient stones and monuments beneath the fields one day, it sets off an obsession to uncover them. His wife Rhian starts noticing his change in behaviour as strange things happen around the farm and he neglects his life long work with the sheep. The tale is told from both perspectives and interspersed with snippets of short stories from people who lived on the land before, going further and further back in time as the story progresses. It had a creeping, atmospheric tone with gorgeous descriptions of the land.

What an incredible book this is. Part folk horror, part literary fiction and also a wonderful collection of the layers of time that make up the history of Wales. The deep introspection into the cycle of life, the legacies we leave upon the land and how the past shapes us was done masterfully. Such lyrical and gorgeous prose weaved with beautiful snippets of Welsh history and folk lore. I loved the ending too & felt it perfectly matched the tone of horror in the story.

All the stars.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

[Chris MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Hill in the Dark Grove
Liam Higginson

The dark days of winter are the perfect time to pick up Liam’s debut, The Hill in the Dark Grove. I’m not normally a fan of horror - jump scares on screen make me levitate - but thankfully the creep of a chilling scene unfolding across the page still unnerves but, at least for myself, does not manifest in such whole-body movements.

The tale takes place in a Welsh sheep farm deep in the valleys, and follows a married pair of farmers who have found themselves to be some of the remaining few that still follow their traditional ways, as scale and generational shift has hollowed out the hills, replacing their hill-bound peers with holiday lets most often empty. Thus, we find ourselves slipping back in time, while the world moves ahead, and get wrapped up into the hard-graft world eked out on the edge of the lands, where the hard hills are blown raw by even harder winds.

In this setting, one of our protagonists, stumbles upon a stone bust half-buried in the woods, which form the beginnings of something altogether bigger, darker and all consuming. What else is man with nothing but monotony and the mute daily companionship of his flock to do but dig further.

When we dig into the past, our own or that of unknown others, there are always secrets to be found. For want of reason, we often dig too deep, when the past is often best left as it lies.

And when we slip into the darkness, who is there to pull us back when all around us have left for a better life?

A devilish debut, with a rich world painted against the rough wilds of Northern Wales.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but I didn't love it. While I did like the characters, I felt like entirely too much time was spent in the past recounting their history. I would have liked more focus on the present, which I found to be the most interesting.

This really was a very slow burn novel and sadly I don’t think the build up paid off. The ending was okay, but I would have liked a bit more closure and understanding. It was all a bit too vague for me and it was lacking in horror elements.

Thank you NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Stephen Robert Kuta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible creepy debut novel, one I enjoyed very much, Liam's writing has a James Herbert flair to it; in fact, there were times when I thought I was reading one of his books, which is a testament to the author.
Well done, Liam, for penning something so profoundly dark and mysterious.

The Hill in the Dark Grove is a book that seems to echo through the ages, A novel that pulls folklore and the unknown directly into the hands of the reader. Of a hidden darkness as old as the first feet that walked those frigid snow-swept Welsh Craigs.