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Little Heaven
A trio of mismatched mercenaries—Micah Shughrue, Minerva Atwater, and Ebenzer Elkins, colloquially known as “the Englishman”—is hired by young Ellen Bellhaven for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven, where a clandestine religious cult holds sway. But shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. There are stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—and above all else, the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall. Paranoia and distrust soon grip the settlement. Escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral toward madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it—invades Little Heaven. All present here are now forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has cast its dark eye on Little Heaven is marshaling its power—and it wants them all...
487 pages, Paperback
First published January 10, 2017
1406 people are currently reading
26648 people want to read
About the author
Nick Cutter
13 books8,380 followersHello Everybody!
I figured this bio was looking a little cobwebby, so here to update it a bit (Sept 2025). What's changed in the decade since I wrote my initial bio? Mmmm, not a lot. I still enjoy bubblebaths, strong coffee and passionate conversations, moonlit walks on the beach, eldritch horrors and biological horrors run amuck.
Oh, and I have a new book: The Queen!
The following years should see the arrival of The Dorians (2026?), The Coffin Worms and other Grotesques (2027?), The Invaders (2028?) Gravenhurst (etc), and republications of The Acolyte and The Breach ... after which I will likely devolve into a puddle of sentient goo (2030 - RIP).
I've been politely requested to be on Twitter again. I may pollinate to other social media locales in the coming months and years, but for now I can be found malingering around at:
@ItsNickCutter
Yrs,
Nick Cutter
(but not really)
I figured this bio was looking a little cobwebby, so here to update it a bit (Sept 2025). What's changed in the decade since I wrote my initial bio? Mmmm, not a lot. I still enjoy bubblebaths, strong coffee and passionate conversations, moonlit walks on the beach, eldritch horrors and biological horrors run amuck.
Oh, and I have a new book: The Queen!
The following years should see the arrival of The Dorians (2026?), The Coffin Worms and other Grotesques (2027?), The Invaders (2028?) Gravenhurst (etc), and republications of The Acolyte and The Breach ... after which I will likely devolve into a puddle of sentient goo (2030 - RIP).
I've been politely requested to be on Twitter again. I may pollinate to other social media locales in the coming months and years, but for now I can be found malingering around at:
@ItsNickCutter
Yrs,
Nick Cutter
(but not really)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,737 reviews
June 24, 2018
You could not outrun your past. Your history was a lonely hound pursuing you over field and fallow, never resting, always hungry, tracking you relentlessly until one night you heard its nails scratching at your door.
just as i curse my taste buds for preventing me from enjoying the rich and varied world of olives, i curse my reading taste buds for preventing me from liking lovecraft and all books written in the lovecraftian tradition, which is also rich and varied and includes this book right here.
i love nick cutter, and i wanted to love Little Heaven: A Novel because all its pieces seemed to be right up my alley - it's compared to cormac mccarthy and it's got bounty hunters and other guns for hire and a religious cult and revenge, and oh-so-many disgusting descriptions, and it's even illustrated! and so many of these elements really knocked my socks off when i was reading them, but when it came to the novel's supernatural bits, my brain just balked.
because what i appreciate the most about cutter's brand of horror writing is his old-school flair, where he seems to be channeling stephen king at the height of his powers and writing these contemporary spins on themes that king popularized: the ordinary horrors of childhood made less ordinary with the introduction of a spooky element, the inherent creepiness of children, suppressed memories resurfacing in adulthood, wonderful descriptions and atmosphere giving a weight to the threat that is taking its time to appear, making it all the more effective for its insidiously slow reveal.
but this one is characterized by an old school horror that is too old school for my tastes, edging into that lovecraft territory i just do not dig. there are still elements of the king tradition here - the synopsis compares it to IT, but there's also some dark towery stuff, with the guns and the dusters and the journey bits.
but all of that is lost for me once the lovecrafian elements surface. some of it is the language. there are words i associate with lovecraft (whether accurately or not), and they are all here:
fulmination, extrusions, clotted, shuddering, ichor, gibbering, madness, jesting, capering, whickerings, guttural, mindless, chittering, obelisk, scuttling, jittering, gobbets, etc.
but most important are the words relating to the horror itself; everything is unnatural, unspeakable, undefined, unearthly, unthinkable, and the biggie: ineffable
this occluded quality of the horror ruins the experience for me. i know it's supposed to make it scarier, somehow, where the individual reader will superimpose their own worst imaginings upon the scene and make it a highly personalized horror specific to their own imagination's powers, but either i have no imagination, or i'm lazy and want it spelled out for me. i need a lot more than "ineffable."
don't get me wrong, there's plenty of description here, even of the big bad, but too many instances of DIY horror, where the reader is left to fill in the blanks:
- His eyes couldn't grasp the true shape of it, or didn't want to; his gaze skated off its awfulness, shying from it like a nervous horse
- It wasn't that it was too fast for the eye to chart - it was more that the eye rebelled, defaulting on its own optics and reducing whatever was out there to an indefinite smudge. Maybe their brains did this as an instinctive protective measure, to spare them the true contours of the thing.
-his frail human eyes and his inadequate and too-literal mind were preventing him from seeing its more breathtaking true shape.
stop skirting, please! i want to see its shape!
despite all my complaints, i liked a lot of this book. the premise is definitely cool - it follows three characters: micah, ebenezer and minerva, from the beginning of their complicated relationship in 1965; which origin story is more of a meet-kill than a meet-cute, where they'd all been contracted to kill each other, although one of them had an additional, personal motivation for homicide. once the dust settled, they formed an uneasy alliance and began working with each other, including a job they accepted to investigate a cult and rescue a child. this job went horribly wrong and resulted in long-ranging consequences, causing them to band together fifteen years later and return to the scene of the horror, dusting off their … dusters, and getting back into thegood flawed v. evil fight once more, older, wearier, less confident of their chances of success but unable to refuse.
The trunk's innards smelled of gun oil and old blood. He retrieved one pistol, then the next. They felt good in his hands. Like brothers, like sisters, like homecoming.
i love the structure - switching back and forth through time. dropping you right into the aftershocks without explaining the cause and slowly revealing the past. it's confusing, but in that "i want to know more" way.
the descriptions are also great, when they're not describing the actual … evil.
Outside, the fields lay spectral in the witching hours. Ground fog ribboned along the earth.
that's spooky and lovely to me, as is the feasting darkness of the woods, and there's some king-style passages that frustrate me with wanting the whole book to be written like this:
He stared down to the tunnel below. An odor drifted up, almost too faint to credit. A smell that spoke of childhood. A mix of bubble gum and dimestore perfume, the blood off skinned knees and chocolate coins wrapped in shiny foil. It was all of these things, but corrupted somehow. Mixed with the smell that permeates an old folks' home: sickness and dust and the yellowing reek of bodies rotting from the inside out. The smell of living death.
because this stuff just leaves me cold:
A panoramic view of the jungle. A riot of creeping vegetation and trees that had witnessed generations wither and die under the wide sweep of their limbs. A place where things never stopped growing, implacably and endlessly and insidiously so, pushing up through the ground and twining around whatever was closest to them, strangling it. A lunatic vista of inhospitable, brooding, vengeful green.
i love the relationships between the three main characters, particularly minerva's deep hatred of ebenezer:
Minerva saw the Englishman staggering toward her, cursing. She did not want him to collapse - he might fall down the steep slope and break his loathsome neck, robbing her of the opportunity to slit it later on and dance a happy jig in his fountaining blood like a child skipping around an opened fire hydrant.
i loved the juxtaposition of real-world/fairytale world elements - we have the pied piper story woven into the story of a recognizable historical cult leader, and the story borrows elements of the western, horror, and noir genres, all of which would have been like candy to me were it not for all of the … this:
a silky constriction that pinged on a fainter sonic register - a rhythmic coiling and tightening that called to mind a sightless worm of endless length braiding over and around itself in knots of terrifying complexity.
i really wish this style of horror worked for me, because it keeps me from reading so many things other people seem to enjoy, but it's a stumbling block i cannot overcome because i am defective.
so, 3.5 rounded up because the parts i liked were quite good indeed, and the parts i didn't like are probably good if you are not a defective reader, and while i wasn't scared-scared, there are some excellent creepy moments.
"We better go find them," said Ellen.
"Oh, I don't think you want to do that," Minerva whispered.
*******************************************
3.5 rounded up because i freaking love nick cutter, but this one falls into that particular brand of horror i've just never been able to get into, which is my own taste-fail, not the book's fault.
review to come
come to my blog!
just as i curse my taste buds for preventing me from enjoying the rich and varied world of olives, i curse my reading taste buds for preventing me from liking lovecraft and all books written in the lovecraftian tradition, which is also rich and varied and includes this book right here.
i love nick cutter, and i wanted to love Little Heaven: A Novel because all its pieces seemed to be right up my alley - it's compared to cormac mccarthy and it's got bounty hunters and other guns for hire and a religious cult and revenge, and oh-so-many disgusting descriptions, and it's even illustrated! and so many of these elements really knocked my socks off when i was reading them, but when it came to the novel's supernatural bits, my brain just balked.
because what i appreciate the most about cutter's brand of horror writing is his old-school flair, where he seems to be channeling stephen king at the height of his powers and writing these contemporary spins on themes that king popularized: the ordinary horrors of childhood made less ordinary with the introduction of a spooky element, the inherent creepiness of children, suppressed memories resurfacing in adulthood, wonderful descriptions and atmosphere giving a weight to the threat that is taking its time to appear, making it all the more effective for its insidiously slow reveal.
but this one is characterized by an old school horror that is too old school for my tastes, edging into that lovecraft territory i just do not dig. there are still elements of the king tradition here - the synopsis compares it to IT, but there's also some dark towery stuff, with the guns and the dusters and the journey bits.
but all of that is lost for me once the lovecrafian elements surface. some of it is the language. there are words i associate with lovecraft (whether accurately or not), and they are all here:
fulmination, extrusions, clotted, shuddering, ichor, gibbering, madness, jesting, capering, whickerings, guttural, mindless, chittering, obelisk, scuttling, jittering, gobbets, etc.
but most important are the words relating to the horror itself; everything is unnatural, unspeakable, undefined, unearthly, unthinkable, and the biggie: ineffable
this occluded quality of the horror ruins the experience for me. i know it's supposed to make it scarier, somehow, where the individual reader will superimpose their own worst imaginings upon the scene and make it a highly personalized horror specific to their own imagination's powers, but either i have no imagination, or i'm lazy and want it spelled out for me. i need a lot more than "ineffable."
don't get me wrong, there's plenty of description here, even of the big bad, but too many instances of DIY horror, where the reader is left to fill in the blanks:
- His eyes couldn't grasp the true shape of it, or didn't want to; his gaze skated off its awfulness, shying from it like a nervous horse
- It wasn't that it was too fast for the eye to chart - it was more that the eye rebelled, defaulting on its own optics and reducing whatever was out there to an indefinite smudge. Maybe their brains did this as an instinctive protective measure, to spare them the true contours of the thing.
