What do you think?
The Unheld: A Novel
Startling monsters and occult oddities abound in this chilling horror Western as a girl journeys across the haunted Montana Territory to rescue her father from an otherworldly creature.
Charlie’s life is a lonely one. While other twelve-year-olds are in school, she spends her days skinning the animals her mercurial father hunts in the woods just outside their cabin. And the woods and its twisted creatures—an owl with four wings, a boar with two heads, a fox with gills—are becoming stranger by the day.
One night, a nightmarish beast appears and drags Charlie’s father into the wilderness. To find him, she enlists the aid of two unlikely allies also in search of the beast: an Englishman with a connection to a mysterious occult society and a Northern Cheyenne policeman exiled for a crime he didn’t commit. Yet as the trio prepare for the confrontation with the beast, Charlie must decide if her father, a brusque man who has always withheld his affection, is ultimately worth saving.
With its blend of Western grit and supernatural menace, The Unheld is an unsettling and atmospheric horror novel about loneliness, human connection, and how we find each other in a world that seems designed to alienate. With this assured debut, Luke Larkin marks his arrival in the genre and proves the American frontier still harbors untapped stories in its shadows.
Charlie’s life is a lonely one. While other twelve-year-olds are in school, she spends her days skinning the animals her mercurial father hunts in the woods just outside their cabin. And the woods and its twisted creatures—an owl with four wings, a boar with two heads, a fox with gills—are becoming stranger by the day.
One night, a nightmarish beast appears and drags Charlie’s father into the wilderness. To find him, she enlists the aid of two unlikely allies also in search of the beast: an Englishman with a connection to a mysterious occult society and a Northern Cheyenne policeman exiled for a crime he didn’t commit. Yet as the trio prepare for the confrontation with the beast, Charlie must decide if her father, a brusque man who has always withheld his affection, is ultimately worth saving.
With its blend of Western grit and supernatural menace, The Unheld is an unsettling and atmospheric horror novel about loneliness, human connection, and how we find each other in a world that seems designed to alienate. With this assured debut, Luke Larkin marks his arrival in the genre and proves the American frontier still harbors untapped stories in its shadows.
336 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
August 27, 2026
This weird western has a good, creepy feel, brimming both with atmosphere and interesting characters. It is, however a slow moving, languid read, which may turn off some horror readers. My only real complaint is that the creature, the big boss, as it were, is so far-fetched, it was very hard to visualize.
It's almost impossible not to like Charlie - with her pluck and determination, she reminded me so much of Mattie from True Grit.
Despite my middling rating, I would certainly be interested in reading more from this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for sharing.
It's almost impossible not to like Charlie - with her pluck and determination, she reminded me so much of Mattie from True Grit.
Despite my middling rating, I would certainly be interested in reading more from this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for sharing.
February 25, 2026
If there is one thing about me it’s that I will always show up for a Western and if you slap horror into it? Immediate top tier genre status in my house. So when I picked up The Unheld by Luke Larkin I already knew it had potential. I did not expect to end it completely obsessed.This is a horror Western set in the haunted Montana Territory following a young girl named Charlie who has to rescue her father from a supernatural creature lurking in the vast brutal landscape. And when I say supernatural creature I mean something genuinely unsettling and unique not your typical recycled monster. The book blends Western grit with this creepy menacing feeling that just sinks into your bones.
I saw someone describe it as True Grit meets Buffalo Hunter Hunter THEY ARE SO RIGHT. It absolutely carries the stubborn heroine energy of True Grit while tapping into the slow burn dread and historical horror vibes of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. And as someone who loved Red Rabbit !! Yeah. We are eating GOOD.I won’t lie it’s a bit slow in places, similar to Buffalo Hunter Hunter. This isn’t a nonstop action horror. It simmers a bit in places. But that pacing is intentional. By the time everything plays out I was completely locked in and emotionally wrecked in the best way.What really got me, though, was the loneliness threaded through the story. The frontier setting already carries isolation but Larkin leans into how loneliness makes people vulnerable how it can distort judgment, weaken resolve and even make you susceptible to things that shouldn’t have power over you. The supernatural horror works because the emotional horror is already there. When you’re cut off from community, from connection, from comfort, something inhuman creeping closer feels almost inevitable.But at the same time, the book doesn’t feel hopeless. There’s this undercurrent about human connection about how even in brutal landscapes, love and loyalty can anchor you. Charlie as a heroine embodies that stubborn refusal to give in. She’s tough without losing her heart, and that balance is what makes her unforgettable.If you don’t like Westerns, this probably won’t be a favorite for you. It leans hard into the genre the dust, the grit, the silence between words. But for me? It was perfect. I definitely say give it a try. Western horror is one of my top three genres for a reason and this scratched every itch.I already know I need a physical copy on my shelf when it releases in August 25 2026. This is one of those debuts where you just know the author is going to become a staple in the genre.
I saw someone describe it as True Grit meets Buffalo Hunter Hunter THEY ARE SO RIGHT. It absolutely carries the stubborn heroine energy of True Grit while tapping into the slow burn dread and historical horror vibes of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. And as someone who loved Red Rabbit !! Yeah. We are eating GOOD.I won’t lie it’s a bit slow in places, similar to Buffalo Hunter Hunter. This isn’t a nonstop action horror. It simmers a bit in places. But that pacing is intentional. By the time everything plays out I was completely locked in and emotionally wrecked in the best way.What really got me, though, was the loneliness threaded through the story. The frontier setting already carries isolation but Larkin leans into how loneliness makes people vulnerable how it can distort judgment, weaken resolve and even make you susceptible to things that shouldn’t have power over you. The supernatural horror works because the emotional horror is already there. When you’re cut off from community, from connection, from comfort, something inhuman creeping closer feels almost inevitable.But at the same time, the book doesn’t feel hopeless. There’s this undercurrent about human connection about how even in brutal landscapes, love and loyalty can anchor you. Charlie as a heroine embodies that stubborn refusal to give in. She’s tough without losing her heart, and that balance is what makes her unforgettable.If you don’t like Westerns, this probably won’t be a favorite for you. It leans hard into the genre the dust, the grit, the silence between words. But for me? It was perfect. I definitely say give it a try. Western horror is one of my top three genres for a reason and this scratched every itch.I already know I need a physical copy on my shelf when it releases in August 25 2026. This is one of those debuts where you just know the author is going to become a staple in the genre.
September 2, 2026
Ahem. Dear Readers.
What in the H did I just read???!! This is most definitely the only time I will read this book. There are so many odd and gross things included in the story that I felt like I should take a couple of showers afterwards.
I’m not mad at it, though, and Larkin has created a wonderful story arc for the main character, twelve-year-old Charlie. She lives very close to the woods with her father, and it’s a long walk to town, where everyone smirks at them and whispers gossip. Charlie wants desperately to belong, but she’s never been taught how to fit in, and her father almost entirely ignores her.
The book begins with Charlie’s dad, an accomplished hunter, noticing a distinct lack of game. The animals that do show up are strange and terrifying, with extra appendages or with physical characteristics that should not ever go together. Her father is hard-pressed to find any normal game, although he tries to sell some that isn’t quite as weird (without much luck).
Charlie notices a new store in town and gradually gets to know the new-to-town proprietor, who is keeping a lot of secrets about why he’s opened up shop. We’re also introduced to an indigenous man who is also very keen to learn what is going on, and the viewpoints are alternated for a while.
It is hard to distinguish good from evil here. Pay careful attention to the various characters to ascertain that for yourselves.
The climax went completely off the rails for me. I’m still reeling from it. The ending itself was confusing and unsatisfying, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I ate something…strange…
3.25 stars, rounded down.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for an eARC. All opinions are mine alone.
What in the H did I just read???!! This is most definitely the only time I will read this book. There are so many odd and gross things included in the story that I felt like I should take a couple of showers afterwards.
I’m not mad at it, though, and Larkin has created a wonderful story arc for the main character, twelve-year-old Charlie. She lives very close to the woods with her father, and it’s a long walk to town, where everyone smirks at them and whispers gossip. Charlie wants desperately to belong, but she’s never been taught how to fit in, and her father almost entirely ignores her.
The book begins with Charlie’s dad, an accomplished hunter, noticing a distinct lack of game. The animals that do show up are strange and terrifying, with extra appendages or with physical characteristics that should not ever go together. Her father is hard-pressed to find any normal game, although he tries to sell some that isn’t quite as weird (without much luck).
Charlie notices a new store in town and gradually gets to know the new-to-town proprietor, who is keeping a lot of secrets about why he’s opened up shop. We’re also introduced to an indigenous man who is also very keen to learn what is going on, and the viewpoints are alternated for a while.
It is hard to distinguish good from evil here. Pay careful attention to the various characters to ascertain that for yourselves.
The climax went completely off the rails for me. I’m still reeling from it. The ending itself was confusing and unsatisfying, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I ate something…strange…
3.25 stars, rounded down.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for an eARC. All opinions are mine alone.
April 1, 2026
You had me at Western horror.
Something is not right in the woods in Montana. First, the deer started to disappear. Then, other animals started to disappear, one by one, until the forest was silent. The animals started coming back, thankfully… but something was off. A boar with two heads. A snake with 12 legs. A bunny with horns and only air inside when you cut it open. A ominous, unknown force behind it all. This is where we find our three main characters, baffled and bewildered by the changing nature around them. It’s a bleak, haunting story about loneliness and what we can do to fight it. I never knew that hands could be so fucking scary!!!
I was obsessed with Charlie and everything she said/did/thought, but she definitely read more as a 14 or 15 year old. Patton’s character felt very removed which I understood as a necessity, but it was frustrating because he was so interesting.
“Loneliness is a beast onto itself.” Like… come on. That goes so hard. Tattoo it inside my lip. If you’re looking for an atmospheric, well developed debut horror, look no further. Solid 4/5
Something is not right in the woods in Montana. First, the deer started to disappear. Then, other animals started to disappear, one by one, until the forest was silent. The animals started coming back, thankfully… but something was off. A boar with two heads. A snake with 12 legs. A bunny with horns and only air inside when you cut it open. A ominous, unknown force behind it all. This is where we find our three main characters, baffled and bewildered by the changing nature around them. It’s a bleak, haunting story about loneliness and what we can do to fight it. I never knew that hands could be so fucking scary!!!
I was obsessed with Charlie and everything she said/did/thought, but she definitely read more as a 14 or 15 year old. Patton’s character felt very removed which I understood as a necessity, but it was frustrating because he was so interesting.
“Loneliness is a beast onto itself.” Like… come on. That goes so hard. Tattoo it inside my lip. If you’re looking for an atmospheric, well developed debut horror, look no further. Solid 4/5
Did Not Finish
June 12, 2026Unfortunately, I'm tapping out here at 30%. I was hoping that this would pick up and something more intriguing to keep me going would happen, but instead we get another character added and the book slows once again. Just not working for me, so I'm moving on.
August 28, 2026
Severed hands
"Its my home, but its not always kind"
Charlie, a policeman, and a curio shop owner are all connected in a strange way. By severed hands. Is it an invitation? Searching for who the hands belong to (each hand belong to one of their people) and if they can save them. The beast (shape shifter made of hands and arms) is lonely. It wants to be your friend or loved one. Will the group be able to fight it off or will the creature prevail?
3.5 rounded up for the gorgeous cover.
"Its my home, but its not always kind"
Charlie, a policeman, and a curio shop owner are all connected in a strange way. By severed hands. Is it an invitation? Searching for who the hands belong to (each hand belong to one of their people) and if they can save them. The beast (shape shifter made of hands and arms) is lonely. It wants to be your friend or loved one. Will the group be able to fight it off or will the creature prevail?
3.5 rounded up for the gorgeous cover.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Unheld
By Luke Larkin
Pub Date. Aug 25 2026
This is a hard book to rate. The concept is interesting. The writing is good because t the pacing is just too slow for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book early in return for my honest review.
By Luke Larkin
Pub Date. Aug 25 2026
This is a hard book to rate. The concept is interesting. The writing is good because t the pacing is just too slow for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book early in return for my honest review.
August 31, 2026
I'm not a big fan of westerns in general – but if you add a sci-fi or fantasy element, I'm in. This book skews more toward horror, but after I read the first two chapters of The Unheld in the Buzz Books preview, I knew I had to get my hands on the rest of it. It's squarely in the "weird west" category, with all manner of uncanny creatures inhabiting the forests of Montana. And as you might expect from a horror book, especially one with uncanny creatures, there's a lot of really vivid and disturbing imagery, which the author has an incredible knack for describing.