-his frail human eyes and his inadequate and too-literal mind were preventing him from seeing its more breathtaking true shape.
stop skirting, please! i want to see its shape!
despite all my complaints, i liked a lot of this book. the premise is definitely cool - it follows three characters: micah, ebenezer and minerva, from the beginning of their complicated relationship in 1965; which origin story is more of a meet-kill than a meet-cute, where they'd all been contracted to kill each other, although one of them had an additional, personal motivation for homicide. once the dust settled, they formed an uneasy alliance and began working with each other, including a job they accepted to investigate a cult and rescue a child. this job went horribly wrong and resulted in long-ranging consequences, causing them to band together fifteen years later and return to the scene of the horror, dusting off their … dusters, and getting back into the
The trunk's innards smelled of gun oil and old blood. He retrieved one pistol, then the next. They felt good in his hands. Like brothers, like sisters, like homecoming.
i love the structure - switching back and forth through time. dropping you right into the aftershocks without explaining the cause and slowly revealing the past. it's confusing, but in that "i want to know more" way.
the descriptions are also great, when they're not describing the actual … evil.
Outside, the fields lay spectral in the witching hours. Ground fog ribboned along the earth.
that's spooky and lovely to me, as is the feasting darkness of the woods, and there's some king-style passages that frustrate me with wanting the whole book to be written like this:
He stared down to the tunnel below. An odor drifted up, almost too faint to credit. A smell that spoke of childhood. A mix of bubble gum and dimestore perfume, the blood off skinned knees and chocolate coins wrapped in shiny foil. It was all of these things, but corrupted somehow. Mixed with the smell that permeates an old folks' home: sickness and dust and the yellowing reek of bodies rotting from the inside out. The smell of living death.
because this stuff just leaves me cold:
A panoramic view of the jungle. A riot of creeping vegetation and trees that had witnessed generations wither and die under the wide sweep of their limbs. A place where things never stopped growing, implacably and endlessly and insidiously so, pushing up through the ground and twining around whatever was closest to them, strangling it. A lunatic vista of inhospitable, brooding, vengeful green.
i love the relationships between the three main characters, particularly minerva's deep hatred of ebenezer:
Minerva saw the Englishman staggering toward her, cursing. She did not want him to collapse - he might fall down the steep slope and break his loathsome neck, robbing her of the opportunity to slit it later on and dance a happy jig in his fountaining blood like a child skipping around an opened fire hydrant.
i loved the juxtaposition of real-world/fairytale world elements - we have the pied piper story woven into the story of a recognizable historical cult leader, and the story borrows elements of the western, horror, and noir genres, all of which would have been like candy to me were it not for all of the … this:
a silky constriction that pinged on a fainter sonic register - a rhythmic coiling and tightening that called to mind a sightless worm of endless length braiding over and around itself in knots of terrifying complexity.
i really wish this style of horror worked for me, because it keeps me from reading so many things other people seem to enjoy, but it's a stumbling block i cannot overcome because i am defective.
so, 3.5 rounded up because the parts i liked were quite good indeed, and the parts i didn't like are probably good if you are not a defective reader, and while i wasn't scared-scared, there are some excellent creepy moments.
"We better go find them," said Ellen.
"Oh, I don't think you want to do that," Minerva whispered.
*******************************************
3.5 rounded up because i freaking love nick cutter, but this one falls into that particular brand of horror i've just never been able to get into, which is my own taste-fail, not the book's fault.
review to come
come to my blog!
January 10, 2017
Even insects can scream.
The little aphid did, as it toiled in the root system of a cactus plant. While the aphid fed on the sugars deposited in the roots, something else curled up from the blackest recesses of the earth and slipped inside the aphids body.
The aphid left the cactus roots, through the loose packed sand where it encountered a honey ant which fed on the honeydew that aphids produce and whatever had got inside the aphid now slipped silently into the ant.
This was how it began.
A trio of bounty hunters meet up in the 60’s, well they actually almost kill each other, but this story is not really about that. Well except for Minerva. She may have been hired to kill MIcah, but Ebenezer, now that was personal as we will soon discover. In any event they meet a woman that Micah is drawn to. Her name is Ellen and she wants to hire him, to track down her nephew who has been trundled off to some religious cult in the outback of nowhere, New Mexico.
But hold on,we actually meet Micah, Ebenezer and Minerva for the first time some fifteen years later in 1980. Micah’s daughter Petty has been abducted in the dark of night and Micah is seeking the assistance of Ebenezer and Minerva to rescue her. They know where they have to go. They have been there before.
Which bring us back to that first trip fiteen years earlier. Long before this group, who have to abandon their vehicle and travel through the woods on foot, ever reach Little Heaven, the religious settlement, they are unsettled by strange and disturbing events in the woods where they camp for the night.
This is old school horror folks, you know the kind, with all the juicy bits. And Cutter does a great job drawing out all his characters including the religious leader and his henchmen. Seriously if you are looking to scare me, just let in the religious fanatics. That right there is some pretty scary shit, but Cutter gives us more. Something is not right about this place. There are strange shapes making grotesque sounds deep in the woods. And it would seem they do not want anyone to leave, most especially not the children. But why and who or what is controlling these hideous aberrations. And what is up with that monolithic, black rock around which all vegetation seems to have withered.
But first a few things you should know:
You could not outrun your past. Your history was a lonely hound pursuing you over field and fallow, never resting, always hungry, tracking you relentlessly until one night you heard its nails scratching at your door.
Do not drink the Kool-Aid and do not follow the Pied Piper.
You have been warned.
My thanks to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster and Nick Cutter for an advance reading copy.
The little aphid did, as it toiled in the root system of a cactus plant. While the aphid fed on the sugars deposited in the roots, something else curled up from the blackest recesses of the earth and slipped inside the aphids body.
The aphid left the cactus roots, through the loose packed sand where it encountered a honey ant which fed on the honeydew that aphids produce and whatever had got inside the aphid now slipped silently into the ant.
This was how it began.
A trio of bounty hunters meet up in the 60’s, well they actually almost kill each other, but this story is not really about that. Well except for Minerva. She may have been hired to kill MIcah, but Ebenezer, now that was personal as we will soon discover. In any event they meet a woman that Micah is drawn to. Her name is Ellen and she wants to hire him, to track down her nephew who has been trundled off to some religious cult in the outback of nowhere, New Mexico.
But hold on,we actually meet Micah, Ebenezer and Minerva for the first time some fifteen years later in 1980. Micah’s daughter Petty has been abducted in the dark of night and Micah is seeking the assistance of Ebenezer and Minerva to rescue her. They know where they have to go. They have been there before.
Which bring us back to that first trip fiteen years earlier. Long before this group, who have to abandon their vehicle and travel through the woods on foot, ever reach Little Heaven, the religious settlement, they are unsettled by strange and disturbing events in the woods where they camp for the night.
This is old school horror folks, you know the kind, with all the juicy bits. And Cutter does a great job drawing out all his characters including the religious leader and his henchmen. Seriously if you are looking to scare me, just let in the religious fanatics. That right there is some pretty scary shit, but Cutter gives us more. Something is not right about this place. There are strange shapes making grotesque sounds deep in the woods. And it would seem they do not want anyone to leave, most especially not the children. But why and who or what is controlling these hideous aberrations. And what is up with that monolithic, black rock around which all vegetation seems to have withered.
But first a few things you should know:
You could not outrun your past. Your history was a lonely hound pursuing you over field and fallow, never resting, always hungry, tracking you relentlessly until one night you heard its nails scratching at your door.
Do not drink the Kool-Aid and do not follow the Pied Piper.
You have been warned.
My thanks to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster and Nick Cutter for an advance reading copy.
July 13, 2016
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
“How many of us truly know the beat of our hidden hearts?”
What happened??????? Maybe I don’t speak Canadian . . . .
I pulled a real Ron 2.0 and read this over a month ago without ever summing up my feelings. I thought dragging my feet would work to my benefit, but I’m still the first effing person to post a review. Now I realize it’s time to rip off the Band-Aid and just puke it all out here.
I was soooooooooooooooooooooooo excited when I saw a new release from Nick Cutter.Once I finish welding the customized chain and shackles for him in my basement I’ll be just like Stepheny I’m pretty sure I’m his number one fan. (Trudi would probably say otherwise, but I’ll whip her ass in a cage match if I have to in order to prove it.)
The basics of the story are that three people with quite a sordid past are hired to work together in order to check up on a kid who mayhave been kidnapped by Tom Cruise be living in a cult in New Mexico – but there ends up being so much more to the Black Rock location than meets the eye.
Sounds decent, right? Well, it wasn’t really. It took until about the 20% mark to figure out what the hell was even going on due to it beginning with the main characters’ backstories (which eventually made sense and were 100% necessary, but while reading had me wondering when the hell the awesome culty stuff was ever going to start). And then we got to the cult . . .
Now I understand thatDavid Miscavige only a handful of people come to mind when the term “religious cult” is mentioned, but seriously with this bullshit???? I mean all the way down to the pompadour and aviators . . .
And the story itself? Sadly it wasn’t fresh either . . . .
But enough with the bad. Let’s talk about some good. To begin with, other thanJim Jones Reverend Amos, I dug the characters and they had pretty awesome chemistry with each other too . . .
“You better make that fuckin’ phone call!” Minerva shouted over the engine.
“I’ll miss you most of all!” he shouted back to her.
Next, while things seemed to kind of churn around in one place for too long with nothing really going on, the ending wound up being pretty satisfactory.
And finally, no one does gross like Cutter does gross. We’re talking a real barf-o-rama with this one . . .
Why thank you Jonah Hill. If I were rating only for the puke factor this would get all the stars. Unfortunately that’s not the case, so 2 Stars it must be. Little Heaven just couldn’t hold a candle to Cutter’s other stuff. But don’t take my word for it – read it for yourself. After all . . . .
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!
ORIGINAL "REVIEW":
Ha! Not really (the bored part, not the appreciating Canada part). I definitely appreciate Nick Cutter. Almost to an unhealthy degree. Almost . . . .
“How many of us truly know the beat of our hidden hearts?”
What happened??????? Maybe I don’t speak Canadian . . . .
I pulled a real Ron 2.0 and read this over a month ago without ever summing up my feelings. I thought dragging my feet would work to my benefit, but I’m still the first effing person to post a review. Now I realize it’s time to rip off the Band-Aid and just puke it all out here.
I was soooooooooooooooooooooooo excited when I saw a new release from Nick Cutter.
The basics of the story are that three people with quite a sordid past are hired to work together in order to check up on a kid who may
Sounds decent, right? Well, it wasn’t really. It took until about the 20% mark to figure out what the hell was even going on due to it beginning with the main characters’ backstories (which eventually made sense and were 100% necessary, but while reading had me wondering when the hell the awesome culty stuff was ever going to start). And then we got to the cult . . .
Now I understand that
And the story itself? Sadly it wasn’t fresh either . . . .
But enough with the bad. Let’s talk about some good. To begin with, other than
“You better make that fuckin’ phone call!” Minerva shouted over the engine.
“I’ll miss you most of all!” he shouted back to her.
Next, while things seemed to kind of churn around in one place for too long with nothing really going on, the ending wound up being pretty satisfactory.
And finally, no one does gross like Cutter does gross. We’re talking a real barf-o-rama with this one . . .
Why thank you Jonah Hill. If I were rating only for the puke factor this would get all the stars. Unfortunately that’s not the case, so 2 Stars it must be. Little Heaven just couldn’t hold a candle to Cutter’s other stuff. But don’t take my word for it – read it for yourself. After all . . . .
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!
ORIGINAL "REVIEW":
Ha! Not really (the bored part, not the appreciating Canada part). I definitely appreciate Nick Cutter. Almost to an unhealthy degree. Almost . . . .
January 16, 2020
**NO SPOILER REVIEW**
Well, what a surprising read this was--surprising on multiple levels, actually.
For the first 200+ pages, this book didn't even *feel* like a Nick Cutter book to me. I have previously read The Deep and the The Troop and this book didn't have the same or even similar narration style or pace at all. There were a few moments; scenes where I thought, "Oh! There's Cutter!" but overall it was just an engaging story with no real sense of horror (or let's be honest: stomach churning, detailed descriptions that horrify and sicken).
I kept telling people, it's a really compelling story and I'm enjoying it, but it's not scary. So maybe I was feeling a little disappointed...at first. A few people who had already read it, just kept cryptically saying: Just wait.
So I waited. I enjoyed the story for the story's sake. I feel like Nick really allowed himself time, as a writer, to explore the main characters and develop them fully for us. Minerva (Minny), Micah and Eb. I especially made a connection with Micah.
Another surprise for me is a technical aspect that I don't want to spoil for others, just in case they don't already know. But something about the book itself that really added a layer of awesome to my reading experience.
Lastly, the thing I was waiting for, the Nick Cutterness, it came and it came HARD. There were a few times where I took a mental breather from the book because I was scared. I was actually terrified and I needed to look at something happy and full of light for a little while.
One of my bookstagram friends said she stopped reading the book at night at the same part that scared me. (page 304. I remember) *wink*
Oh, and one more surprise actually:
This book managed to make me feel a full range of emotions--even sadness and tears. Which feels very Stephen King level to me. A horror novel that can also go deep is a cherished horror novel indeed. I loved this book. I'll probably love it even more after some time goes by and I bet I read it again. It was that good. So my advice: Hang in there past 250 pages without expecting gross-out horror all the way through, okay? Sometimes Nick Cutter wants to tell us a story just to gross us out and sometimes, he has more to say--this is one of those books.
Well, what a surprising read this was--surprising on multiple levels, actually.
For the first 200+ pages, this book didn't even *feel* like a Nick Cutter book to me. I have previously read The Deep and the The Troop and this book didn't have the same or even similar narration style or pace at all. There were a few moments; scenes where I thought, "Oh! There's Cutter!" but overall it was just an engaging story with no real sense of horror (or let's be honest: stomach churning, detailed descriptions that horrify and sicken).
I kept telling people, it's a really compelling story and I'm enjoying it, but it's not scary. So maybe I was feeling a little disappointed...at first. A few people who had already read it, just kept cryptically saying: Just wait.
So I waited. I enjoyed the story for the story's sake. I feel like Nick really allowed himself time, as a writer, to explore the main characters and develop them fully for us. Minerva (Minny), Micah and Eb. I especially made a connection with Micah.
Another surprise for me is a technical aspect that I don't want to spoil for others, just in case they don't already know. But something about the book itself that really added a layer of awesome to my reading experience.
Lastly, the thing I was waiting for, the Nick Cutterness, it came and it came HARD. There were a few times where I took a mental breather from the book because I was scared. I was actually terrified and I needed to look at something happy and full of light for a little while.
One of my bookstagram friends said she stopped reading the book at night at the same part that scared me. (page 304. I remember) *wink*
Oh, and one more surprise actually:
This book managed to make me feel a full range of emotions--even sadness and tears. Which feels very Stephen King level to me. A horror novel that can also go deep is a cherished horror novel indeed. I loved this book. I'll probably love it even more after some time goes by and I bet I read it again. It was that good. So my advice: Hang in there past 250 pages without expecting gross-out horror all the way through, okay? Sometimes Nick Cutter wants to tell us a story just to gross us out and sometimes, he has more to say--this is one of those books.
January 6, 2017
Little Heaven is an extraordinary story! That doesn't mean it was a perfect story, but it was fun.
I'll refrain from going too deeply into the plot, but I will give a brief summary so I can talk about the few things that bothered me. Three bounty hunters meet up in the 60's, (and again some years later), and agree to help a woman check on her nephew, who had been taken by her brother-in-law to an isolated spot in the mountains. This spot being where the cult known as Little Heaven is located. Together, they all discover there is a LOT more going on in this settlement than just a warped, cruel "religion".
What I liked most about this story was its creativity. Yes, I saw similarities to Stephen King's work, (a lot of them, really), but I didn't find this tale to be derivative-I took it as an homage to the King instead. In fact, I think some of the scenes with the leader, (read: insane cult leader), the baby, (oh, that baby: SHUDDER), and the "Long Walker" (you'll see), would have made Stephen King himself jealous.
At times though, it seemed like Little Heaven didn't know what it wanted to be-between the main cult story, the interactions of the bounty hunters, the current and past time lines, the things in the woods and in the rock-there was a lot going on. I'm not exactly sure why, but at times I found my mind wandering. Maybe if the story were a little more tight and focused that would have helped? As I said, I'm not quite sure.
Whenever I found that happening, some piece of writing or creative incident would set me right back on the path. I found this particular quote to be beautiful:
"It’s all so goddamn fragile. Your life and the thread you carry it on. And the more love you carry, the more stress you put on that thread, the better chance it will snap. But what choice do any of us have? You take on that love because to live without it is to exist as half a person. You give that love away because it is in you to give, not out of a desire for recompense. And you keep loving even when the world cracks open and reveals a black hole where all that love can get swallowed."
Overall though, this tale's creativity and imagination beckoned to me like a bright star moving across the sky, and I willingly followed it-right down into the dark below the big, black rock. What's hiding down there? You'll have to read this book to find out! I recommend that you do.
Available January 10th here: Little Heaven: A Novel
*Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*
I'll refrain from going too deeply into the plot, but I will give a brief summary so I can talk about the few things that bothered me. Three bounty hunters meet up in the 60's, (and again some years later), and agree to help a woman check on her nephew, who had been taken by her brother-in-law to an isolated spot in the mountains. This spot being where the cult known as Little Heaven is located. Together, they all discover there is a LOT more going on in this settlement than just a warped, cruel "religion".
What I liked most about this story was its creativity. Yes, I saw similarities to Stephen King's work, (a lot of them, really), but I didn't find this tale to be derivative-I took it as an homage to the King instead. In fact, I think some of the scenes with the leader, (read: insane cult leader), the baby, (oh, that baby: SHUDDER), and the "Long Walker" (you'll see), would have made Stephen King himself jealous.
At times though, it seemed like Little Heaven didn't know what it wanted to be-between the main cult story, the interactions of the bounty hunters, the current and past time lines, the things in the woods and in the rock-there was a lot going on. I'm not exactly sure why, but at times I found my mind wandering. Maybe if the story were a little more tight and focused that would have helped? As I said, I'm not quite sure.
Whenever I found that happening, some piece of writing or creative incident would set me right back on the path. I found this particular quote to be beautiful:
"It’s all so goddamn fragile. Your life and the thread you carry it on. And the more love you carry, the more stress you put on that thread, the better chance it will snap. But what choice do any of us have? You take on that love because to live without it is to exist as half a person. You give that love away because it is in you to give, not out of a desire for recompense. And you keep loving even when the world cracks open and reveals a black hole where all that love can get swallowed."
Overall though, this tale's creativity and imagination beckoned to me like a bright star moving across the sky, and I willingly followed it-right down into the dark below the big, black rock. What's hiding down there? You'll have to read this book to find out! I recommend that you do.
Available January 10th here: Little Heaven: A Novel
*Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*
September 13, 2017
"The black rock stood within itself, brooding and implacable. It waited as it always had. For that wheel to come round again."
A trio of mismatched mercenaries are hired by Ellen Bellhaven to check in on her nephew, who has been whisked away to join a backwoods settlement in New Mexico called Little Heaven. Ellen joins the mercenaries, Micah, Minerva and Eb, as they venture out on their mission. However, as they get close to the settlement, things start to turn a little.... ominous. Full of downtrodden inhabitants, who appear unhealthy and emaciated, and children who are demonstrating pretty cruel behaviour, Little Heaven tells the story of a settlement that might actually be a little closer to Hell than Heaven...
I finally broke my Nick Cutter virginity and it was everything I thought it would be! My two major takeaways from this book:
1). Nick Cutter is insanely good at character development - almost King-like, one could say.
2). He is very skilled at presenting lots of horror and gore without it becoming gratuitous.
Combine these two skills together and you've got an insanely good horror book where you actually care about the fate of the characters. The perfect page-turner. If you're not a fan of gore or if you're particularly squeamish, then sorry, Little Heaven might not be the book for you. And if you are... what are you waiting for?!
I was looking at other reviews online and I had seen a lot of comparison to Stephen King's IT. Apart from the story being told over two time periods, I honestly don't see much of a comparison. Sure, there's supernatural forces at work, and a lair in which the monster resides, but I didn't feel like the similarities were overpowering. Cutter is obviously inspired by King - but what horror author these days isn't inspired by the Master? I also felt like Cutter was influenced by Lovecraft - another Master of Horror - in the form of the monsters he creates in this novel. The illustrations throughout this book were a really nice way of helping to visualise how messed-up these creatures were. They were INSANE. Scary shit. And there's a lot of creepy crawlies too. Be prepared to feel your skin crawl as you read this!