One of the strengths of this novel is its characters – all of them very well fleshed out and multifaceted people. The heart of the story is Charlie, a neglected young girl who longs for connection with others but whose emotionally unavailable father holds her back from the rest of society, not even allowing her to go to school. Then we have Mr. Elias, the curio shop owner who is new to town, and whose various bizarre curiosities capture Charlie's imagination and whose unexpected kindness sparks a connection. But he's not in town just to open his shop – he's on a mission to find his lost love. And then there's Patton, a Native American police officer who is in search of his missing brother. Even the supporting characters, like the townspeople, Mr. Elias's mentor Rebeca, and her apprentice Flora, are vividly created, and their interactions with Charlie and Mr. Elias show new and different aspects of their personalities and backstories.
Although Patton is an interesting character, and the author seems to have done a fair bit of research into the Northern Cheyenne people in order to create him, his storyline didn't really feel sufficiently woven into the story. Charlie's and Theodore's were a lot more tightly entwined, and at times Patton felt a little bit superfluous. I would have liked a little more connection between him and the other two, though perhaps that arm's length is intentional to highlight that he's an outsider to their society? I don't know. I just felt something lacking there.
Overall a very good book - I'm going to say 3.75 stars rounded up.
Representation – LGBTQ+ characters, POC characters including Native American main character
I received an advance copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
One of the strengths of this novel is its characters – all of them very well fleshed out and multifaceted people. The heart of the story is Charlie, a neglected young girl who longs for connection with others but whose emotionally unavailable father holds her back from the rest of society, not even allowing her to go to school. Then we have Mr. Elias, the curio shop owner who is new to town, and whose various bizarre curiosities capture Charlie's imagination and whose unexpected kindness sparks a connection. But he's not in town just to open his shop – he's on a mission to find his lost love. And then there's Patton, a Native American police officer who is in search of his missing brother. Even the supporting characters, like the townspeople, Mr. Elias's mentor Rebeca, and her apprentice Flora, are vividly created, and their interactions with Charlie and Mr. Elias show new and different aspects of their personalities and backstories.
Although Patton is an interesting character, and the author seems to have done a fair bit of research into the Northern Cheyenne people in order to create him, his storyline didn't really feel sufficiently woven into the story. Charlie's and Theodore's were a lot more tightly entwined, and at times Patton felt a little bit superfluous. I would have liked a little more connection between him and the other two, though perhaps that arm's length is intentional to highlight that he's an outsider to their society? I don't know. I just felt something lacking there.
Overall a very good book - I'm going to say 3.75 stars rounded up.
Representation – LGBTQ+ characters, POC characters including Native American main character
I received an advance copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 3, 2026
This is a Western horror story that takes place in Montana in the 1880s where a young girl named Charlie lives in a cabin with her negligent father. The pair have a similar relationship to the character Ruby Thewes and her father Stobrod Thewes in the novel Cold Mountain. The main threat involves cryptids that change shape and stalk you in the woods, have lots of hands with eyes, and like to cut off other people’s hands.
The title The Unheld comes from Charlie’s anger towards her father’s lack of love for her, and she takes up with a New York gentleman who shows up to buy strange oddities by some coincidence. There are larger plots at work, and the book is imaginative enough to have been written by Guillermo del Torro. If you like that kind of story full of odd creatures and lonely people, this book for you.
The title The Unheld comes from Charlie’s anger towards her father’s lack of love for her, and she takes up with a New York gentleman who shows up to buy strange oddities by some coincidence. There are larger plots at work, and the book is imaginative enough to have been written by Guillermo del Torro. If you like that kind of story full of odd creatures and lonely people, this book for you.
August 28, 2026
Wow, wow, wow! I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. The writing is solid, the pace is just right (not too fast and not too slow), and the plot isn't like anything else I've read to date. Its giving Little House on the Prairie sprinkled with T. Kingfisher vibes. I really enjoyed this book.
I just loved Charlie, the main character. She's got a lot of spunk and she reminded me of myself when I was her age. The author definitely knows how to make a reader care about his characters.
Usually a book with several POV's makes me hesitant to read it. Luke did a fantastic job with several POV's and I actually looked forward to others' perspective.
Overall, I'm really happy that I had the opportunity to get an ARC of this book. I highly recommend it!
I just loved Charlie, the main character. She's got a lot of spunk and she reminded me of myself when I was her age. The author definitely knows how to make a reader care about his characters.
Usually a book with several POV's makes me hesitant to read it. Luke did a fantastic job with several POV's and I actually looked forward to others' perspective.
Overall, I'm really happy that I had the opportunity to get an ARC of this book. I highly recommend it!
August 30, 2026
This was SUCH an immersive story. It had some of the most vivid and horrifying scenes/imagery, it almost felt like I was watching a movie at times. The atmosphere that Larkin built with the colonial setting (and all the horrors surrounding that notion) plus the small-town-at-the-edge-of-the-wilderness vibes were incredibly captivating and the characters were each uniquely interesting. I usually enjoy western folk horror, but this may be one of my favorites!
August 27, 2026
I devoured this. It made me ache in a good way. I made me want to eat beans and bacon over a campfire which in turn made me miss my Poppy deeply (which I find thematically fitting.) I fluctuated from being cozy and repulsed/horrified in equal parts. Charlie is a force of nature and I love that a child protagonist is given some agency. I love that the personal experiences of our POV characters are all messy and a smidge unreliable without us getting bogged down in backstory that distracts from the forward momentum of the narrative. I love the body horror aspects. I love the emotional horror aspects. My official review is “damn good book.”
June 17, 2026
Twelve-year-old Charlie lives in a secluded cabin with her father who prefers little interaction with his only family member. Her days are spent in isolation, hunting the disturbing animals in the woods, until a horrible creature appears and then vanishes with Charlie’s father. With help from a purveyor of oddities and a Northern Cheyenne policeman, Charlie must decide if she wants to venture into the wilderness in order to save her father. An atmospheric western horror read told from multiple points of view.
This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 4, 2026
Between a two and a three star, so I guess I'll round up on this one.
Man, I don't know. I love a good supernatural horror Western--unironically my fave fiction genre ever so this was such an exciting title for me to discover. The book starts off great but as you reach the final act, it all starts fizzling out and I felt a little let down, though I still like the book overall.
Something is missing, and I think it's the character dynamics. Larkin does a great job starting the build, but seems to forget the build halfway through and just leaves it till the last ten pages or so to wrap up. It makes the character arc resolutions feel undeserved and contrived.
The premise is great and so are the monsters. Like I think what really saves this book for me still is just how COOL the idea behind the different deformed animals and monsters are. Brilliant stuff. The resolution with the monster is also great, I just feel like the dynamics between Charlie and Mr. Elias are not properly executed before the resolution comes. They have a cute dynamic early on, but then it just sort of disappears, as I've said. Patton is a pretty useless character. Larkin states in his author's note that he would be remiss not to include a Native character and acknowledgement the violence enacted on Native peoples in the West. He is not wrong to point any of this out, or to include Patton, but... well... maybe this is a totally off the mark observation, but knowing this made Patton feel like an obligatory character rather than a character he actually planned to include in the novel.
Patton feels like a very last minute addition because he basically has nothing to do with the plot. Like he has the same motivation as Mr. Elias and Charlie, but it just feels tacked on, if that makes sense. He has no real dynamic with Mr. Elias or Charlie at all, which IS interesting in its own right, but he's in the book so little that you wonder why even include him. It also makes him lashing out over the monster and how it represents, I guess, settler-colonialism and a violent upheaval of his traditional way of life feel super undeserved.
Patton isn't even wrong to lash out. He's totally right, but man, it would hit harder if he had more of an impact on the plot and the other characters. Like he truly is just some guy to Mr. Elias and Charlie so it just lands weird. As I said, Patton not giving a fuck about the other two is interesting and definitely intentional, but it just doesn't work. Doesn't have the proper development to make that land just because you spend SO little time with him overall. He just pops into the plot for like a minute at a time till the third act.
The ending just feels very weird. Like everyone is a little too nice. Everyone is weirdly nice to Charlie and it doesn't feel right to me? It seems like people pity her hardcore and care about her like she's their kid, and they barely even know her. This is a consistent thing throughout the novel that just confused me, but I might be missing something. It makes sense for people to respect her more towards the end, since everyone DID know about the hand monster and all, but it feels very contrived overall. It's not over the top and Charlie finds the town goes back to its usual rounds after she awakes, but still.
Rebeca and Flora are just kind of there. Rebeca is a glorified plot device to teach Charlie how to scry and that's about it. I'm not sure why Flora is there. The Society and Lawrence stuff is equally underbaked. It's all very intriguing until you realize there's very little to it--same with Patton's brother and that whole side plot as well.
The book switches between Charlie, Mr. Elias, and Patton's perspectives, but I figured out about halfway through the book that Mr. Elias and Patton's perspectives could EASILY be removed and the book would be the same. I feel they're only there for exposition dumps about the characters. I reckon he could have conveyed their stories elseways without needing them as POV characters, but this is a minor nitpick.
The climax where they're in the cabin feels a little inconsistent. The climax is very cool, but there's just bits that didn't make entire sense to me.
I know I've spent this whole review complaining, but let me say that I liked Larkin's style a lot and he knows how to build atmosphere and characters. The monsters were AMAZING and I really liked the ideas behind them. There is nothing wrong with the pacing and I do not understand the people who say it's too slow. That's just how Westerns are, be patient bro. I also thought it jumped into things pretty quickly anyhow.
I think the book merely doesn't deliver on the premises made at the start properly. It is a solid debut, but like so many debuts, the ending is where the narrative starts to crumble. But I can conceive of Larkin writing very good books the more he hones his skills. I'd still recommend the book, but prepared to be... not underwhelmed per se. Perhaps just whelmed about the ending.
Man, I don't know. I love a good supernatural horror Western--unironically my fave fiction genre ever so this was such an exciting title for me to discover. The book starts off great but as you reach the final act, it all starts fizzling out and I felt a little let down, though I still like the book overall.
Something is missing, and I think it's the character dynamics. Larkin does a great job starting the build, but seems to forget the build halfway through and just leaves it till the last ten pages or so to wrap up. It makes the character arc resolutions feel undeserved and contrived.
The premise is great and so are the monsters. Like I think what really saves this book for me still is just how COOL the idea behind the different deformed animals and monsters are. Brilliant stuff. The resolution with the monster is also great, I just feel like the dynamics between Charlie and Mr. Elias are not properly executed before the resolution comes. They have a cute dynamic early on, but then it just sort of disappears, as I've said. Patton is a pretty useless character. Larkin states in his author's note that he would be remiss not to include a Native character and acknowledgement the violence enacted on Native peoples in the West. He is not wrong to point any of this out, or to include Patton, but... well... maybe this is a totally off the mark observation, but knowing this made Patton feel like an obligatory character rather than a character he actually planned to include in the novel.
Patton feels like a very last minute addition because he basically has nothing to do with the plot. Like he has the same motivation as Mr. Elias and Charlie, but it just feels tacked on, if that makes sense. He has no real dynamic with Mr. Elias or Charlie at all, which IS interesting in its own right, but he's in the book so little that you wonder why even include him. It also makes him lashing out over the monster and how it represents, I guess, settler-colonialism and a violent upheaval of his traditional way of life feel super undeserved.
Patton isn't even wrong to lash out. He's totally right, but man, it would hit harder if he had more of an impact on the plot and the other characters. Like he truly is just some guy to Mr. Elias and Charlie so it just lands weird. As I said, Patton not giving a fuck about the other two is interesting and definitely intentional, but it just doesn't work. Doesn't have the proper development to make that land just because you spend SO little time with him overall. He just pops into the plot for like a minute at a time till the third act.
The ending just feels very weird. Like everyone is a little too nice. Everyone is weirdly nice to Charlie and it doesn't feel right to me? It seems like people pity her hardcore and care about her like she's their kid, and they barely even know her. This is a consistent thing throughout the novel that just confused me, but I might be missing something. It makes sense for people to respect her more towards the end, since everyone DID know about the hand monster and all, but it feels very contrived overall. It's not over the top and Charlie finds the town goes back to its usual rounds after she awakes, but still.
Rebeca and Flora are just kind of there. Rebeca is a glorified plot device to teach Charlie how to scry and that's about it. I'm not sure why Flora is there. The Society and Lawrence stuff is equally underbaked. It's all very intriguing until you realize there's very little to it--same with Patton's brother and that whole side plot as well.
The book switches between Charlie, Mr. Elias, and Patton's perspectives, but I figured out about halfway through the book that Mr. Elias and Patton's perspectives could EASILY be removed and the book would be the same. I feel they're only there for exposition dumps about the characters. I reckon he could have conveyed their stories elseways without needing them as POV characters, but this is a minor nitpick.
The climax where they're in the cabin feels a little inconsistent. The climax is very cool, but there's just bits that didn't make entire sense to me.
I know I've spent this whole review complaining, but let me say that I liked Larkin's style a lot and he knows how to build atmosphere and characters. The monsters were AMAZING and I really liked the ideas behind them. There is nothing wrong with the pacing and I do not understand the people who say it's too slow. That's just how Westerns are, be patient bro. I also thought it jumped into things pretty quickly anyhow.
I think the book merely doesn't deliver on the premises made at the start properly. It is a solid debut, but like so many debuts, the ending is where the narrative starts to crumble. But I can conceive of Larkin writing very good books the more he hones his skills. I'd still recommend the book, but prepared to be... not underwhelmed per se. Perhaps just whelmed about the ending.
August 27, 2026
*4.5
The Unheld is a wonderfully strong debut weird Western horror novel that blends occult fiction, mythological surrealism, and cosmic supernaturalism. I loved the way the historical Western setting provides such an effective backdrop for such an eerily distinct, imaginative tale that’s unlike most I’ve read before.
The story is puzzlingly creepy, emotionally melancholy, and highly atmospheric. Larkin makes excellent use of the Montana landscape and its sense of isolation, allowing the tension to build gradually. The twisted wildlife and... disembodied compass hands (like what?!) immediately drew me in, and each new revelation made me more curious about what was really happening and where the story was headed.
The wildlife creatures in the novel were fantastically disturbing and are among the most unique monsters I’ve encountered in horror. Larkin uses vivid, unsettling imagery and mythology that make them alien and therefore unpredictable. The more I read about them, the stranger they became.
While I found Charlie to be a good child FMC overall, I can’t say I enjoyed her POV as much as I did Theodore’s and Patton’s. Their POVs were made up of more intriguing, plot-driven elements to me, whereas Charlie’s POV was much more of a character study focused on her familial trauma, loneliness, grief, and emotional neglect. Her POV was executed well and the extent of its significance is made clearer in the climax of the story, but I personally didn’t find it as interesting to read from. If this were Burger King and I could have it my way, I would have loved if the main POV were Theodore’s and/or Patton’s instead of Charlie, though I recognize that this would fundamentally change the story’s emotional impact.
Nonetheless, the combination of the setting and utterly bizarre supernatural horror make The Unheld a standout new release for me. I do have lingering questions about Theodore’s work and the Society, so I think there’s an opportunity for a sequel; still, I will be keeping an eye on what Larkin releases next, sequel or otherwise.
Readers who enjoyed Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian and The Great Work by Sheldon Costa will have a great time with this read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
The Unheld is a wonderfully strong debut weird Western horror novel that blends occult fiction, mythological surrealism, and cosmic supernaturalism. I loved the way the historical Western setting provides such an effective backdrop for such an eerily distinct, imaginative tale that’s unlike most I’ve read before.
The story is puzzlingly creepy, emotionally melancholy, and highly atmospheric. Larkin makes excellent use of the Montana landscape and its sense of isolation, allowing the tension to build gradually. The twisted wildlife and... disembodied compass hands (like what?!) immediately drew me in, and each new revelation made me more curious about what was really happening and where the story was headed.
The wildlife creatures in the novel were fantastically disturbing and are among the most unique monsters I’ve encountered in horror. Larkin uses vivid, unsettling imagery and mythology that make them alien and therefore unpredictable. The more I read about them, the stranger they became.
While I found Charlie to be a good child FMC overall, I can’t say I enjoyed her POV as much as I did Theodore’s and Patton’s. Their POVs were made up of more intriguing, plot-driven elements to me, whereas Charlie’s POV was much more of a character study focused on her familial trauma, loneliness, grief, and emotional neglect. Her POV was executed well and the extent of its significance is made clearer in the climax of the story, but I personally didn’t find it as interesting to read from. If this were Burger King and I could have it my way, I would have loved if the main POV were Theodore’s and/or Patton’s instead of Charlie, though I recognize that this would fundamentally change the story’s emotional impact.
Nonetheless, the combination of the setting and utterly bizarre supernatural horror make The Unheld a standout new release for me. I do have lingering questions about Theodore’s work and the Society, so I think there’s an opportunity for a sequel; still, I will be keeping an eye on what Larkin releases next, sequel or otherwise.
Readers who enjoyed Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian and The Great Work by Sheldon Costa will have a great time with this read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
August 22, 2026
Luke Larkin is an Author To Watch!!
The Unheld is one of those horror novels that creeps up on you. It’s this shadow that slowly slides into the room and it wraps itself around you while reading until you devour it! Set in the Montana Territory, the story follows Charlie, a lonely twelve-year-old girl whose isolated life is upended when a monstrous creature drags her father into the wilderness. She gathers a truly motley crew of an Occultist and a Northern Cheyenne lawman, and she hunts her father and the creature down. Secrets are around every corner and warped creatures abound through the land. Occult and weird are about to become a part of the new normal.
Much like some of my other favorite horror stories, this is told through the perspective of a young girl. One whose life view has been so narrowed and focused that once her world opens, it really makes for a magical moment for readers. We get to experience her bewilderment, her wonder, new fears, and her anger is a fuel that drove me through this story. Luke Larkin weaves loneliness, grief, family, and human connection into every page without ever losing the momentum of the adventure. There’s also this sense of queer joy and love through found family that rivals authors like TJ Klune and FT Lukens!
The western setting feels harsh and lived-in, the atmosphere is thick with dread, and Charlie is the kind of protagonist you can't help but root for. More than once I found myself completely absorbed by the emotional weight of the story, only for Larkin to hit me with another bizarre image or terrifying revelation. Equal parts horror, western, and coming-of-age tale, The Unheld is a stunning debut that proves monsters aren't always the scariest thing lurking in the dark.
The Unheld is one of those horror novels that creeps up on you. It’s this shadow that slowly slides into the room and it wraps itself around you while reading until you devour it! Set in the Montana Territory, the story follows Charlie, a lonely twelve-year-old girl whose isolated life is upended when a monstrous creature drags her father into the wilderness. She gathers a truly motley crew of an Occultist and a Northern Cheyenne lawman, and she hunts her father and the creature down. Secrets are around every corner and warped creatures abound through the land. Occult and weird are about to become a part of the new normal.
Much like some of my other favorite horror stories, this is told through the perspective of a young girl. One whose life view has been so narrowed and focused that once her world opens, it really makes for a magical moment for readers. We get to experience her bewilderment, her wonder, new fears, and her anger is a fuel that drove me through this story. Luke Larkin weaves loneliness, grief, family, and human connection into every page without ever losing the momentum of the adventure. There’s also this sense of queer joy and love through found family that rivals authors like TJ Klune and FT Lukens!
The western setting feels harsh and lived-in, the atmosphere is thick with dread, and Charlie is the kind of protagonist you can't help but root for. More than once I found myself completely absorbed by the emotional weight of the story, only for Larkin to hit me with another bizarre image or terrifying revelation. Equal parts horror, western, and coming-of-age tale, The Unheld is a stunning debut that proves monsters aren't always the scariest thing lurking in the dark.
August 26, 2026
What do you get when you cross Little House on the Prairie with Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Bodysnatchers?
The Unheld is the most unique combination of both western and cosmic horror brandishing the most pure of heart heroine in twelve year old Charlotte(aka, Charlie), who will steal your breath in her stunted, newly spoken language, that is brutally honest.
The creature is most definitely the wildest of abominations that roams the countryside seeking revenge, justice and Charlie. Why is the creature actively seeeking her out? No harm to her, but will demolish anyone who gets in the way.
Charlie’s story begins at the cabin, where she exists(not lives) with her disgruntled and unloving, Pa.
Pa’s a hunter, and provides food and shelter but no love, and when the bizarre creatures appear? is where the story takes off-into beyond a fever dream-a nightmare of haunting memories, broken hearts and the darkest monsters ever to be written.
Superb storytelling with an underlying message that speaks volumes!!
A GRAND debut!
Thanks to Hyperion Avenue for this arc, I am definitely looking forward to future titles by Mr. Larkin.
The Unheld is the most unique combination of both western and cosmic horror brandishing the most pure of heart heroine in twelve year old Charlotte(aka, Charlie), who will steal your breath in her stunted, newly spoken language, that is brutally honest.
The creature is most definitely the wildest of abominations that roams the countryside seeking revenge, justice and Charlie. Why is the creature actively seeeking her out? No harm to her, but will demolish anyone who gets in the way.
Charlie’s story begins at the cabin, where she exists(not lives) with her disgruntled and unloving, Pa.
Pa’s a hunter, and provides food and shelter but no love, and when the bizarre creatures appear? is where the story takes off-into beyond a fever dream-a nightmare of haunting memories, broken hearts and the darkest monsters ever to be written.
Superb storytelling with an underlying message that speaks volumes!!
A GRAND debut!
Thanks to Hyperion Avenue for this arc, I am definitely looking forward to future titles by Mr. Larkin.
September 13, 2026
This book was so many things that I love: a slower-paced, weird, unsettling Western with lots of sad characters. I loved it so much.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The following review was originally published online at Boss Rush Network (URL at the bottom of the review).
BOOK REVIEW: The Unheld Is Western Horror with Deeply Moving Characters and Writing
Title: The Unheld
Authors: Luke Larkin
Genre: Horror / Western
Publisher: Hyperion Avenue (an Imprint of Disney Publishing Worldwide)
Release Date: August 25, 2026
Price: Hardcover $27.99 (USD), Paperback–$18.99
Antonio Gramsci, while imprisoned by Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime, once wrote, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” While this is technically a popular paraphrasing of his original statement, the quote beautifully captures the spirit of Luke Larkin’s 2026 debut novel The Unheld.
The western horror novel is set during the era of western colonial expansion into the North American interior. Railroad lines are built, towns established, and indigenous people displaced. Predatory capitalists force vulnerable populations to work at gunpoint, profiting from the cheap or often free labor. It is a world in transition, and cruel men consume and abuse those they can, leaving broken and hurting survivors in their wake. Deep within the backwoods of this monstrous world, a young girl named Charlie sets out to right some very personal wrongs, and in the process discovers a beautiful truth and a reason to live in the new world.
Despite being set in the past, readers will find Luke Larkin’s novel full of relevance to the world today, where courage and clarity are just as needed in our own “time of monsters.”
Synopsis
Publisher Hyperion Avenue describes The Unheld as follows:
“Startling monsters and occult oddities abound in this chilling horror Western as a girl journeys across the haunted Montana Territory to rescue her father from an otherworldly creature.
Charlie’s life is a lonely one. While other twelve-year-olds are in school, she spends her days skinning the animals her mercurial father hunts in the woods just outside their cabin. And the woods and its twisted creatures—an owl with four wings, a boar with two heads, a fox with gills—are becoming stranger by the day.
One night, a nightmarish beast appears and drags Charlie’s father into the wilderness. To find him, she enlists the aid of two unlikely allies also in search of the beast: an Englishman with a connection to a mysterious occult society and a Northern Cheyenne policeman exiled for a crime he didn’t commit. Yet as the trio prepare for the confrontation with the beast, Charlie must decide if her father, a brusque man who has always withheld his affection, is ultimately worth saving.
With its blend of Western grit and supernatural menace, The Unheld is an unsettling and atmospheric horror novel about loneliness, human connection, and how we find each other in a world that seems designed to alienate. With this assured debut, Luke Larkin marks his arrival in the genre and proves the American frontier still harbors untapped stories in its shadows.”
Deep Character Development in a Story All About Connection
While Larkin shines in many aspects of his writing, perhaps most notable is his ability to create deeply complex characters that feel real and relatable to readers. The characters of The Unheld are the misfits, outcasts, and forgotten; yet they carry inside the bright and warm flame of humanity. A young girl with a cruel father; a man who puts his life on hold because he can’t admit a truth that would allow him joy; a person estranged from family, trapped in a prison of regret. These characters, lost on their own, find shelter in each other, united by a common cause. Larkin’s ability to weave the lives of his textured characters together creates a beautiful tapestry upon which the story is told.
Larkin also succeeds in exploring the many sides of this troubled era. His characters represent the European colonizers who believe themselves on varying levels to be doing good in the world, represent the working class families just trying to scrape out a life, and represent the indigenous peoples trying to hold tightly to a way of life slipping from their hands. Somehow all of it comes together to tell not just an intricate account of westward expansion, but the emotional tale beneath it all—the violence of selfishness, greed, and loneliness.