I really liked ALL of the main characters in this book. Eb's sense of humour, Minerva's attitude and Micah's humanity were all contributing factors to this. I just felt like they were all very likeable, even though they were bounty hunters and murderers. Little Heaven is run by one of the most vile characters - Amos Flesher - even thinking about him turns my stomach. The religious cult out in the middle of nowhere gave me serious Jonestown vibes and I was glad to read that Cutter actually drew inspiration from this. The combination of the religious cult aspect with the supernatural forces at work made for a compelling tale.
You can tell how much I loved (or hated) a book by how much I have to say about it. I could go on and on about why I enjoyed this book, but also want to limit what I give away to potential readers. I'll conclude by saying that Cutter really impressed me with this book, and this is usually his least popular novel amongst his readers, so that really heightens my excitement for both The Deep and The Troop. Go get your Nick Cutter fix!! 5 stars out of 5 from me!
A trio of mismatched mercenaries are hired by Ellen Bellhaven to check in on her nephew, who has been whisked away to join a backwoods settlement in New Mexico called Little Heaven. Ellen joins the mercenaries, Micah, Minerva and Eb, as they venture out on their mission. However, as they get close to the settlement, things start to turn a little.... ominous. Full of downtrodden inhabitants, who appear unhealthy and emaciated, and children who are demonstrating pretty cruel behaviour, Little Heaven tells the story of a settlement that might actually be a little closer to Hell than Heaven...
I finally broke my Nick Cutter virginity and it was everything I thought it would be! My two major takeaways from this book:
1). Nick Cutter is insanely good at character development - almost King-like, one could say.
2). He is very skilled at presenting lots of horror and gore without it becoming gratuitous.
Combine these two skills together and you've got an insanely good horror book where you actually care about the fate of the characters. The perfect page-turner. If you're not a fan of gore or if you're particularly squeamish, then sorry, Little Heaven might not be the book for you. And if you are... what are you waiting for?!
I was looking at other reviews online and I had seen a lot of comparison to Stephen King's IT. Apart from the story being told over two time periods, I honestly don't see much of a comparison. Sure, there's supernatural forces at work, and a lair in which the monster resides, but I didn't feel like the similarities were overpowering. Cutter is obviously inspired by King - but what horror author these days isn't inspired by the Master? I also felt like Cutter was influenced by Lovecraft - another Master of Horror - in the form of the monsters he creates in this novel. The illustrations throughout this book were a really nice way of helping to visualise how messed-up these creatures were. They were INSANE. Scary shit. And there's a lot of creepy crawlies too. Be prepared to feel your skin crawl as you read this!
I really liked ALL of the main characters in this book. Eb's sense of humour, Minerva's attitude and Micah's humanity were all contributing factors to this. I just felt like they were all very likeable, even though they were bounty hunters and murderers. Little Heaven is run by one of the most vile characters - Amos Flesher - even thinking about him turns my stomach. The religious cult out in the middle of nowhere gave me serious Jonestown vibes and I was glad to read that Cutter actually drew inspiration from this. The combination of the religious cult aspect with the supernatural forces at work made for a compelling tale.
You can tell how much I loved (or hated) a book by how much I have to say about it. I could go on and on about why I enjoyed this book, but also want to limit what I give away to potential readers. I'll conclude by saying that Cutter really impressed me with this book, and this is usually his least popular novel amongst his readers, so that really heightens my excitement for both The Deep and The Troop. Go get your Nick Cutter fix!! 5 stars out of 5 from me!
July 1, 2020
You cannot outfox the devil. You may be able to stay his approach if you’re lucky and a little crazy, but in the end, his black eye will ferret you out.
How can you kill something that is already dead? Our three bounty hunters are going to find the answer soon enough. They are hired by a woman to find her nephew who has been taken to a remote settlement called Little Heaven. The place is anything but blissful and divine.
Little Heaven was revoltingly and nauseatingly good.
If you want to go on a strict diet, this book would help you lose your appetite. Otherwise, don’t read it before, during or immediately after eating.
How can you kill something that is already dead? Our three bounty hunters are going to find the answer soon enough. They are hired by a woman to find her nephew who has been taken to a remote settlement called Little Heaven. The place is anything but blissful and divine.
Little Heaven was revoltingly and nauseatingly good.
If you want to go on a strict diet, this book would help you lose your appetite. Otherwise, don’t read it before, during or immediately after eating.
February 7, 2017
2 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2017/01/22/...
Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am at my rating. I wanted to like Little Heaven so much, not only because it sounded so intriguing but also because I am a fan of Cutter’s The Troop. However, his newest novel simply did not appeal to me in the same way, despite it feeling like the next step for the author and the story being well put-together.
The book opens with an introduction to a trio of rough mercenaries who have reunited to stand against an evil from their past. Back in 1965, Micah Shughrue, Ebenezer Elkins, and Minerva Atwater were forced to set aside their differences (i.e. stop killing each other) in order to help a woman named Ellen Bellhaven rescue her nephew from a religious cult in New Mexico. Everything that happened during that fateful year is told in a series of flashbacks chronicling their harrowing mission into the wilderness to infiltrate Little Heaven, the cult’s compound run by a fiendishly insane megalomaniac named Amos Flesher. And yet, compared to the true terrors our three protagonists find lurking in the darkness surrounding them, even the human kind of monsters will seem like small fry.
Fast forward to fifteen years later, Micah wakes up one day to find his daughter missing, abducted in the night. When his greatest fears are confirmed, the former mercenary has no choice but to call on his one-time allies, beseeching Ebenezer and Minerva to join up with him once more for round two against the horror that has come back to haunt them.
Since I like leading with the positives, I’m going to first talk about the things I enjoyed about this book. To its credit, Little Heaven really takes the creeps and scares to a whole new level, which is extreme even for Cutter. His writing style has clearly evolved since The Troop, no longer relying solely on the “gross-out” factor to strike terror into readers’ hearts. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of blood, guts and gore in this novel, because there is (not to mention, those with a fear of snakes or creepy crawlies will have especially rough time with this one). Still, in order for a horror novel to be effective, graphic descriptions are only half the picture. The other half of it requires a bit more finesse, a way to bring the atmosphere of dread and suspense to the surface. Cutter did a great job on that front, creating an intense and all-encompassing sense of “wrongness” that never quite leaves you. The scenes in Little Heaven are especially well-written, where it feels like the squalor, degeneracy and madness are constantly closing in on you from all sides.
Now, if only I felt the same love for the character development. In theory, the protagonists should have worked better for me. Micah, Ebenezer, and Minerva are the tough-as-nails sort, killers and bounty hunters with checkered pasts. I have no problems reading about morally ambiguous characters—in fact, I enjoy them, and it’s great when their authors manage to make them sympathetic and likeable. But regretfully, I found it really hard to care about anyone in this book, which also likely dampened my enthusiasm for the story. All the characters were too thinly sketched for my tastes; they were flat, unchanging, and I just didn’t think enough attention was paid to them overall.
The term “old school horror” also seems to get tossed around a lot when discussing this book, which I’d say is pretty spot on. Good news, perhaps, for readers who enjoy the older stylings of Stephen King. Bad news on the other hand for yours truly, who has always found King’s earlier work to be excessively wordy and bloated (which is why I could never get through his books like It). As such, I was really not all that surprised when I came to experience the same ennui with Little Heaven.
Which all comes down to why I’m sure this is simply a case of “wrong book, wrong time” or “Sorry, Little Heaven, it’s not you, it’s me.” As much as I’ve enjoyed Nick Cutter in the past, sadly this one didn’t quite live up to my expectations, though of course that doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. Personal taste being what it is, and with mine being more capricious than most, I hope this won’t dissuade anyone from trying the book out for themselves if the description sounds like something you might enjoy. Indeed, take everything I say here with a grain of salt since the vast majority of other reviews I’ve seen so far have been positively glowing. If the premise interests you, I highly recommend giving it a try.
Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am at my rating. I wanted to like Little Heaven so much, not only because it sounded so intriguing but also because I am a fan of Cutter’s The Troop. However, his newest novel simply did not appeal to me in the same way, despite it feeling like the next step for the author and the story being well put-together.
The book opens with an introduction to a trio of rough mercenaries who have reunited to stand against an evil from their past. Back in 1965, Micah Shughrue, Ebenezer Elkins, and Minerva Atwater were forced to set aside their differences (i.e. stop killing each other) in order to help a woman named Ellen Bellhaven rescue her nephew from a religious cult in New Mexico. Everything that happened during that fateful year is told in a series of flashbacks chronicling their harrowing mission into the wilderness to infiltrate Little Heaven, the cult’s compound run by a fiendishly insane megalomaniac named Amos Flesher. And yet, compared to the true terrors our three protagonists find lurking in the darkness surrounding them, even the human kind of monsters will seem like small fry.
Fast forward to fifteen years later, Micah wakes up one day to find his daughter missing, abducted in the night. When his greatest fears are confirmed, the former mercenary has no choice but to call on his one-time allies, beseeching Ebenezer and Minerva to join up with him once more for round two against the horror that has come back to haunt them.
Since I like leading with the positives, I’m going to first talk about the things I enjoyed about this book. To its credit, Little Heaven really takes the creeps and scares to a whole new level, which is extreme even for Cutter. His writing style has clearly evolved since The Troop, no longer relying solely on the “gross-out” factor to strike terror into readers’ hearts. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of blood, guts and gore in this novel, because there is (not to mention, those with a fear of snakes or creepy crawlies will have especially rough time with this one). Still, in order for a horror novel to be effective, graphic descriptions are only half the picture. The other half of it requires a bit more finesse, a way to bring the atmosphere of dread and suspense to the surface. Cutter did a great job on that front, creating an intense and all-encompassing sense of “wrongness” that never quite leaves you. The scenes in Little Heaven are especially well-written, where it feels like the squalor, degeneracy and madness are constantly closing in on you from all sides.
Now, if only I felt the same love for the character development. In theory, the protagonists should have worked better for me. Micah, Ebenezer, and Minerva are the tough-as-nails sort, killers and bounty hunters with checkered pasts. I have no problems reading about morally ambiguous characters—in fact, I enjoy them, and it’s great when their authors manage to make them sympathetic and likeable. But regretfully, I found it really hard to care about anyone in this book, which also likely dampened my enthusiasm for the story. All the characters were too thinly sketched for my tastes; they were flat, unchanging, and I just didn’t think enough attention was paid to them overall.