A Writer’s Eye for Trauma
Complementing Larkin’s well-developed characters is his rare ability to capture the essence of trauma through his writing. As anyone who has survived trauma or who lives with PTSD will confirm, memory is not linear or continuous. The painful moments from the past often return in fragments, in chunks of memory not bound by the flow of time or logic. These painful remnants unearth regret, grief, longing, and confusion. Larkin’s writing artfully renders these experiences through powerful imagery. As someone still recovering from childhood trauma, I found this writing hit me deeply on an emotional and even spiritual level.
Of particular note is Larkin’s symbolic use of hands throughout the novel. Early on, characters shake hands, hold one another, pass objects, all carefully described by Larkin’s prose in such a way that we understand the individuals through the way they touch the world. However, as the narrative progresses, characters’ hands become disfigured or lost entirely, and animals begin to appear covered in hands, culminating in the terrifying monster made entirely of hands. That the way we touch and connect with one another becomes at once a terrifying symbol of danger and the greatest hope for connection is the perfect literary device for Larkin’s message to readers about the nature of loneliness and the human condition. After all, for a young child, it is the hands of a parent that deliver both the beating and the blessing.
The following section contains MAJOR SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the novel yet and wish to avoid spoilers, please skip down to the section marked “About the Author.”
Hope You Can Read Through Tears
The ending of The Unheld is the culmination of a deeply moving coming of age story. Charlie bravely pushes into a nightmare forest, back to the cabin of her family’s past, now transfigured into a hellish place of flesh and dismembered hands. She has taken this journey because she’s unwilling to let her father die until she’s told him what a “bastard” he is. She knows he was a lousy father and the only solace she may yet find is to tell him off to his face before he dies.
But at the end of her journey, through a supernatural ability called scrying, she is able to see her father’s life from his own eyes, to live his memories as if they happened to her. It is in this process that Charlie discovers empathy for her father, and ultimately forgiveness—not because he hadn’t wronged her, but because she now understands that he did the best of which he was capable. There’s a beautiful truth here at the end of Larkin’s novel. The trauma done to us may never be undone, but there always exists the possibility of healing, and with that a chance at wisdom. However awful our parents may have been, the truth remains that they were wounded, hurting, and sometimes altogether broken human beings too. This is the wisdom that comes with time.
The way Charlie defeats the creature and comes to peace with her father moved me to tears, and to eventually sitting in silence when I had finished the novel. I knew that the book had offered me not only beauty, but also a truth I could feel in my bones.
About the Author
Based in Missoula, Montana, Larkin is a queer author living and working in Big Sky country. He received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana, and his work can be found in places like HAD, Sonora Review, Popshot, Firewords, and elsewhere.
Larkin takes care in the “Author’s Note” at the end of his book to communicate that portions of the novel are written from the perspective of a Northern Cheyenne character living in the late 1800s, “a period of rampant violence and too-often untold injustices directed toward Native peoples…” (The Unheld, 331).In order to accurately tell these parts of the story, Larkin relied heavily upon the histories of John Stands in Timber (transcribed by Margot Liberty). He also credits the work of authenticity reader Adria L. Jawort, a gifted Northern Cheyenne writer and journalist.
Final Score
The Unheld, is at its core, is a coming of age story about a child who realizes that her deeply flawed father did the best he could for her, that he failed, and that sometimes at the end of grief lies empathy and forgiveness. The supernatural elements of the story and its ghastly monsters made of hands beautifully blend horror with the equally terrifying truth that to be alone deforms the soul, and that human connection is a need as deep as any biological hunger.
Luke Larkin is an immensely talented writer, and readers will enjoy the well-crafted prose as much as the expertly told story. If you’re looking for a summer read that will transport you out of the world of the familiar while moving the heart and edifying the soul, The Unheld is a must read.
Boss Rush Network is proud to give The Unheld a full five-star rating.
David Lasby is the Editor-in-Chief for Boss Rush Network. His favorite video games are The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and the Aliens franchise. You can find him on Twitter to talk all things Nintendo, sci-fi / fantasy, and creative writing.
https://bossrush.net/2026/07/book-rev...
BOOK REVIEW: The Unheld Is Western Horror with Deeply Moving Characters and Writing
Title: The Unheld
Authors: Luke Larkin
Genre: Horror / Western
Publisher: Hyperion Avenue (an Imprint of Disney Publishing Worldwide)
Release Date: August 25, 2026
Price: Hardcover $27.99 (USD), Paperback–$18.99
Antonio Gramsci, while imprisoned by Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime, once wrote, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” While this is technically a popular paraphrasing of his original statement, the quote beautifully captures the spirit of Luke Larkin’s 2026 debut novel The Unheld.
The western horror novel is set during the era of western colonial expansion into the North American interior. Railroad lines are built, towns established, and indigenous people displaced. Predatory capitalists force vulnerable populations to work at gunpoint, profiting from the cheap or often free labor. It is a world in transition, and cruel men consume and abuse those they can, leaving broken and hurting survivors in their wake. Deep within the backwoods of this monstrous world, a young girl named Charlie sets out to right some very personal wrongs, and in the process discovers a beautiful truth and a reason to live in the new world.
Despite being set in the past, readers will find Luke Larkin’s novel full of relevance to the world today, where courage and clarity are just as needed in our own “time of monsters.”
Synopsis
Publisher Hyperion Avenue describes The Unheld as follows:
“Startling monsters and occult oddities abound in this chilling horror Western as a girl journeys across the haunted Montana Territory to rescue her father from an otherworldly creature.
Charlie’s life is a lonely one. While other twelve-year-olds are in school, she spends her days skinning the animals her mercurial father hunts in the woods just outside their cabin. And the woods and its twisted creatures—an owl with four wings, a boar with two heads, a fox with gills—are becoming stranger by the day.
One night, a nightmarish beast appears and drags Charlie’s father into the wilderness. To find him, she enlists the aid of two unlikely allies also in search of the beast: an Englishman with a connection to a mysterious occult society and a Northern Cheyenne policeman exiled for a crime he didn’t commit. Yet as the trio prepare for the confrontation with the beast, Charlie must decide if her father, a brusque man who has always withheld his affection, is ultimately worth saving.
With its blend of Western grit and supernatural menace, The Unheld is an unsettling and atmospheric horror novel about loneliness, human connection, and how we find each other in a world that seems designed to alienate. With this assured debut, Luke Larkin marks his arrival in the genre and proves the American frontier still harbors untapped stories in its shadows.”
Deep Character Development in a Story All About Connection
While Larkin shines in many aspects of his writing, perhaps most notable is his ability to create deeply complex characters that feel real and relatable to readers. The characters of The Unheld are the misfits, outcasts, and forgotten; yet they carry inside the bright and warm flame of humanity. A young girl with a cruel father; a man who puts his life on hold because he can’t admit a truth that would allow him joy; a person estranged from family, trapped in a prison of regret. These characters, lost on their own, find shelter in each other, united by a common cause. Larkin’s ability to weave the lives of his textured characters together creates a beautiful tapestry upon which the story is told.
Larkin also succeeds in exploring the many sides of this troubled era. His characters represent the European colonizers who believe themselves on varying levels to be doing good in the world, represent the working class families just trying to scrape out a life, and represent the indigenous peoples trying to hold tightly to a way of life slipping from their hands. Somehow all of it comes together to tell not just an intricate account of westward expansion, but the emotional tale beneath it all—the violence of selfishness, greed, and loneliness.
A Writer’s Eye for Trauma
Complementing Larkin’s well-developed characters is his rare ability to capture the essence of trauma through his writing. As anyone who has survived trauma or who lives with PTSD will confirm, memory is not linear or continuous. The painful moments from the past often return in fragments, in chunks of memory not bound by the flow of time or logic. These painful remnants unearth regret, grief, longing, and confusion. Larkin’s writing artfully renders these experiences through powerful imagery. As someone still recovering from childhood trauma, I found this writing hit me deeply on an emotional and even spiritual level.
Of particular note is Larkin’s symbolic use of hands throughout the novel. Early on, characters shake hands, hold one another, pass objects, all carefully described by Larkin’s prose in such a way that we understand the individuals through the way they touch the world. However, as the narrative progresses, characters’ hands become disfigured or lost entirely, and animals begin to appear covered in hands, culminating in the terrifying monster made entirely of hands. That the way we touch and connect with one another becomes at once a terrifying symbol of danger and the greatest hope for connection is the perfect literary device for Larkin’s message to readers about the nature of loneliness and the human condition. After all, for a young child, it is the hands of a parent that deliver both the beating and the blessing.
The following section contains MAJOR SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the novel yet and wish to avoid spoilers, please skip down to the section marked “About the Author.”
Hope You Can Read Through Tears
The ending of The Unheld is the culmination of a deeply moving coming of age story. Charlie bravely pushes into a nightmare forest, back to the cabin of her family’s past, now transfigured into a hellish place of flesh and dismembered hands. She has taken this journey because she’s unwilling to let her father die until she’s told him what a “bastard” he is. She knows he was a lousy father and the only solace she may yet find is to tell him off to his face before he dies.
But at the end of her journey, through a supernatural ability called scrying, she is able to see her father’s life from his own eyes, to live his memories as if they happened to her. It is in this process that Charlie discovers empathy for her father, and ultimately forgiveness—not because he hadn’t wronged her, but because she now understands that he did the best of which he was capable. There’s a beautiful truth here at the end of Larkin’s novel. The trauma done to us may never be undone, but there always exists the possibility of healing, and with that a chance at wisdom. However awful our parents may have been, the truth remains that they were wounded, hurting, and sometimes altogether broken human beings too. This is the wisdom that comes with time.
The way Charlie defeats the creature and comes to peace with her father moved me to tears, and to eventually sitting in silence when I had finished the novel. I knew that the book had offered me not only beauty, but also a truth I could feel in my bones.
About the Author
Based in Missoula, Montana, Larkin is a queer author living and working in Big Sky country. He received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana, and his work can be found in places like HAD, Sonora Review, Popshot, Firewords, and elsewhere.
Larkin takes care in the “Author’s Note” at the end of his book to communicate that portions of the novel are written from the perspective of a Northern Cheyenne character living in the late 1800s, “a period of rampant violence and too-often untold injustices directed toward Native peoples…” (The Unheld, 331).In order to accurately tell these parts of the story, Larkin relied heavily upon the histories of John Stands in Timber (transcribed by Margot Liberty). He also credits the work of authenticity reader Adria L. Jawort, a gifted Northern Cheyenne writer and journalist.
Final Score
The Unheld, is at its core, is a coming of age story about a child who realizes that her deeply flawed father did the best he could for her, that he failed, and that sometimes at the end of grief lies empathy and forgiveness. The supernatural elements of the story and its ghastly monsters made of hands beautifully blend horror with the equally terrifying truth that to be alone deforms the soul, and that human connection is a need as deep as any biological hunger.
Luke Larkin is an immensely talented writer, and readers will enjoy the well-crafted prose as much as the expertly told story. If you’re looking for a summer read that will transport you out of the world of the familiar while moving the heart and edifying the soul, The Unheld is a must read.
Boss Rush Network is proud to give The Unheld a full five-star rating.
David Lasby is the Editor-in-Chief for Boss Rush Network. His favorite video games are The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and the Aliens franchise. You can find him on Twitter to talk all things Nintendo, sci-fi / fantasy, and creative writing.
https://bossrush.net/2026/07/book-rev...
August 9, 2026
An okay horror novel. I am glad that I read it, though it was a frustrating read for me. Here we have a western horror novel that I really wanted to embrace. The monsters in the novel were creative and frightening. Not to give anything away. The final confrontation with the monster was enjoyable. There are some squeamish body horror scenes that were also quite entertaining.
Charlie, our main character lives with her widowed father in a cabin outside of town. Charlie and her father keep to themselves, but come into town once every few weeks to sell what they have hunted in the woods and killed to the local butcher. Though while meat is meat, the townspeople are not all that enthusiastic eating animals that can have more than one head or even stranger creatures found in these woods. While her father and the butcher haggle over price, Charlie notices a man in black is opening a curio shop. His name is Theodore and is from New York, a long way from home. He is a collector of the strange. Charlie introduces her father to Theodore who is excited to go back to the cabin and see her father’s own museum of oddities and maybe buy something for his new shop. Charlie’s father, though, is disappointed when Theodore is not impressed with the collection overall and only wants to buy a stuffed owl with four wings. Theodore tells the father if he finds something more unique than live headless chickens that can still lay eggs, he may be willing to pay him a lot of money.
One night, Charlie hears something outside of the cabin coming from the shed. She thinks maybe this is something that she could sell to Theodore for a large amount of money, so she could buy something for herself or maybe get a train ticket to go somewhere else. While she would have thought maybe a deformed wildcat would be worth something, what she gets a glimpse of is something more strange and horrifying that will change her life forever.
It is difficult to describe the monsters without getting into spoilers and ruin the surprise the type of monsters that are within these pages or get into more of the plot. I love the title.
The novel at times gets bogged down with character’s backstories. I cannot give a book more than three stars that I start to skim. The strength of the novel are these unique monsters that overshadow the character’s arcs. Also, the ending, which is somewhat satisfying, not to get into details, seems abrupt like the author didn’t know how to get to the climax. After the climax, I noticed I started even more to skim to the end of the novel. Others will likely like the themes of isolation, loneliness, and what it means to be without love, but for me I just wanted more of a horror novel like a good old creature feature. I want to thank NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Charlie, our main character lives with her widowed father in a cabin outside of town. Charlie and her father keep to themselves, but come into town once every few weeks to sell what they have hunted in the woods and killed to the local butcher. Though while meat is meat, the townspeople are not all that enthusiastic eating animals that can have more than one head or even stranger creatures found in these woods. While her father and the butcher haggle over price, Charlie notices a man in black is opening a curio shop. His name is Theodore and is from New York, a long way from home. He is a collector of the strange. Charlie introduces her father to Theodore who is excited to go back to the cabin and see her father’s own museum of oddities and maybe buy something for his new shop. Charlie’s father, though, is disappointed when Theodore is not impressed with the collection overall and only wants to buy a stuffed owl with four wings. Theodore tells the father if he finds something more unique than live headless chickens that can still lay eggs, he may be willing to pay him a lot of money.
One night, Charlie hears something outside of the cabin coming from the shed. She thinks maybe this is something that she could sell to Theodore for a large amount of money, so she could buy something for herself or maybe get a train ticket to go somewhere else. While she would have thought maybe a deformed wildcat would be worth something, what she gets a glimpse of is something more strange and horrifying that will change her life forever.
It is difficult to describe the monsters without getting into spoilers and ruin the surprise the type of monsters that are within these pages or get into more of the plot. I love the title.
The novel at times gets bogged down with character’s backstories. I cannot give a book more than three stars that I start to skim. The strength of the novel are these unique monsters that overshadow the character’s arcs. Also, the ending, which is somewhat satisfying, not to get into details, seems abrupt like the author didn’t know how to get to the climax. After the climax, I noticed I started even more to skim to the end of the novel. Others will likely like the themes of isolation, loneliness, and what it means to be without love, but for me I just wanted more of a horror novel like a good old creature feature. I want to thank NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
3.8/5
The Unheld is an eerie western horror story that left me feeling like I had just woken up from a Twilight Zone-esque nightmare.
It follows Charlie, a 12-year-old girl who spends her time assisting her father with skinning the animals he brings home after a long day of working as a hunter. When the animals in the woods start to appear with strange deformities, Charlie's father finds it harder and harder to sell his acquisitions. Things, however, take a dark turn when a mysterious, disturbing creature appears and drags Charlie's father off into the woods. Determined to find him, Charlie sets off with two acquaintances: an exiled Native American police officer and a Curio shop owner who each have their own reasons for seeking the beast.
I am, admittedly, not a big fan of westerns, but this one appealed to me because it's from the perspective of a child. While there are actually multiple perspectives in the book, I found each one to be unique and well-written, with Charlie's being my favorite.
Charlie is a great main character in that you originally think she's going to be timid due to her quiet nature. Yet, as the story goes on, Charlie not only talks more, but her fierceness and determination become featured attributes that make her a strong and likeable character. Her curiosity and even her desire for retribution drive both her and the story, and she won't stop until she has found her father and given him a stern talkin' to. I love that she's written like an actual child with little education: she's clever, but not intelligent in the normal sense, which causes everyone to underestimate her. I LOVE an underestimated character.
I also liked Elias' character because even though he's kind of a selfish character using Charlie for his own purposes, he genuinely cares for her as the book continues. He's chasing a lead after years of wasting time, desperate to find his partner, but I never felt like he was planning on putting Charlie entirely in harm's way. He seemed to have a soft spot for the girl and eventually proves himself to be self-sacrificing and caring.
I loved the inclusion of Patton as a character in this book. He provides a really unique perspective that I feel was a wake-up call to me, who has little knowledge of the time in which they lived, and is a character who has basically nothing left to lose. He's already lost his family in some ways and can only hope that bringing his brother back will redeem him in their eyes, even though I doubt that's what would actually happen.
I want to talk about the creature, but I don't want to give too much away. For one, I do wish the description of him would have been a little more detailed, or maybe I just struggled to understand what all those features would look like together. However, what I DID picture, after he was described a little more in-depth, wasn't really scary in the typical sense, but it was super eerie and kind of grotesque in some ways. I also want to talk about one scene that has me questioning everything: the scene in the barn when the creature cowers. Umm did that make anyone else really sad and also like, "I love this creature." Maybe that's an unpopular or even idiotic opinion, but that moment of weakness made me feel so bad for this creature that we never really get to entirely understand. It might be like when I watch Godzilla movies or Jurassic Park, and they spend the whole movie trying to kill this hulking, destructive creature. And then when they finally hurt or kill it, I'm like, "that's just an animal - that's so sad and I hate this movie and those people now."
Basically, the point I'm trying to get at is that I overly empathize with just about any creature resembling an animal or bug and so my feelings about the creature might not be totally sensible. But also, is anyone else really interested in the thought of a prequel that explains how the creature came to be? I feel like that book would make me cry.
Charlie's dad is a good character once you understand his backstory. At first, he's just a grump, but then when you get that insight into his past, you see WHY he treats Charlie the way he does. The only thing I feel is that his total change of heart is a little sudden after he gets taken. I wish we had seen a little more light in him before, or maybe he was still a little grumpy at the end. But honestly, I'm being really picky and the book is totally enjoyable with Dada as is.
Overall, this book is weird when it comes to the creature, which I enjoyed, and really well-written when it comes to the story and characters. It has definitely stuck with me and made me eager to look into Larkin's other work.
The Unheld is an eerie western horror story that left me feeling like I had just woken up from a Twilight Zone-esque nightmare.
It follows Charlie, a 12-year-old girl who spends her time assisting her father with skinning the animals he brings home after a long day of working as a hunter. When the animals in the woods start to appear with strange deformities, Charlie's father finds it harder and harder to sell his acquisitions. Things, however, take a dark turn when a mysterious, disturbing creature appears and drags Charlie's father off into the woods. Determined to find him, Charlie sets off with two acquaintances: an exiled Native American police officer and a Curio shop owner who each have their own reasons for seeking the beast.
I am, admittedly, not a big fan of westerns, but this one appealed to me because it's from the perspective of a child. While there are actually multiple perspectives in the book, I found each one to be unique and well-written, with Charlie's being my favorite.
Charlie is a great main character in that you originally think she's going to be timid due to her quiet nature. Yet, as the story goes on, Charlie not only talks more, but her fierceness and determination become featured attributes that make her a strong and likeable character. Her curiosity and even her desire for retribution drive both her and the story, and she won't stop until she has found her father and given him a stern talkin' to. I love that she's written like an actual child with little education: she's clever, but not intelligent in the normal sense, which causes everyone to underestimate her. I LOVE an underestimated character.
I also liked Elias' character because even though he's kind of a selfish character using Charlie for his own purposes, he genuinely cares for her as the book continues. He's chasing a lead after years of wasting time, desperate to find his partner, but I never felt like he was planning on putting Charlie entirely in harm's way. He seemed to have a soft spot for the girl and eventually proves himself to be self-sacrificing and caring.
I loved the inclusion of Patton as a character in this book. He provides a really unique perspective that I feel was a wake-up call to me, who has little knowledge of the time in which they lived, and is a character who has basically nothing left to lose. He's already lost his family in some ways and can only hope that bringing his brother back will redeem him in their eyes, even though I doubt that's what would actually happen.
I want to talk about the creature, but I don't want to give too much away. For one, I do wish the description of him would have been a little more detailed, or maybe I just struggled to understand what all those features would look like together. However, what I DID picture, after he was described a little more in-depth, wasn't really scary in the typical sense, but it was super eerie and kind of grotesque in some ways. I also want to talk about one scene that has me questioning everything: the scene in the barn when the creature cowers. Umm did that make anyone else really sad and also like, "I love this creature." Maybe that's an unpopular or even idiotic opinion, but that moment of weakness made me feel so bad for this creature that we never really get to entirely understand. It might be like when I watch Godzilla movies or Jurassic Park, and they spend the whole movie trying to kill this hulking, destructive creature. And then when they finally hurt or kill it, I'm like, "that's just an animal - that's so sad and I hate this movie and those people now."
Basically, the point I'm trying to get at is that I overly empathize with just about any creature resembling an animal or bug and so my feelings about the creature might not be totally sensible. But also, is anyone else really interested in the thought of a prequel that explains how the creature came to be? I feel like that book would make me cry.
Charlie's dad is a good character once you understand his backstory. At first, he's just a grump, but then when you get that insight into his past, you see WHY he treats Charlie the way he does. The only thing I feel is that his total change of heart is a little sudden after he gets taken. I wish we had seen a little more light in him before, or maybe he was still a little grumpy at the end. But honestly, I'm being really picky and the book is totally enjoyable with Dada as is.
Overall, this book is weird when it comes to the creature, which I enjoyed, and really well-written when it comes to the story and characters. It has definitely stuck with me and made me eager to look into Larkin's other work.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Charlie is a better person than I am. That's my main takeaway from The Unheld. Because after spotting a four-winged owl, a two-headed boar, and a fox with gills, I would have accepted that the forest was no longer under human jurisdiction and adjusted my life accordingly. Charlie, meanwhile, looks at an increasingly cursed Montana wilderness and says, "Well, I guess I should go in there."
To be fair, an eldritch nightmare has just dragged her father into the woods. Now, here's where things get complicated. Charlie's father is not winning any Father of the Year awards. This man has spent her entire childhood treating affection like it's something he has to pay taxes on. Charlie skins animals for him, works alongside him, desperately wants his approval, and gets about as much emotional warmth as a damp fence post. So when she sets off to rescue him, the whole book is quietly asking a question Charlie doesn't really want to answer: how much do you owe someone who never gave you what you needed?
Fun! Love that for her. What surprised me is that the monster wasn't actually the thing that got under my skin most. Don't get me wrong, the creature is horrifying. Every time Luke Larkin revealed another detail about it, I had the exact same reaction as someone opening a text that starts with, "We need to talk." Just immediate dread. But the real horror here is loneliness.
Charlie is so isolated that she barely knows what to do when people are kind to her. And then along come Theodore and Patton. Theodore has the energy of a man who owns at least three cursed artifacts and insists they're perfectly safe. Every time he appeared, I got more interested. He's weird. He's secretive. He's carrying enough occult baggage to fill a train car. Naturally, he became one of my favorite characters.
Patton was fascinating too. A Northern Cheyenne policeman exiled for reasons that haunt him throughout the story, he's carrying his own loneliness into this strange little found family. Honestly, some of my favorite moments were just these three damaged people traveling together, slowly realizing they might actually care about each other.
Which is annoying because I came here for monster nonsense. The atmosphere is where this book really shines. The frontier feels huge, hostile, and deeply uninterested in whether anyone survives it. The woods aren't just scary. They feel wrong. Every mile deeper into them carries this sense that reality itself is becoming less reliable. The book does a great job creating that creeping feeling that the world is slowly slipping sideways.
I did struggle a little with the pacing. There were stretches in the middle where the story felt more interested in wandering through the wilderness than getting where it was going. Sometimes that worked because the atmosphere is so strong. Sometimes I found myself wanting the plot to pick up the pace and stop admiring the scenery.
But honestly, I never stopped rooting for Charlie. That's what carried me through. She's stubborn, resourceful, angry, hopeful, and heartbreakingly young. Underneath all the monsters and weirdness, this is really a story about a kid trying to figure out whether love is something you earn or something you deserve. That's a painful question for anybody, let alone a twelve-year-old fighting nightmare creatures in the Montana Territory.
By the end, I was completely invested, mildly traumatized, and still deeply concerned about several of the images Luke Larkin put into my head. The Unheld is weird, creepy, ambitious, occasionally meandering, and full of ideas I haven't seen before. Not everything worked for me, but enough of it did that I happily landed at 3.5 stars.