The term “old school horror” also seems to get tossed around a lot when discussing this book, which I’d say is pretty spot on. Good news, perhaps, for readers who enjoy the older stylings of Stephen King. Bad news on the other hand for yours truly, who has always found King’s earlier work to be excessively wordy and bloated (which is why I could never get through his books like It). As such, I was really not all that surprised when I came to experience the same ennui with Little Heaven.
Which all comes down to why I’m sure this is simply a case of “wrong book, wrong time” or “Sorry, Little Heaven, it’s not you, it’s me.” As much as I’ve enjoyed Nick Cutter in the past, sadly this one didn’t quite live up to my expectations, though of course that doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. Personal taste being what it is, and with mine being more capricious than most, I hope this won’t dissuade anyone from trying the book out for themselves if the description sounds like something you might enjoy. Indeed, take everything I say here with a grain of salt since the vast majority of other reviews I’ve seen so far have been positively glowing. If the premise interests you, I highly recommend giving it a try.
July 29, 2019
After reading two of Cutter’s books and being absolutely floored by both, I think it’s safe to say that he is a true master at his craft. Little Heaven is a spectacular novel, it’s insidious evil just mounts the whole way through and it’s bloody fabulous! Normally when I’m really loving a book I devour it in no time but with this one I found myself purposely slowing my reading down so I could really savour each moment and wrap my brain around all the gruesome and devilish details. This really is one hell of a horror story, it just creeps up on you and sinks it’s claws right into your gut and rips everything out.
July 12, 2017
“Little Heaven” by Nick Cutter will remind you of 1980s Stephen King (or 90s for me, since I didn’t read his novels until then), such as “It” or “Pet Sematary”. In fact, Cutter writes so similarly to Stephen King that if each author’s books were splayed side by side, it would take some keen investigating skills to differentiate and identify the two. It is very obvious that Cutter was influenced by King; even if the author didn’t admit it himself (which he does, often), any fan of King’s would easily see the similarities.
In “Little Heaven”, a trio of mercenaries is hired by a young woman who is desperate to locate her missing nephew, last seen living at a religious commune called “Little Heaven”, in the recesses of rural New Mexico. The mercenaries take on this job, assuming an easy gig for good pay, and instead are faced with an evil beyond their understanding. Strange figures in the woods, the Black Rock that is far too desolate and spooky to be normal, and children disappearing into the night are all frequent occurrences at Little Heaven. Each mercenary battles their own demons and literally make deals with the devil in order to escape the commune alive.
This novel is written in segments, alternating between the present and the past. I would’ve liked the story to be told in sequential order, as the length of time between past and present storylines was often large, making it very easy to forget my place. Also, the “past” parts of the novel took place during the 1960s, however it resembled a much earlier time frame (bandits on horseback, abandoned towns similar to that of the Old West) which also contributed to the confusing layout of this novel.
I am a fan of Nick Cutter, and really enjoyed “The Troop” (also bears a striking resemblance to something by Stephen King) but this novel didn’t hook me as much as his previous ones. I would’ve preferred it if Cutter stuck to a consistent, flowing storyline. “Little Heaven” was almost 500 pages but it felt longer than that. A lot of the material seemed extraneous and unnecessary, and a more directed storyline with one focus would’ve made for easier reading.
Granted, this novel was spooky and definitely highlights Cutter’s writing ability. The characters were a rather misanthropic group of misfits that took a while to warm up to, and Little Heaven was essentially developed from Jim Jones’ cult (even the author admits to this) but I had enough interest in this novel to read it until the end. The ending itself was to-be-expected for a novel in the horror genre, but it was overall satisfying and bittersweet. This novel has not turned me off of Cutter’s works completely, and I will continue to be a fan although mostly, Cutter’s works make me want to re-read Stephen King.
In “Little Heaven”, a trio of mercenaries is hired by a young woman who is desperate to locate her missing nephew, last seen living at a religious commune called “Little Heaven”, in the recesses of rural New Mexico. The mercenaries take on this job, assuming an easy gig for good pay, and instead are faced with an evil beyond their understanding. Strange figures in the woods, the Black Rock that is far too desolate and spooky to be normal, and children disappearing into the night are all frequent occurrences at Little Heaven. Each mercenary battles their own demons and literally make deals with the devil in order to escape the commune alive.
This novel is written in segments, alternating between the present and the past. I would’ve liked the story to be told in sequential order, as the length of time between past and present storylines was often large, making it very easy to forget my place. Also, the “past” parts of the novel took place during the 1960s, however it resembled a much earlier time frame (bandits on horseback, abandoned towns similar to that of the Old West) which also contributed to the confusing layout of this novel.
I am a fan of Nick Cutter, and really enjoyed “The Troop” (also bears a striking resemblance to something by Stephen King) but this novel didn’t hook me as much as his previous ones. I would’ve preferred it if Cutter stuck to a consistent, flowing storyline. “Little Heaven” was almost 500 pages but it felt longer than that. A lot of the material seemed extraneous and unnecessary, and a more directed storyline with one focus would’ve made for easier reading.
Granted, this novel was spooky and definitely highlights Cutter’s writing ability. The characters were a rather misanthropic group of misfits that took a while to warm up to, and Little Heaven was essentially developed from Jim Jones’ cult (even the author admits to this) but I had enough interest in this novel to read it until the end. The ending itself was to-be-expected for a novel in the horror genre, but it was overall satisfying and bittersweet. This novel has not turned me off of Cutter’s works completely, and I will continue to be a fan although mostly, Cutter’s works make me want to re-read Stephen King.
December 24, 2016
DNF @ 45%
Unfortunately Little Heaven turned out to be just not a book for me. This one gets off to an incredibly slow start that I had to force myself to continue reading. The actual plot described in the synopsis really doesn't even start until 25-30% into the book with the beginning of the story being sort of a mashed up type of character building that I kept struggling to make sense of.
By the time the actual plot that I thought I was getting with this read began it really was just unfortunately too little too late to pull me into this book. The pace did pick up a bit but there were still random thoughts/remembrances the characters have that continued to make it drag to me. Those that are fans of the gory and gruesome may be entertained though but with not being connected to the story or characters I felt I was just continuing to read only to gross myself out. There are some disturbing things already happening in the first half of this so I can only imagine how it would turn out but after a couple of days of picking it up and putting it down I think it's time to move on for me.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.wordpress....
Unfortunately Little Heaven turned out to be just not a book for me. This one gets off to an incredibly slow start that I had to force myself to continue reading. The actual plot described in the synopsis really doesn't even start until 25-30% into the book with the beginning of the story being sort of a mashed up type of character building that I kept struggling to make sense of.
By the time the actual plot that I thought I was getting with this read began it really was just unfortunately too little too late to pull me into this book. The pace did pick up a bit but there were still random thoughts/remembrances the characters have that continued to make it drag to me. Those that are fans of the gory and gruesome may be entertained though but with not being connected to the story or characters I felt I was just continuing to read only to gross myself out. There are some disturbing things already happening in the first half of this so I can only imagine how it would turn out but after a couple of days of picking it up and putting it down I think it's time to move on for me.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.wordpress....
February 10, 2017
4.5
You know, I didn't love The Troop and I am 100% not a Nick Cutter Fangurrrl. However, the premise of this book intrigued me and it wasn't as if The Troop was bad, I just didn't find it to be the genre-redefining-blasting-Stephen-King-out-of-the-park-amazing-adventure-ride everyone else thought it was. Nonetheless, here's the premise (how cool is this?):
I loved this book for its sheer fun-a-palooza. I felt that Cutter revels in the sheer, can I say fun again, okay, joy of horror in Little Heaven. Not only is there a tight plot, and amazing characters in Minerva, Ebenezer, and especially Micah, but man, is there just some sheer reveling in horror tropes here. And not just tropes, but inventions on these tropes – for example, one seriously scary monster is just a henchman for an even worse sort of thing which can appear as a freakin' baby! (I swear, this doesn't spoil anything, but as I write this I realize this sounds so absurd that maybe people think we are in the world of the bizarro, but no, this works in some weird Cutter-way). It is really quite inventive.
This isn't a perfect book. Cutter tends to be repetitive here – there are only so many times we can describe the same scene – and worse, he has a tendency to repeat the same scene while not explaining the scene. For example, I do not know how many times people could not explain what they were seeing. I won't quote, but it was like, “Wow, it was so mind-blowing, my mind could not process” and “I will not describe this because it was so not able to be processed yadda yadda yadda”. But then again, I read an early copy, so maybe they will cut some of this. But even if they don't, it is worth plowing on, because the good bits, which is most of this book, are so freakin' worth it.
Read it.
Buy, Burn, or Borrow? Buy! And send one to your friend.
You know, I didn't love The Troop and I am 100% not a Nick Cutter Fangurrrl. However, the premise of this book intrigued me and it wasn't as if The Troop was bad, I just didn't find it to be the genre-redefining-blasting-Stephen-King-out-of-the-park-amazing-adventure-ride everyone else thought it was. Nonetheless, here's the premise (how cool is this?):
Three bounty hunters (yes, bounty hunters) meet in the 1960s. Stuff ensues, but besides their differences, including one actively aiming to kill one of the others, they band together on a job to infiltrate a religious cult (I KNOW) to just sort of get the lay of the land for a client. Some seriously weird shit ensues. Not only do we have this cult, but we have some serious (supernatural) evil a-brewing and even though we know our “heroes” escape the 1965 fun time since the novel starts in present time (more or less), we have no idea how, why, or what.
I loved this book for its sheer fun-a-palooza. I felt that Cutter revels in the sheer, can I say fun again, okay, joy of horror in Little Heaven. Not only is there a tight plot, and amazing characters in Minerva, Ebenezer, and especially Micah, but man, is there just some sheer reveling in horror tropes here. And not just tropes, but inventions on these tropes – for example, one seriously scary monster is just a henchman for an even worse sort of thing which can appear as a freakin' baby! (I swear, this doesn't spoil anything, but as I write this I realize this sounds so absurd that maybe people think we are in the world of the bizarro, but no, this works in some weird Cutter-way). It is really quite inventive.
This isn't a perfect book. Cutter tends to be repetitive here – there are only so many times we can describe the same scene – and worse, he has a tendency to repeat the same scene while not explaining the scene. For example, I do not know how many times people could not explain what they were seeing. I won't quote, but it was like, “Wow, it was so mind-blowing, my mind could not process” and “I will not describe this because it was so not able to be processed yadda yadda yadda”. But then again, I read an early copy, so maybe they will cut some of this. But even if they don't, it is worth plowing on, because the good bits, which is most of this book, are so freakin' worth it.