Huge thanks to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for the ARC. I came for the horror western, stayed for the found family, and left with a renewed commitment to minding my own business if I ever encounter a four-winged owl.
To be fair, an eldritch nightmare has just dragged her father into the woods. Now, here's where things get complicated. Charlie's father is not winning any Father of the Year awards. This man has spent her entire childhood treating affection like it's something he has to pay taxes on. Charlie skins animals for him, works alongside him, desperately wants his approval, and gets about as much emotional warmth as a damp fence post. So when she sets off to rescue him, the whole book is quietly asking a question Charlie doesn't really want to answer: how much do you owe someone who never gave you what you needed?
Fun! Love that for her. What surprised me is that the monster wasn't actually the thing that got under my skin most. Don't get me wrong, the creature is horrifying. Every time Luke Larkin revealed another detail about it, I had the exact same reaction as someone opening a text that starts with, "We need to talk." Just immediate dread. But the real horror here is loneliness.
Charlie is so isolated that she barely knows what to do when people are kind to her. And then along come Theodore and Patton. Theodore has the energy of a man who owns at least three cursed artifacts and insists they're perfectly safe. Every time he appeared, I got more interested. He's weird. He's secretive. He's carrying enough occult baggage to fill a train car. Naturally, he became one of my favorite characters.
Patton was fascinating too. A Northern Cheyenne policeman exiled for reasons that haunt him throughout the story, he's carrying his own loneliness into this strange little found family. Honestly, some of my favorite moments were just these three damaged people traveling together, slowly realizing they might actually care about each other.
Which is annoying because I came here for monster nonsense. The atmosphere is where this book really shines. The frontier feels huge, hostile, and deeply uninterested in whether anyone survives it. The woods aren't just scary. They feel wrong. Every mile deeper into them carries this sense that reality itself is becoming less reliable. The book does a great job creating that creeping feeling that the world is slowly slipping sideways.
I did struggle a little with the pacing. There were stretches in the middle where the story felt more interested in wandering through the wilderness than getting where it was going. Sometimes that worked because the atmosphere is so strong. Sometimes I found myself wanting the plot to pick up the pace and stop admiring the scenery.
But honestly, I never stopped rooting for Charlie. That's what carried me through. She's stubborn, resourceful, angry, hopeful, and heartbreakingly young. Underneath all the monsters and weirdness, this is really a story about a kid trying to figure out whether love is something you earn or something you deserve. That's a painful question for anybody, let alone a twelve-year-old fighting nightmare creatures in the Montana Territory.
By the end, I was completely invested, mildly traumatized, and still deeply concerned about several of the images Luke Larkin put into my head. The Unheld is weird, creepy, ambitious, occasionally meandering, and full of ideas I haven't seen before. Not everything worked for me, but enough of it did that I happily landed at 3.5 stars.
Huge thanks to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for the ARC. I came for the horror western, stayed for the found family, and left with a renewed commitment to minding my own business if I ever encounter a four-winged owl.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Unheld is another solid installment in the (what seems to be growing?) mashup genre of horror-western. I've really enjoyed my time over the past year with other entries in the genre like Buffalo Hunter Hunter and The Country Under Heaven becoming fast favorites of mine. I would probably rank this third among those, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I do think I was a little less of a blank slate of a reader, having fairly recently read those, and also Nat Cassidy's When the Wolf Comes Home, which deals with a very similar focus on grief and problematic father figures (or that feeling of being "unheld", so to speak) while dealing with a horror amalgamation of those issues. So, there was a decent amount of ground that I felt I had recently tread, which is of no fault of the author, just coincidental in my reading habits.
What certainly wasn't familiar territory was the supernatural element of this. I don't want to spoil it, but the creature was very unique and unsettling, and in terms of layering grief/trauma with horror, a perfect fit. At times, it was a little hard to even comprehend, but at others, it was truly some of the most imaginative and creepy visuals words could conjure up. I do think that ebbed and flowed somewhat with the detail in the writing. I am very much a movie-in-my-head kind of reader, so when there was a gap in description detail, it threw me off. There were also occasional lapses in the storytelling's authenticity with plot conveniences, underutilized/forgotten aspects, etc. At one point, a character injures their hand pretty severely, and besides an occasional "it hurts," that's never really worked into the story as they do countless things that presumably would be affected by it. Later on, a character is unable to use one of their arms but still uses a rifle without any mention of how that might be impacted. Two characters arrive in town just "coincidentally" on the days things are really popping off plot-wise, when they just as easily could have been written to have been called there. Little misses like that, and an overall matter-of-fact tone without flourish, left things feeling a bit flat and the story a bit less alive as I was left wishing for richer detail.
Going into this, I did think to myself, "Oh, like True Grit with a horror element," but it ended up going in a totally different direction largely thanks to the characters who were actually much more refreshing for the setting. There's not much to compare beyond the main character, Charlie, a tough-as-nails young woman who doesn't let the unforgiving world she lives in hold her back. I also enjoyed Elias, the curioshop owner quite a bit, as he was very much an atypical character for a Western. Additionally, though I would have liked a little bit more of his perspective and for him to be a bit more dynamic as a character, Patton the Cheyenne policeman, was a good choice for a third POV. Elias' contacts in his occult society had a bit too much convenience to the plot in how they were written in and what they introduced. The society also made this feel a bit less like a hard Western, bringing in just a touch of fantasy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I actually thought the pacing for this was good, especially for horror. I was surprised to see that criticism in some of the other early reviews. Things get creepy fairly quickly, and then they escalate soon after, with brief breaks for exposition, and the book as a whole didn't take long to get through. I thought the last few chapters were a bit too much "tell" instead of "show" with the resolution of the monster, but otherwise wasn't a bad route to go with things. For a debut novel, this was solid, and I would be happy to read more from the author and look forward to seeing where he goes from here.
As always, thanks for the ARC!
What certainly wasn't familiar territory was the supernatural element of this. I don't want to spoil it, but the creature was very unique and unsettling, and in terms of layering grief/trauma with horror, a perfect fit. At times, it was a little hard to even comprehend, but at others, it was truly some of the most imaginative and creepy visuals words could conjure up. I do think that ebbed and flowed somewhat with the detail in the writing. I am very much a movie-in-my-head kind of reader, so when there was a gap in description detail, it threw me off. There were also occasional lapses in the storytelling's authenticity with plot conveniences, underutilized/forgotten aspects, etc. At one point, a character injures their hand pretty severely, and besides an occasional "it hurts," that's never really worked into the story as they do countless things that presumably would be affected by it. Later on, a character is unable to use one of their arms but still uses a rifle without any mention of how that might be impacted. Two characters arrive in town just "coincidentally" on the days things are really popping off plot-wise, when they just as easily could have been written to have been called there. Little misses like that, and an overall matter-of-fact tone without flourish, left things feeling a bit flat and the story a bit less alive as I was left wishing for richer detail.
Going into this, I did think to myself, "Oh, like True Grit with a horror element," but it ended up going in a totally different direction largely thanks to the characters who were actually much more refreshing for the setting. There's not much to compare beyond the main character, Charlie, a tough-as-nails young woman who doesn't let the unforgiving world she lives in hold her back. I also enjoyed Elias, the curioshop owner quite a bit, as he was very much an atypical character for a Western. Additionally, though I would have liked a little bit more of his perspective and for him to be a bit more dynamic as a character, Patton the Cheyenne policeman, was a good choice for a third POV. Elias' contacts in his occult society had a bit too much convenience to the plot in how they were written in and what they introduced. The society also made this feel a bit less like a hard Western, bringing in just a touch of fantasy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I actually thought the pacing for this was good, especially for horror. I was surprised to see that criticism in some of the other early reviews. Things get creepy fairly quickly, and then they escalate soon after, with brief breaks for exposition, and the book as a whole didn't take long to get through. I thought the last few chapters were a bit too much "tell" instead of "show" with the resolution of the monster, but otherwise wasn't a bad route to go with things. For a debut novel, this was solid, and I would be happy to read more from the author and look forward to seeing where he goes from here.
As always, thanks for the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
The deer disappeared followed by wolves, bears, fish and were replaced by “mostly twisted up animals that nobody dared eat.” In the isolated Montana Territory, twelve year old Charlie lived with her father in an isolated, dilapidated cabin at the edge of the woods. Charlie’s father Webber, a hunter, had little regard for his daughter. She was a filthy outcast, loath to talk to anyone, especially to the townspeople of Plainsend. As the forest animals morphed into creatures; an owl with four wings, a boar with two heads, it was unlikely that Webber would be able to sell the meat of any animals he had bagged.
The railroad ended at Plainsend Station. Blasting through the mountains would create an opportunity to extend the railroad further west. Charlie wanted to be anywhere but here. She dreamed of traveling and leaving her uncaring father far behind. Unable to sell his so called tainted meat, subsistence living offered Charlie no escape from her isolation and loneliness. Charlie tricked Webber into teaching her the alphabet. She now could read the only book in the cabin, a red covered book of stories left by her mother.
Theodore Elias, an Englishman, arrived in town with the intention of opening a shop of curiosities. He came from New York having left “the Society” of mystics behind without providing a forwarding address. He was searching for someone and felt a pull directing him to go West. Charlie wandered among the unopened boxes and crates in Theo’s store. One of his oddities was his friend’s strange amber eyes which allowed him to see specters, images of the dead…his friend’s eyes floated in a jar. Charlie was fascinated…unafraid. “Theodore felt something for (Charlie)...sympathized with her. Or pitied her. For his part, he was “not running away, but toward something…he was certain he was in the right place.”
Charlie felt ghostlike living in her cabin. She conjured up images of the mother she never knew. She imagined touching her and felt that she was being held in return. She learned about her mother “while eavesdropping on her father’s dreams.” At the edge of the forest, in the dead of night, Charlie heard shuffling and noticed the shed door ajar. A human-like creature with “two many hands” was puttering about as though searching for something.
Patton was an exiled Northern Cheyenne policeman, ostracized for a crime he did not commit. A burlap sack hung from his pack as he traveled. “A force was at work on the land itself and had taken his brother.” Patton was searching, being guided by the contents of the burlap bag.
Soon it would be dark and the things that lived in the darkness would come…a beast made of human hands. One night, the beast kidnapped Webber, the hunter, dragging him deep into the unknown. Charlie experienced a plethora of troubling emotions including anger for not being raised up properly and feeling ignored and abandoned. Should she go on a quest to save her father? Was he worth saving?
Charlie’s spunk and determination was constantly tested. She possessed more mettle than her two cohorts, Theo and Patton. The trio’s obsessive search was controlled by the ever present appendages that come and go at will, some added, others claimed by the otherworldly beast. For a debut novel, Luke Larkin's horror western was filled with dread, dripped with discomfort, and was delightfully disturbing in the best possible way. The atmospheric horror will surround the reader in its embrace.
Highly recommended.
Thank you Daniela Escobar and Eloy Bleifuss Prados for the gifted ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The railroad ended at Plainsend Station. Blasting through the mountains would create an opportunity to extend the railroad further west. Charlie wanted to be anywhere but here. She dreamed of traveling and leaving her uncaring father far behind. Unable to sell his so called tainted meat, subsistence living offered Charlie no escape from her isolation and loneliness. Charlie tricked Webber into teaching her the alphabet. She now could read the only book in the cabin, a red covered book of stories left by her mother.
Theodore Elias, an Englishman, arrived in town with the intention of opening a shop of curiosities. He came from New York having left “the Society” of mystics behind without providing a forwarding address. He was searching for someone and felt a pull directing him to go West. Charlie wandered among the unopened boxes and crates in Theo’s store. One of his oddities was his friend’s strange amber eyes which allowed him to see specters, images of the dead…his friend’s eyes floated in a jar. Charlie was fascinated…unafraid. “Theodore felt something for (Charlie)...sympathized with her. Or pitied her. For his part, he was “not running away, but toward something…he was certain he was in the right place.”
Charlie felt ghostlike living in her cabin. She conjured up images of the mother she never knew. She imagined touching her and felt that she was being held in return. She learned about her mother “while eavesdropping on her father’s dreams.” At the edge of the forest, in the dead of night, Charlie heard shuffling and noticed the shed door ajar. A human-like creature with “two many hands” was puttering about as though searching for something.
Patton was an exiled Northern Cheyenne policeman, ostracized for a crime he did not commit. A burlap sack hung from his pack as he traveled. “A force was at work on the land itself and had taken his brother.” Patton was searching, being guided by the contents of the burlap bag.