Read it.
Buy, Burn, or Borrow? Buy! And send one to your friend.
February 16, 2025
“You always were a filthy boy, Amos Flesher. The filthiest, by far. Do you know what will happen if you keep fiddling with your dirty stick, hmm? It will fall off. That’s right! Snap off like a winter icicle, it will. And you will be so ashamed, won’t you? You will have no choice but to bury it in the yard, as a dog does with a bone. Your uuuuu-rhine will simply fall from the hole where your little stick once poked, Amos. Yes, as sure as Christ sits in Heaven.”
Want to read
March 27, 2020This sounds like solid 'shelter in place' reading!
Hoping to finally pick this up soon. I am hearing nothing but great things!!!
Hoping to finally pick this up soon. I am hearing nothing but great things!!!
May 4, 2017
I'm going to keep this one short and sweet, as I don't care to linger on Little Heaven any more than I have to.
In essence, this novel fails in virtually every way. It's a horror story that didn't scare me in the slightest. It's a character-driven tale in which none of the characters were developed enough for me to give a solitary flying fuck about any of them. It's unclear what this book wants to be: an old school monster story; a long epic about religious fanaticism; a coming of age story. It tries to be all of them and none of it works. As well, the alternating timelines feel largely useless — they come across as an effort on Nick Cutter's part to make the story seem more complex and daunting than it really is.
This one was just a damn bore. 480-page novels don't usually take me two weeks to read. I just didn't want to pick this up; it actively repelled me.
I know this one has its fans, and that's cool. I wish I could've liked it — I paid for the hardcover, after all. But it just wasn't for me.
In essence, this novel fails in virtually every way. It's a horror story that didn't scare me in the slightest. It's a character-driven tale in which none of the characters were developed enough for me to give a solitary flying fuck about any of them. It's unclear what this book wants to be: an old school monster story; a long epic about religious fanaticism; a coming of age story. It tries to be all of them and none of it works. As well, the alternating timelines feel largely useless — they come across as an effort on Nick Cutter's part to make the story seem more complex and daunting than it really is.
This one was just a damn bore. 480-page novels don't usually take me two weeks to read. I just didn't want to pick this up; it actively repelled me.
I know this one has its fans, and that's cool. I wish I could've liked it — I paid for the hardcover, after all. But it just wasn't for me.
February 7, 2017
http://angelerin.blogspot.com/2017/01...
Thank you to Gallery Books for providing a free copy of Little Heaven in exchange for an honest review!
Let me start off this review by saying that Little Heaven was my most anticipated release of 2017. I absolutely LOVE The Troop and The Deep by this author. So that is why I am sad to say that I liked this one, but I didn't LOVE it. I can't help but feel a tad bit of disappointment. Little Heaven is so close to being a spectacular and epic book, but it was just missing something.
#ABitDisappointed
Part of my issue with Little Heaven is the beginning. The book started off a little slow and I had a hard time getting into it. It finally started to pick up around 100-150 pages in, but then there were some slow parts again. The last half of the book or so was pretty strong and fast-paced though. I'm glad I did push forward and get to that point because things did get a lot better.
#SlowStart
I liked the concept of this book and the story is very interesting, but like I mentioned before there is just a disconnect somewhere. The characters are okay, but I didn't like or dislike anybody enough. I was almost a bit apathetic about all of the characters. I am glad that the book had a few parts that were pretty creepy. I think that's what saved the book from being terrible for me.
#LackOfCharacterConnection
Overall I liked Little Heaven, but I feel like it had so much potential to be great and it just wasn't. There are some very good and CREEPY parts in the book that made it worth the read. If you can get past the beginning. I just really wish that I had loved this one more like I was expecting to.
#LovedTheCreepyParts
I do recommend this one if you are a Cutter fan, however if you haven't read anything by him before then I suggest reading The Troop or The Deep first.
#TheTroopIsMyFaveCutterBook
Thank you to Gallery Books for providing a free copy of Little Heaven in exchange for an honest review!
Let me start off this review by saying that Little Heaven was my most anticipated release of 2017. I absolutely LOVE The Troop and The Deep by this author. So that is why I am sad to say that I liked this one, but I didn't LOVE it. I can't help but feel a tad bit of disappointment. Little Heaven is so close to being a spectacular and epic book, but it was just missing something.
#ABitDisappointed
Part of my issue with Little Heaven is the beginning. The book started off a little slow and I had a hard time getting into it. It finally started to pick up around 100-150 pages in, but then there were some slow parts again. The last half of the book or so was pretty strong and fast-paced though. I'm glad I did push forward and get to that point because things did get a lot better.
#SlowStart
I liked the concept of this book and the story is very interesting, but like I mentioned before there is just a disconnect somewhere. The characters are okay, but I didn't like or dislike anybody enough. I was almost a bit apathetic about all of the characters. I am glad that the book had a few parts that were pretty creepy. I think that's what saved the book from being terrible for me.
#LackOfCharacterConnection
Overall I liked Little Heaven, but I feel like it had so much potential to be great and it just wasn't. There are some very good and CREEPY parts in the book that made it worth the read. If you can get past the beginning. I just really wish that I had loved this one more like I was expecting to.
#LovedTheCreepyParts
I do recommend this one if you are a Cutter fan, however if you haven't read anything by him before then I suggest reading The Troop or The Deep first.
#TheTroopIsMyFaveCutterBook
December 30, 2016
If Stephen King's Under the Dome felt like a Greatest Hits rehash of of his own earlier, better books, then Nick Cutter's Little Heaven is a tribute cover band rendition of several of King's biggest moments.
They say imitation is flattery, and if that's the case, ol' Stevie has to be wearing a big, walloping grin on his face. Cutter has clearly, to say the least, been influenced by the King of Horror, and Little Heaven borrows liberally from titles like IT and The Gunslinger saga. The climax alone features several reminders from these books - an antagonist who challenges a member of Cutter's band of gunslinger mercenaries to a game of riddles, while others move their way through a deep cavern to square off against the ancient, and perhaps, timeless Big Bad just as elemental devastation begins to loom outside.
Before we get there, though, Cutter divvies his antihero protagonists' stories across the time stream, jumping back and forth between 1980 and 1966. After Micah's daughter is lured away from home by a demonic Pied Piped, he hurries to put the band back together, reuniting with fellow gunslingers Ebenezer and Minerva. Flashback to 1966 and how these three troublesome killers met-up, and then banded together as hired guns sent into a secretive religious compound, Little Heaven, to rescue a young boy from Bible thumping crackpots. Tucked away in the forest, our intrepid fighters learn there are savage monstrosities hidden in the woods.
Over the course of the book, Cutter weaves the two timelines together, a la IT, invoking evils both human and otherwise, telling a story that is pretty good but also fairly unoriginal. It's almost as if Cutter sat down and decided to write an honest-to-goodness Stephen King book, mimicking the sense of scope of King's biggest door-stoppers as they careen toward an apocalyptic finale. And while I found Little Heaven to be an engaging read, one that I was eager to return to over the course of a week, I was also quite cognizant that what I was reading was pure mimicry. Cutter has enough original ideas to play with, and he does so effectively, but so much of it feels drenched in knowing inspiration, and then we hit a finale practically straight out of Derry, ME.
I'm fairly conflicted over how to rate Little Heaven. I liked it quite a bit, and I suspect if I hadn't read several of King's biggest and best first I would have absolutely loved this book. But I'm also a bit troubled by a pattern that appears to be emerging in Cutter's works. The Deep got by on sheer entertainment value, and I was willing to give it as pass for its knowing tributes to movies like Event Horizon, The Thing, and The Abyss. Now that I'm examining Little Heaven, a book that is surely entertaining but lifts quite a lot of its material from King's cannon, I'm growing a bit leery of Cutter's ability to create original works of horror wholecloth. Yes, he writes some damn impressive, and gory, scare scenes, but the framing of these scenes feels far too...let's say, familiar.
Little Heaven has a few stand-out moments, and the reveal of the Big Bad is effectively chilling, but if you're well-versed in the works of Stephen King a lot of these elements will feel like a retread at the least, and like an altered xerox at the worst.
[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the author.]
They say imitation is flattery, and if that's the case, ol' Stevie has to be wearing a big, walloping grin on his face. Cutter has clearly, to say the least, been influenced by the King of Horror, and Little Heaven borrows liberally from titles like IT and The Gunslinger saga. The climax alone features several reminders from these books - an antagonist who challenges a member of Cutter's band of gunslinger mercenaries to a game of riddles, while others move their way through a deep cavern to square off against the ancient, and perhaps, timeless Big Bad just as elemental devastation begins to loom outside.
Before we get there, though, Cutter divvies his antihero protagonists' stories across the time stream, jumping back and forth between 1980 and 1966. After Micah's daughter is lured away from home by a demonic Pied Piped, he hurries to put the band back together, reuniting with fellow gunslingers Ebenezer and Minerva. Flashback to 1966 and how these three troublesome killers met-up, and then banded together as hired guns sent into a secretive religious compound, Little Heaven, to rescue a young boy from Bible thumping crackpots. Tucked away in the forest, our intrepid fighters learn there are savage monstrosities hidden in the woods.
Over the course of the book, Cutter weaves the two timelines together, a la IT, invoking evils both human and otherwise, telling a story that is pretty good but also fairly unoriginal. It's almost as if Cutter sat down and decided to write an honest-to-goodness Stephen King book, mimicking the sense of scope of King's biggest door-stoppers as they careen toward an apocalyptic finale. And while I found Little Heaven to be an engaging read, one that I was eager to return to over the course of a week, I was also quite cognizant that what I was reading was pure mimicry. Cutter has enough original ideas to play with, and he does so effectively, but so much of it feels drenched in knowing inspiration, and then we hit a finale practically straight out of Derry, ME.
I'm fairly conflicted over how to rate Little Heaven. I liked it quite a bit, and I suspect if I hadn't read several of King's biggest and best first I would have absolutely loved this book. But I'm also a bit troubled by a pattern that appears to be emerging in Cutter's works. The Deep got by on sheer entertainment value, and I was willing to give it as pass for its knowing tributes to movies like Event Horizon, The Thing, and The Abyss. Now that I'm examining Little Heaven, a book that is surely entertaining but lifts quite a lot of its material from King's cannon, I'm growing a bit leery of Cutter's ability to create original works of horror wholecloth. Yes, he writes some damn impressive, and gory, scare scenes, but the framing of these scenes feels far too...let's say, familiar.
Little Heaven has a few stand-out moments, and the reveal of the Big Bad is effectively chilling, but if you're well-versed in the works of Stephen King a lot of these elements will feel like a retread at the least, and like an altered xerox at the worst.
[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the author.]
October 24, 2017
Meet Minerva, Ebenezer and Micah. Doing a favor for Ellen, to take her to her nephew who seems to have disappeared to a place called Little Heaven. Enter Cutter to weave this horror tale for you.
Opening was great - Cutter has such a way with detailing that leaves you cringing and I'm fairly certain my face IS going to freeze like that after 486 pages. He's especially good at detailing insects and critters in a way that keeps my skin crawling for days after putting down one of his novels. I think if you've read The Troop then you can certainly agree. Then we meet the main characters and it's a bit of a slow burn as we get to know each of them intimately. Didn't bother this girl none, I enjoyed the weirdness of each character - but I was a tad bit confused from the horror prologue to what almost seemingly had a supernatural western feel for a bit. But again, CUTTER.
Then wham bam I'm gonna fuck you up, ma'am. While I didn't feel necessarily scared while reading the book, I certainly did get the creepy crawlies. He hit upon so many of your typical horror tropes while snazzing it up in the Cutter style only he can produce. (And anyone who references Shasta is a winner in my book.) We have creepy kids, cult and religious fanaticism. I especially loved the nod to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. PROPER. And everyone knows by now to be careful what you wish for... don't we?
I'm deliciously creeped out and so happy to be back to my first love, horror, with one of my favorite horror writers. Why dock a star? Because I felt it was just a tad longer than it needed to be. I would've been happy without the epilogue... or a few pages here and there that became over detailed for my taste. Then again, I have the same issue with King books here and there, but this is just my own particular preference.
In any case, this book is definitely not for everyone - but none of his books are. Love it, hate it, whatever the case.. you will be creeped out and again, just reaffirms why I'm so happy not to have children.
Now.... Shall we begin?
Opening was great - Cutter has such a way with detailing that leaves you cringing and I'm fairly certain my face IS going to freeze like that after 486 pages. He's especially good at detailing insects and critters in a way that keeps my skin crawling for days after putting down one of his novels. I think if you've read The Troop then you can certainly agree. Then we meet the main characters and it's a bit of a slow burn as we get to know each of them intimately. Didn't bother this girl none, I enjoyed the weirdness of each character - but I was a tad bit confused from the horror prologue to what almost seemingly had a supernatural western feel for a bit. But again, CUTTER.
Then wham bam I'm gonna fuck you up, ma'am. While I didn't feel necessarily scared while reading the book, I certainly did get the creepy crawlies. He hit upon so many of your typical horror tropes while snazzing it up in the Cutter style only he can produce. (And anyone who references Shasta is a winner in my book.) We have creepy kids, cult and religious fanaticism. I especially loved the nod to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. PROPER. And everyone knows by now to be careful what you wish for... don't we?
I'm deliciously creeped out and so happy to be back to my first love, horror, with one of my favorite horror writers. Why dock a star? Because I felt it was just a tad longer than it needed to be. I would've been happy without the epilogue... or a few pages here and there that became over detailed for my taste. Then again, I have the same issue with King books here and there, but this is just my own particular preference.
In any case, this book is definitely not for everyone - but none of his books are. Love it, hate it, whatever the case.. you will be creeped out and again, just reaffirms why I'm so happy not to have children.
Now.... Shall we begin?
September 2, 2016
I loved Nick Cutter's The Deep and so was pretty excited when Netgalley approved me for this one. While Nick Cutter is a talented writer however, I found this book to be nothing special in terms of storyline.
A trio of mercenaries are hired by a woman to simply go to a religious group living in the middle of nowhere to check on her nephew. But there is something else lurking in the woods surrounding the camp, and the residents live in fear. Something that doesn't want them to leave.
If you enjoyed The Deep's gore-fest you may enjoy this, although I did find it a bit slow getting started as it begins with how the trio first formed before they set off on their adventure. Once it did get started it was some great writing but many of the things used - bugs, animal torture, religious fanatics is so common in horror it didn't impress me.
3 Stars
A trio of mercenaries are hired by a woman to simply go to a religious group living in the middle of nowhere to check on her nephew. But there is something else lurking in the woods surrounding the camp, and the residents live in fear. Something that doesn't want them to leave.
If you enjoyed The Deep's gore-fest you may enjoy this, although I did find it a bit slow getting started as it begins with how the trio first formed before they set off on their adventure. Once it did get started it was some great writing but many of the things used - bugs, animal torture, religious fanatics is so common in horror it didn't impress me.
3 Stars
August 17, 2022
Micah Shughrue, Minerva Atwater, and Ebenzer Elkins are three eccentric mercenaries hired by Ellen Bellhaven for a deceptively simple task; check in on her nephew Nathan. Ellen suspects that Nathan may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven, where a clandestine religious cult holds sway. When the three mercenaries show up at Little Heaven, it doesn't take long for them to realize that the name of the place is incredibly misleading. All of the children have dead eyes, the reverend is a two-faced slimeball and mysterious entities prowl the nearby woodlands.
Witty, gross, explosive and full of morally flawed characters finding redemption in the most twisted of ways. It's like 1980's era Stephen King merged together with the real life tragedy of the Jonestown Massacre. Religious cults, crazy mercenaries, possessed children and eldritch monstrosities galore.
***
If you're looking for dark ambient music that's perfect for reading horror, thrillers, dark fantasy and other books like this one, then be sure to check out my YouTube Channel called Nightmarish Compositions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPs...
Witty, gross, explosive and full of morally flawed characters finding redemption in the most twisted of ways. It's like 1980's era Stephen King merged together with the real life tragedy of the Jonestown Massacre. Religious cults, crazy mercenaries, possessed children and eldritch monstrosities galore.
***
If you're looking for dark ambient music that's perfect for reading horror, thrillers, dark fantasy and other books like this one, then be sure to check out my YouTube Channel called Nightmarish Compositions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPs...
February 28, 2017
Three mercenaries, thrown together by Fate, are hired to check on a young boy who may be being held against his will by a religious cult in a remote New Mexican commune known as "Little Heaven".
What they find has very little to do with the divine, as an ancient evil lurks in the dark woods around Little Heaven...an evil that both surprised and delighted this jaded old horror fan.
Against a backdrop painted in many shades of human evil, from hired killers to religious fanaticism, Cutter strips the whitewash from the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, revealing an unspeakable horror....the gut-wrenching abomination that calls the tunes...and why it takes the children.
Fast paced and fun, LITTLE HEAVEN is a mind-blowing horror/thriller.
Highly recommended.
What they find has very little to do with the divine, as an ancient evil lurks in the dark woods around Little Heaven...an evil that both surprised and delighted this jaded old horror fan.
Against a backdrop painted in many shades of human evil, from hired killers to religious fanaticism, Cutter strips the whitewash from the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, revealing an unspeakable horror....the gut-wrenching abomination that calls the tunes...and why it takes the children.
Fast paced and fun, LITTLE HEAVEN is a mind-blowing horror/thriller.
Highly recommended.
March 2, 2017
Little Heaven is the first Nick Cutter book I have read and it won't be my last. I was pleasantly surprised at how Little Heaven brought me back to my youth and 80's horror fiction and how much I miss those old familiar books. There were a few places that I found my attention wandering but overall I quite I enjoyed the story and the path it took. Anyone who is a fan of 80's horror and Stephen King will want to read this book.
I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 9, 2017
3.5 stars
LITTLE HEAVEN, by Nick Cutter is a book that had all of the things that I generally love in a horror story: gore, supernatural, dark comedy (the three "heroes"), and action. So why the 3.5 star rating then?
Aside from the very beginning, the first quarter or so is mostly the background of some of the characters. This was necessary to know, but I honestly feel that if it had been spread out a bit more, or even written in a more "engaging" style, it would have helped the story to flow better. There were some truly unique and hideous elements here that stood out well, so I was very conflicted as to why I didn't enjoy the book as much, overall, as I felt I should have.
I think it simply comes back to the fact that too much of the novel felt like "filler", and there were parts that just bored me completely. If the story had been written in a more "streamlined" way, with bits about the characters past somehow interspersed throughout the story without having the reader virtually stop the action to read about, this story could have been a much more engaging read overall.
Now, I really enjoyed Cutter's novel, THE TROOP. Although shorter, it lacked the lengthy, what I felt to be unnecessary, slow explanations, and simply let the story "show" the reader what was happening. A lot of reviews have criticized this as "copying" Stephen King--while I see obvious references to King's novels, I didn't feel as though they were "the same", more of a "tribute" to. However, that's an individual take on it, and each reader will have a different opinion.
I would recommend LITTLE HEAVEN to others, as there were some scenes that were truly worth reading, and many have enjoyed this one more than I did.
*I chose to read an ARC from NetGalley. All opinions are uniquely my own.*
LITTLE HEAVEN, by Nick Cutter is a book that had all of the things that I generally love in a horror story: gore, supernatural, dark comedy (the three "heroes"), and action. So why the 3.5 star rating then?
Aside from the very beginning, the first quarter or so is mostly the background of some of the characters. This was necessary to know, but I honestly feel that if it had been spread out a bit more, or even written in a more "engaging" style, it would have helped the story to flow better. There were some truly unique and hideous elements here that stood out well, so I was very conflicted as to why I didn't enjoy the book as much, overall, as I felt I should have.
I think it simply comes back to the fact that too much of the novel felt like "filler", and there were parts that just bored me completely. If the story had been written in a more "streamlined" way, with bits about the characters past somehow interspersed throughout the story without having the reader virtually stop the action to read about, this story could have been a much more engaging read overall.
Now, I really enjoyed Cutter's novel, THE TROOP. Although shorter, it lacked the lengthy, what I felt to be unnecessary, slow explanations, and simply let the story "show" the reader what was happening. A lot of reviews have criticized this as "copying" Stephen King--while I see obvious references to King's novels, I didn't feel as though they were "the same", more of a "tribute" to. However, that's an individual take on it, and each reader will have a different opinion.
I would recommend LITTLE HEAVEN to others, as there were some scenes that were truly worth reading, and many have enjoyed this one more than I did.
*I chose to read an ARC from NetGalley. All opinions are uniquely my own.*
February 7, 2017
It's hard to believe after two stunning novels of horror from Nick Cutter in the last few years but Little Heaven is a major disappointment. Cutter has carved himself a splendid little niche of visceral thrills with The Troop and The Deep but Little Heaven pales next to them. It's a little hard to figure out why since it does have the required amount of scares and body horror that the author is known for. Let's see if we can.