Soon it would be dark and the things that lived in the darkness would come…a beast made of human hands. One night, the beast kidnapped Webber, the hunter, dragging him deep into the unknown. Charlie experienced a plethora of troubling emotions including anger for not being raised up properly and feeling ignored and abandoned. Should she go on a quest to save her father? Was he worth saving?
Charlie’s spunk and determination was constantly tested. She possessed more mettle than her two cohorts, Theo and Patton. The trio’s obsessive search was controlled by the ever present appendages that come and go at will, some added, others claimed by the otherworldly beast. For a debut novel, Luke Larkin's horror western was filled with dread, dripped with discomfort, and was delightfully disturbing in the best possible way. The atmospheric horror will surround the reader in its embrace.
Highly recommended.
Thank you Daniela Escobar and Eloy Bleifuss Prados for the gifted ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
My thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for an advance copy of this book of horror, telling of a young woman in the Old West, a time of violence and change, with much of this happening in the woods her father's hunts in, woods that have claimed her father for their own.
I was a big ready as a child but horror was not one of those genres that I really dived into. Alien, The Thing, sci fi horror, most everything else was not important. I would rather watch Abbott and Costello meet Dracula rather than anything devoted to the stories of Universal monsters. This changed as I aged, I think because I began to realise that true horror isn't always hidden. It can be in people you know, people you trust, those that fail you, and those that pretend to help. The horror of people watching while bad things happen, and being alone when these things do. Add in a little cosmic scares, and you have a story. Add in great writing and characters one cares about, one has a great story. The Unheld by Luke Larkin is a story of the Old West, old golds, old thoughts, family, and the debt we owe others, even when those people aren't really worth the cost.
Charlie is twelve years old, has no mother, no friends and no future. There is no brightness, just her stories of fables from her mothers book, and the looks that her father gives her when she disappoints him again. Charlie and her father live in the woods of the Montana territory, listening to the explosion of the train being built, skinning game and thinking about the strange woman she sees at night. Game though is getting scarce. Replaced by something that is different. Chickens living without heads. Pigs with deformities. An owl with four wings. A Puma with nothing inside its body. Not much use to the butcher, but of value to the owner of a new shop in town, a curiosity shop, owned by a curious man, willing to pay curiously large amounts of money for things. Which leads to Charlie's dad being grabbed one night, pursuing something that was destroying their shed. Charlie decides to save her father, and asks the business owner, a man who is quite familiar with the occult and a Cheyenne policeman to aid her. As the woods get darker, Charlie wonders if rescue is a good idea, that maybe her need for a reckoning with er father is fueling her pursuit, and leading her to doom.
A dark novel, that is extremely well-written and loaded with lots of themes and ideas. One gets a since right from the beginning where the book is and where it is going. A mix of True Grit, a little To Cast a Deadly Spell, and a bit of Cormac McCarthy. The book is told in different points of view that travel around in time, but this only adds to the story, the disconnect, and what is happening. The characters are very well-developed, especially Charlie and have a rich backstory that adds to them. There is a lot going on here, which adds to the unease of what is coming, and what might happen. Larkin has a strong sense of place. One can smell the mud, the stink of odd animals, feel the pain Charlie feels, and know what her future holds. There is a lot of sadness. A lot of what could have been and loss. And much about hands.
A book that enjoyed, a hybrid weird western, cosmic horror mix, that really works well. Spooky yet filled with lots of good characters, some disgusting stuff, and strong moments. A book I really enjoyed and one I still think about even a few days later. I look forward to more by Luke Larkin.
I was a big ready as a child but horror was not one of those genres that I really dived into. Alien, The Thing, sci fi horror, most everything else was not important. I would rather watch Abbott and Costello meet Dracula rather than anything devoted to the stories of Universal monsters. This changed as I aged, I think because I began to realise that true horror isn't always hidden. It can be in people you know, people you trust, those that fail you, and those that pretend to help. The horror of people watching while bad things happen, and being alone when these things do. Add in a little cosmic scares, and you have a story. Add in great writing and characters one cares about, one has a great story. The Unheld by Luke Larkin is a story of the Old West, old golds, old thoughts, family, and the debt we owe others, even when those people aren't really worth the cost.
Charlie is twelve years old, has no mother, no friends and no future. There is no brightness, just her stories of fables from her mothers book, and the looks that her father gives her when she disappoints him again. Charlie and her father live in the woods of the Montana territory, listening to the explosion of the train being built, skinning game and thinking about the strange woman she sees at night. Game though is getting scarce. Replaced by something that is different. Chickens living without heads. Pigs with deformities. An owl with four wings. A Puma with nothing inside its body. Not much use to the butcher, but of value to the owner of a new shop in town, a curiosity shop, owned by a curious man, willing to pay curiously large amounts of money for things. Which leads to Charlie's dad being grabbed one night, pursuing something that was destroying their shed. Charlie decides to save her father, and asks the business owner, a man who is quite familiar with the occult and a Cheyenne policeman to aid her. As the woods get darker, Charlie wonders if rescue is a good idea, that maybe her need for a reckoning with er father is fueling her pursuit, and leading her to doom.
A dark novel, that is extremely well-written and loaded with lots of themes and ideas. One gets a since right from the beginning where the book is and where it is going. A mix of True Grit, a little To Cast a Deadly Spell, and a bit of Cormac McCarthy. The book is told in different points of view that travel around in time, but this only adds to the story, the disconnect, and what is happening. The characters are very well-developed, especially Charlie and have a rich backstory that adds to them. There is a lot going on here, which adds to the unease of what is coming, and what might happen. Larkin has a strong sense of place. One can smell the mud, the stink of odd animals, feel the pain Charlie feels, and know what her future holds. There is a lot of sadness. A lot of what could have been and loss. And much about hands.
A book that enjoyed, a hybrid weird western, cosmic horror mix, that really works well. Spooky yet filled with lots of good characters, some disgusting stuff, and strong moments. A book I really enjoyed and one I still think about even a few days later. I look forward to more by Luke Larkin.
August 27, 2026
~4.25
"The Unheld"... what could that possibly mean? That's what I thought when I started this. I prepared myself for a lot of things- disappointment, some wow factor, gore horror, weird creatures, a thrilling ending maybe, etc. What I didn't expect was that this book would make me emotional. Yes, this book moved me. By the end, I was sad yet satisfied and still wanting more.
The story follows Charlie, who lives with her father on the outskirts of Plainsend. Something is terribly wrong; the animals in the woods are changing into bizarre shapes, and when Charlie's father hunts a beast made of hands and gets taken by it, her life changes.
I loved Charlie; she is straightforward, outright, and abrupt, but she is also terribly lonely. I enjoyed reading about her thoughts, which pulled at me. I also liked Patton, and I wanted to know more about him. I would have appreciated more chapters from his perspective; in fact, he was even more interesting than Theodore.
I also feel there should have been a chapter from the beast's perspective at the very end, which would have made this even more satisfying.
This book has a fair share of gore horror, or rather, hand horror, which just makes the ending rather unexpected in certain ways. The imagery was very thorough, and the story had a sort of slow pace, but I loved that so much! The pace was perfect for the book and suited the overall atmosphere.
I think those who like weird stories with a pinch of sadness and loneliness, or in fact, unheld would love this!
Arc received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Summary (bcoz I loved it) --->
"The Unheld"... what could that possibly mean? That's what I thought when I started this. I prepared myself for a lot of things- disappointment, some wow factor, gore horror, weird creatures, a thrilling ending maybe, etc. What I didn't expect was that this book would make me emotional. Yes, this book moved me. By the end, I was sad yet satisfied and still wanting more.
The story follows Charlie, who lives with her father on the outskirts of Plainsend. Something is terribly wrong; the animals in the woods are changing into bizarre shapes, and when Charlie's father hunts a beast made of hands and gets taken by it, her life changes.
I loved Charlie; she is straightforward, outright, and abrupt, but she is also terribly lonely. I enjoyed reading about her thoughts, which pulled at me. I also liked Patton, and I wanted to know more about him. I would have appreciated more chapters from his perspective; in fact, he was even more interesting than Theodore.
I also feel there should have been a chapter from the beast's perspective at the very end, which would have made this even more satisfying.
This book has a fair share of gore horror, or rather, hand horror, which just makes the ending rather unexpected in certain ways. The imagery was very thorough, and the story had a sort of slow pace, but I loved that so much! The pace was perfect for the book and suited the overall atmosphere.
I think those who like weird stories with a pinch of sadness and loneliness, or in fact, unheld would love this!
Arc received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Summary (bcoz I loved it) --->
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Charlie lives alone with her father, a callous hunter who withholds affection from her to the point where the residents of Plainsend thing she might be feral. The meager pay her father makes from hunting in the woods has been cut even thinner now that the animals are turning up strange--sparrow-winged pheasants, cougars full of air, and owls with extraneous limbs. The butcher won't pay premium for this soiled meat, and Charlie and her father can't eat it unless they char it beyond recognition. When a curiosity shop opens in Plainsend and the proprietor promises to pay handsomely for unusual specimens, Charlie's father captures a beast made entirely of hands. The creature drags him into the woods, and while Charlie debates with herself on whether or not her father is worth saving, she learns that he isn't the only one who was after the beast.
'The Unheld' is Luke Larkin's debut novel, and what a debut! I'm a sucker for strong opening scenes, this starts with a girl and her father wheeling a two-headed hog into town. While the book has three main POV characters, Charlie is the perspective character we're with the most and she's quite the compelling heroine--part Mattie from 'True Grit', part relatably undersocialized girl yearning for belonging. Her struggle with her relationship with her father, especially after she meets someone who is willing to openly show her kindness so soon after meeting her, is tragic and emotional. I enjoyed Theodore's character as well; a character who starts off embodying the sort of shady charlatan you'd see in a Flannery O'Connor short story who ends up being the heart of the group. There aren't enough protagonists rocking a single gold tooth nowadays.
Beyond the characters, the novel's greatest strength is the beast that lies within its pages. I didn't know how to react when its form was first revealed to the reader, but the more that it was described (especially later in the book), the weirder and freakier it became. It's look, it's behaviors, it's calling cards... I never thought I'd find a creature made of hands to be scary, but after reading 'The Unheld' I don't think I'll be seeing cutesy Halloween decorations the same way. You'd think that it could be repetitive, but Larkin manages to keep his hand-horrors fresh, leading to a skin-crawling climax.
I'm not without criticisms for 'The Unheld', most of which I feel are the fault of this being a debut novel. Patton feels a bit disconnected as one of the main characters, which makes sense given his nature but does have him feeling a bit more secondary to Charlie and Theodore. The scrying feels a bit too 'magical' compared to the gritty, surreal horror of the beast. Charlie loses fingers early in the book but rarely does it seem to stop her or hold her back. However, these are all small things compared to what I loved about the book, which was just such a weird and wonderful ride that I can't help but recommend it. Whether you're a fan of horror that's influenced by Westerns or are curious about how spooky hands can be, 'The Unheld' is worth your time.
'The Unheld' is Luke Larkin's debut novel, and what a debut! I'm a sucker for strong opening scenes, this starts with a girl and her father wheeling a two-headed hog into town. While the book has three main POV characters, Charlie is the perspective character we're with the most and she's quite the compelling heroine--part Mattie from 'True Grit', part relatably undersocialized girl yearning for belonging. Her struggle with her relationship with her father, especially after she meets someone who is willing to openly show her kindness so soon after meeting her, is tragic and emotional. I enjoyed Theodore's character as well; a character who starts off embodying the sort of shady charlatan you'd see in a Flannery O'Connor short story who ends up being the heart of the group. There aren't enough protagonists rocking a single gold tooth nowadays.
Beyond the characters, the novel's greatest strength is the beast that lies within its pages. I didn't know how to react when its form was first revealed to the reader, but the more that it was described (especially later in the book), the weirder and freakier it became. It's look, it's behaviors, it's calling cards... I never thought I'd find a creature made of hands to be scary, but after reading 'The Unheld' I don't think I'll be seeing cutesy Halloween decorations the same way. You'd think that it could be repetitive, but Larkin manages to keep his hand-horrors fresh, leading to a skin-crawling climax.
I'm not without criticisms for 'The Unheld', most of which I feel are the fault of this being a debut novel. Patton feels a bit disconnected as one of the main characters, which makes sense given his nature but does have him feeling a bit more secondary to Charlie and Theodore. The scrying feels a bit too 'magical' compared to the gritty, surreal horror of the beast. Charlie loses fingers early in the book but rarely does it seem to stop her or hold her back. However, these are all small things compared to what I loved about the book, which was just such a weird and wonderful ride that I can't help but recommend it. Whether you're a fan of horror that's influenced by Westerns or are curious about how spooky hands can be, 'The Unheld' is worth your time.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
An unsettling historical fiction horror featuring the weirdest damn monster, The Unheld impressed me with its nuance and characterization.
Masterfully titled this Western / historical fiction horror utterly blew me away. Take the girl from True Grit (though she learns to be tough - and what a journey she takes) and add a really weird monster, and you have this stunner of a book.
It’s a horror book that those who don’t like too much gore can still get behind. There’s so much really WEIRD, unsettling stuff in this book, but it’s more uncanny than terrifying. It’s just so inexplicable and strange; I’m not going to tell you what it is, as when the monster starts showing more of itself you’re like *WHAT* (and that’s part of the fun).
The book isn’t the fastest-paced, but I was enthralled. It has the slow burn of a good historical fiction but the looming menace of atmospheric horror. The monster is almost a mystery because you’re not really sure what it is.
It’s also a story about fathers and daughters. There’s no abuse in the story, but there is emotional neglect. Yet, it’s also a story about forgiveness, growing up, and anger. There was a moment in this book that made me tear up. It’s as much a western horror as it is a story about family, and I loved the blend of the two.
The characters are great because most of them have an external conflict tied to the monster, and an internal one linked to something else. Sometimes these issues are conflated, which served to give them depth. I really like Charlie - I love a firecracker of a girl who comes into her own. And when she is paired with a minor character, Flora, their dynamic felt so realistic.
The two other point of views (though the majority of the book follows Charlie) were interesting too, though Patton - or his real name, Paveamohtse- had a more resonating arc. Elias was a little flatter in terms of character, but I still cared about his fate. I wanted a little more about the Society he was part of, though the fact it was vague - and the monster was so isolated to the woods - really helped with the realism and historical fiction feel. It’s clear this book wasn’t just wearing a Western Halloween costume - the details felt realistic, and nothing jumped out at me as anachronistic.
The BIPOC and LGBTQ+ representation was so good because it felt naturalized and fit the time period. Elias never explicitly states to anyone his relationship with Lawrence, though we, the reader, know of course via a flashback (and feel bad he has to keep it hidden), and Patton’s conflict colluding with colonial oppressors was as sad as it was based in reality. The book even brought in a bit of the Chinese workers used to expand the railway and how they were treated, and this book was able to tie the monster to colonialism and Western expansionism in such a subtle, impactful way.
This book for me was a sleeper hit. I thought it was an absolute gem. Highly recommended.
An unsettling historical fiction horror featuring the weirdest damn monster, The Unheld impressed me with its nuance and characterization.
Masterfully titled this Western / historical fiction horror utterly blew me away. Take the girl from True Grit (though she learns to be tough - and what a journey she takes) and add a really weird monster, and you have this stunner of a book.
It’s a horror book that those who don’t like too much gore can still get behind. There’s so much really WEIRD, unsettling stuff in this book, but it’s more uncanny than terrifying. It’s just so inexplicable and strange; I’m not going to tell you what it is, as when the monster starts showing more of itself you’re like *WHAT* (and that’s part of the fun).
The book isn’t the fastest-paced, but I was enthralled. It has the slow burn of a good historical fiction but the looming menace of atmospheric horror. The monster is almost a mystery because you’re not really sure what it is.
It’s also a story about fathers and daughters. There’s no abuse in the story, but there is emotional neglect. Yet, it’s also a story about forgiveness, growing up, and anger. There was a moment in this book that made me tear up. It’s as much a western horror as it is a story about family, and I loved the blend of the two.
The characters are great because most of them have an external conflict tied to the monster, and an internal one linked to something else. Sometimes these issues are conflated, which served to give them depth. I really like Charlie - I love a firecracker of a girl who comes into her own. And when she is paired with a minor character, Flora, their dynamic felt so realistic.
The two other point of views (though the majority of the book follows Charlie) were interesting too, though Patton - or his real name, Paveamohtse- had a more resonating arc. Elias was a little flatter in terms of character, but I still cared about his fate. I wanted a little more about the Society he was part of, though the fact it was vague - and the monster was so isolated to the woods - really helped with the realism and historical fiction feel. It’s clear this book wasn’t just wearing a Western Halloween costume - the details felt realistic, and nothing jumped out at me as anachronistic.
The BIPOC and LGBTQ+ representation was so good because it felt naturalized and fit the time period. Elias never explicitly states to anyone his relationship with Lawrence, though we, the reader, know of course via a flashback (and feel bad he has to keep it hidden), and Patton’s conflict colluding with colonial oppressors was as sad as it was based in reality. The book even brought in a bit of the Chinese workers used to expand the railway and how they were treated, and this book was able to tie the monster to colonialism and Western expansionism in such a subtle, impactful way.
This book for me was a sleeper hit. I thought it was an absolute gem. Highly recommended.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As a genre, when I hear 'Western Horror', I automatically think of Stephen Graham Jones, but this is an amazing debut as well. It's a remarkable fusion of horror and Western fiction, proving that the American frontier still holds fertile ground for stories both haunting and deeply human. Rich in atmosphere and emotional depth, this tale delivers unsettling supernatural chills while exploring the loneliness that can exist between even the closest family members.
Set in the Montana Territory during the waning days of the Old West, the novel follows twelve-year-old Charlie, whose isolated life revolves around helping her emotionally distant father hunt increasingly bizarre animals in the surrounding wilderness. Four-winged owls, two-headed boars, and other grotesque creatures hint that something unnatural has taken root in the forest. When her father is abducted by an ancient, otherworldly beast, she embarks on a perilous journey to rescue him alongside two unlikely companions: a mysterious Englishman tied to an occult society and a Northern Cheyenne lawman living in exile.
While the supernatural mystery provides plenty of suspense, The Unheld is ultimately a story about emotional isolation and the difficult work of choosing compassion over resentment. Charlie is an unforgettable protagonist. She's resourceful, resilient, and heartbreakingly vulnerable, everything I love in a strong female character. Her complicated relationship with her father gives the novel its emotional center, transforming what could have been a conventional monster hunt into a poignant meditation on love withheld, forgiveness, and belonging.
The Montana wilderness becomes a character in its own right; vast, beautiful, and quietly terrifying. His descriptions of corrupted wildlife and uncanny landscapes evoke both cosmic horror and classic frontier mythology without relying on gore. Instead, dread accumulates gradually, creating a persistent sense that the natural world has slipped subtly, irrevocably out of balance.
The supporting cast adds welcome depth to Charlie's journey. Each companion carries hidden burdens that mirror the novel's larger themes of exile, grief, and redemption, while their growing trust in one another offers moments of warmth amid the darkness. Larkin also thoughtfully incorporates the historical realities of westward expansion and Indigenous displacement without allowing those elements to overshadow the central narrative.
The author excels in slow-building tension over constant shocks, allowing character development and world-building to take precedence before the story accelerates toward a gripping and emotionally satisfying finale. That patience pays dividends, making the confrontations feel earned rather than merely spectacular.
Set in the Montana Territory during the waning days of the Old West, the novel follows twelve-year-old Charlie, whose isolated life revolves around helping her emotionally distant father hunt increasingly bizarre animals in the surrounding wilderness. Four-winged owls, two-headed boars, and other grotesque creatures hint that something unnatural has taken root in the forest. When her father is abducted by an ancient, otherworldly beast, she embarks on a perilous journey to rescue him alongside two unlikely companions: a mysterious Englishman tied to an occult society and a Northern Cheyenne lawman living in exile.
While the supernatural mystery provides plenty of suspense, The Unheld is ultimately a story about emotional isolation and the difficult work of choosing compassion over resentment. Charlie is an unforgettable protagonist. She's resourceful, resilient, and heartbreakingly vulnerable, everything I love in a strong female character. Her complicated relationship with her father gives the novel its emotional center, transforming what could have been a conventional monster hunt into a poignant meditation on love withheld, forgiveness, and belonging.
The Montana wilderness becomes a character in its own right; vast, beautiful, and quietly terrifying. His descriptions of corrupted wildlife and uncanny landscapes evoke both cosmic horror and classic frontier mythology without relying on gore. Instead, dread accumulates gradually, creating a persistent sense that the natural world has slipped subtly, irrevocably out of balance.
The supporting cast adds welcome depth to Charlie's journey. Each companion carries hidden burdens that mirror the novel's larger themes of exile, grief, and redemption, while their growing trust in one another offers moments of warmth amid the darkness. Larkin also thoughtfully incorporates the historical realities of westward expansion and Indigenous displacement without allowing those elements to overshadow the central narrative.
The author excels in slow-building tension over constant shocks, allowing character development and world-building to take precedence before the story accelerates toward a gripping and emotionally satisfying finale. That patience pays dividends, making the confrontations feel earned rather than merely spectacular.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Four stars with a +1 debut modifier for the awesome western horror of Luke Larkin, which captured my interest and held it for the entire book.
Told mainly from the point of view of 12-year-old Charlie, a silent girl who is neglected by her hunter father and lives on the fringes of a small Montanan town in the latter half of the 19th century, the book’s themes of loneliness and isolation is a constant among the other main characters. There’s Theodora Elias, an English investigator of the paranormal looking for his lost lover, and the Cheyenne Paveameohtse, whom everyone calls Patton, seeking his lost brother, whose death he is blamed for by his tribe. Each carries the dismembered hand of their lost one, which moves and crawls and points towards a direction, perhaps toward their loved one.
Charlie encounters these two as her father is captured by a mysterious beast, which drags it into the forest. When his hand is left at her doorstep, she knows the three of them are tied together with the beast that is responsible for the killings and disappearances.
There were two things I enjoyed the most about this book. The first was the character building, especially the inner world of Charlie, who wants nothing but a father’s love but is given his silence and neglect instead. Without a mother, Charlie is raised half feral, with no schooling except her father showing her one letter of the alphabet a day. Her longing for a parent’s touch, a gentle word, not just clean clothes and the ability to go to school with the town kids, is heartbreaking. The other element I enjoyed the most was the setting of Plainsend, Montana, with the all of the historical details that the author took pains to research. The portrayal of Patton, who worked as “Indian Police” at the Fort where his tribe was held captive by the Americans, was also heartbreaking. By associating with the American authorities, he is alienated from his people, who are now entirely reliant on the government dole to survive, their tribal lands and their freedom of movement curtailed. And when his brother disappears and his hand is left behind, Patton is exiled by his tribe, who believe he is the murderer.
I was not so excited about the “handsy” monster, although I think it worked in the end. Charlie’s ability to scry the individual memories of the hands’ owners was a neat touch, however. Overall, however, this is an A+ offering, in my humble opinion.
My profound thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and author, for an early opportunity to read this book. All thoughts are, of course, my very own.
Told mainly from the point of view of 12-year-old Charlie, a silent girl who is neglected by her hunter father and lives on the fringes of a small Montanan town in the latter half of the 19th century, the book’s themes of loneliness and isolation is a constant among the other main characters. There’s Theodora Elias, an English investigator of the paranormal looking for his lost lover, and the Cheyenne Paveameohtse, whom everyone calls Patton, seeking his lost brother, whose death he is blamed for by his tribe. Each carries the dismembered hand of their lost one, which moves and crawls and points towards a direction, perhaps toward their loved one.
Charlie encounters these two as her father is captured by a mysterious beast, which drags it into the forest. When his hand is left at her doorstep, she knows the three of them are tied together with the beast that is responsible for the killings and disappearances.
There were two things I enjoyed the most about this book. The first was the character building, especially the inner world of Charlie, who wants nothing but a father’s love but is given his silence and neglect instead. Without a mother, Charlie is raised half feral, with no schooling except her father showing her one letter of the alphabet a day. Her longing for a parent’s touch, a gentle word, not just clean clothes and the ability to go to school with the town kids, is heartbreaking. The other element I enjoyed the most was the setting of Plainsend, Montana, with the all of the historical details that the author took pains to research. The portrayal of Patton, who worked as “Indian Police” at the Fort where his tribe was held captive by the Americans, was also heartbreaking. By associating with the American authorities, he is alienated from his people, who are now entirely reliant on the government dole to survive, their tribal lands and their freedom of movement curtailed. And when his brother disappears and his hand is left behind, Patton is exiled by his tribe, who believe he is the murderer.
I was not so excited about the “handsy” monster, although I think it worked in the end. Charlie’s ability to scry the individual memories of the hands’ owners was a neat touch, however. Overall, however, this is an A+ offering, in my humble opinion.
My profound thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and author, for an early opportunity to read this book. All thoughts are, of course, my very own.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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