The first thing that stands out in Cutter's first two books is that the plot is held together by brilliantly vicious ideas of horror. Although formed adequately to catch the reader's empathy, the characters are secondary to that horror. In Little Heaven we have another horror but it is secondary to the characters. Normally this would be good but the characters of the novel doesn't stand apart enough to make us care. The action of the novel goes back and forth over two decades; from the 60s to the 80s. The constant throughout this see-sawing are three mercenaries who gives us very little to like about them. And these are our "heroes". The novel describes how they meet through a contract hit and how their paths continues to cross. One of them, Minerva, plans to kill another, a British black man named Ebeneezer, to fulfill a wish for revenge. For reasons never sufficiently explained, Minerva , Ebeneezer and a third man named Michah maintain an uneasy bond through the years. This hard to believe bond takes them to a religious commune and eventually a confrontation with a misshapen creature in the wilderness.
The main human villain does not fare well either. The commune of Amos and his followers is a thinly disguised Jonestown but Amos shows none of the charisma required to bring something like that together. He looks and acts like a fool leaving the reader to wonder why anyone would follow him. Interestingly, the most believable thing in the novel is the strange creature in the forest and that is because we are given a creepy and scary glance at his development in the prologue. The image that Cutter sets forward never leaves us and give us the kind of promise that he delivered in his first books. Unfortunately that is not to be in this book.
It seems that the author is blending a few styles of writing here besides his own. There is some Cormac McCarthy in the type of protagonists he creates and a lot of Stephen King in Amos and the circumstances his commune finds it in. Yet it ever really gel together. We end up with a well written horror tale that should of worked but doesn't. I am only left with recommending either The Troop or The Deep to the reader or telling them to wait for Cutter's next book.
The first thing that stands out in Cutter's first two books is that the plot is held together by brilliantly vicious ideas of horror. Although formed adequately to catch the reader's empathy, the characters are secondary to that horror. In Little Heaven we have another horror but it is secondary to the characters. Normally this would be good but the characters of the novel doesn't stand apart enough to make us care. The action of the novel goes back and forth over two decades; from the 60s to the 80s. The constant throughout this see-sawing are three mercenaries who gives us very little to like about them. And these are our "heroes". The novel describes how they meet through a contract hit and how their paths continues to cross. One of them, Minerva, plans to kill another, a British black man named Ebeneezer, to fulfill a wish for revenge. For reasons never sufficiently explained, Minerva , Ebeneezer and a third man named Michah maintain an uneasy bond through the years. This hard to believe bond takes them to a religious commune and eventually a confrontation with a misshapen creature in the wilderness.
The main human villain does not fare well either. The commune of Amos and his followers is a thinly disguised Jonestown but Amos shows none of the charisma required to bring something like that together. He looks and acts like a fool leaving the reader to wonder why anyone would follow him. Interestingly, the most believable thing in the novel is the strange creature in the forest and that is because we are given a creepy and scary glance at his development in the prologue. The image that Cutter sets forward never leaves us and give us the kind of promise that he delivered in his first books. Unfortunately that is not to be in this book.
It seems that the author is blending a few styles of writing here besides his own. There is some Cormac McCarthy in the type of protagonists he creates and a lot of Stephen King in Amos and the circumstances his commune finds it in. Yet it ever really gel together. We end up with a well written horror tale that should of worked but doesn't. I am only left with recommending either The Troop or The Deep to the reader or telling them to wait for Cutter's next book.
November 11, 2023
An interesting but uneven novel by a very good writer; how am I even supposed to rate something like that?
"Little Heaven" is the story of three mercenaries hired by a woman to go to an isolated religious community to find her nephew, who has been taken there by his father - and hopefully, get him out. But there is something old and hungry that lives in the wilderness surrounding the compound of Little Heaven, something that doesn't want anyone to leave... Fifteen years after their first visit to that strange and haunted place, the three unlikely partners have to go back, as the life of one of their child is now at stake.
Perhaps I was not in the ideal head space for this book. The non-linear narrative was cleverly executed, but I didn't have a lot of patience for it, or for the slow build-up. It all made sense at the end, but the first half felt like it dragged on forever, and it was a relief when the action finally picked up, even if (because this is Nick Cutter) it got super disturbing and extremely gross very fast.
If you are curious as to what the story of Jonestown would be like if it had been mashed together with Stephen King's "IT", then absolutely check this book out.
"Little Heaven" is the story of three mercenaries hired by a woman to go to an isolated religious community to find her nephew, who has been taken there by his father - and hopefully, get him out. But there is something old and hungry that lives in the wilderness surrounding the compound of Little Heaven, something that doesn't want anyone to leave... Fifteen years after their first visit to that strange and haunted place, the three unlikely partners have to go back, as the life of one of their child is now at stake.
Perhaps I was not in the ideal head space for this book. The non-linear narrative was cleverly executed, but I didn't have a lot of patience for it, or for the slow build-up. It all made sense at the end, but the first half felt like it dragged on forever, and it was a relief when the action finally picked up, even if (because this is Nick Cutter) it got super disturbing and extremely gross very fast.
If you are curious as to what the story of Jonestown would be like if it had been mashed together with Stephen King's "IT", then absolutely check this book out.
February 8, 2017
*Disclaimer* An ARC of Little Heaven was provided to me by Simon & Schuster Canada in exchange for an honest review as part of the Dark Side Read blog tour. This does not effect my review in any way.
--
“There is an old saying that goes: Evil never dies; it merely sleeps. And when that evil awakes, it does so soundlessly–or almost so.”
While Little Heaven was my first experience with a novel by Nick Cutter, I’ve had his other books, The Troop & The Deep, on my to-read list for quite some time now. I had heard a lot of positive things about his writing style when it comes to horror novels, so I was really excited to be able to read Little Heaven as part of the Dark Side Reads blog tour through Simon & Schuster Canada. While Little Heaven was extremely dark and disturbing (two of my favourite qualities in a horror novel), it was also very long-winded.
--
What I Liked
The graphic imagery. Little Heaven was filled with two different forms of graphic imagery. Written and visual. The words alone made me visualize some pretty dark and gruesome imagery, but then there were actual illustrations throughout the novel that provided even more dark and disturbing imagery.
The darkness. Yes. This book was extremely dark. As most of you know, I tend to enjoy everything dark and creepy, so this element of the book worked extremely well for me. I’m not sure if reading it during the holiday season was the best decision, but if you’re looking for something that will make your skin crawl, this is the right book for you.
What I Didn’t Like
The writing style. While the dark and disturbing elements worked well, it was everything in between that forced me to bring my rating down. There were a lot of moments in between all of the horror that were very dry and long-winded. It took me a long time to read this book, not because of it’s length, but because I kept feeling a little bored in between all of the horror.
The length. While this book is just under 500 pages, which isn’t terrible in terms of length, it felt much longer. Ultimately, I just thought there was a lot that didn’t need to be there for me personally. There was a lot of dialogue that I skimmed and it was a tad over-descriptive for me.
--
Overall, I really enjoyed the horror elements within this novel, but it felt dry and long-winded in between all of the dark and creepy moments. I loved the graphic imagery, both written and visual because I’m a weirdo like that. If you are looking for something dark and disturbing…in the best way possible of course, Little Heaven is the book for you!
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Initial post reading thoughts:
While Little Heaven was my first experience with a novel by Nick Cutter, I've had his other books, The Troop & The Deep, on my to-read list for quite some time now. I had heard a lot of positive things about his writing style when it comes to horror novels, so I was really excited to be able to read Little Heaven as part of an upcoming blog tour through Simon & Schuster Canada. While Little Heaven was extremely dark and disturbing (two of my favourite qualities in a horror novel), it was also very long-winded.
June 29, 2017
Ever since the release of THE TROOP, Nick Cutter (aka Craig Davidson) has been up there with the best of the current horror novelists. I mean, how could he not be? The guy certainly is capable of delivering the goods. So it comes as no surprise that his latest is no different. LITTLE HEAVEN (Gallery Books) tells the tale of a trio of renegades who unite to fight evil which comes in many different shapes and forms. The setting: an isolated backwoods compound where the work of a cult leader ends up heightening the fear factor of his flock, especially when relating to their children. Either some of those little ones disappear to never come back, or they return as ghostly entities with a big smile on their emaciated faces, as big as IT’s Pennywise, even.
In fact, the novel does tend to borrow from Stephen King’s classic but only from a structural point of view (time periods going forward and backward). The rest is totally Cutter, which may eventually surprise some or disenchant others, depending on your patience. Not that it takes a long while before things start going awry. But when the horror really kicks in nearing the book’s last third, a lot happens; too much even. As if the author needs to constantly wow us. What he brings forth, however, is still quite effective. If the reader makes it through without skipping any of those gruesome images he or she will be rewarded by the author’s vivid imagination—if not by his already impressive narrative, his strong hold on plot and characterization, not to mention his heartfelt of a conclusion that will make anyone yearn to revisit these protagonists’ journey.
What if the evil that men do had always had a fiendish supporter? That’s what Cutter tries and succeeds to convey in this novel (adorned by reproductions of some pivotal scenes by famed artist Adam Gorham). The end result may be a bit flawed, but boy, what an enriching ride LITTLE HEAVEN ends up being.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.
In fact, the novel does tend to borrow from Stephen King’s classic but only from a structural point of view (time periods going forward and backward). The rest is totally Cutter, which may eventually surprise some or disenchant others, depending on your patience. Not that it takes a long while before things start going awry. But when the horror really kicks in nearing the book’s last third, a lot happens; too much even. As if the author needs to constantly wow us. What he brings forth, however, is still quite effective. If the reader makes it through without skipping any of those gruesome images he or she will be rewarded by the author’s vivid imagination—if not by his already impressive narrative, his strong hold on plot and characterization, not to mention his heartfelt of a conclusion that will make anyone yearn to revisit these protagonists’ journey.
What if the evil that men do had always had a fiendish supporter? That’s what Cutter tries and succeeds to convey in this novel (adorned by reproductions of some pivotal scenes by famed artist Adam Gorham). The end result may be a bit flawed, but boy, what an enriching ride LITTLE HEAVEN ends up being.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.
May 17, 2018
One of the weirdest stories I've ever tried to read. Nothing at all like Cutter's other work. Just too hard to get into the story with its odd writing and utterly unlikable main characters. I read 100 pages and then skimmed to the end and found there was nothing inbetween I felt I might be missing.
November 3, 2025
The experience was closer to two stars but alas I never wanted to skim. Many blurbs and reviews compare this to Cormac McCarthy. That might be a stretch. So, I'll give credit for that. I’d say Elmore Leonard in an NC-17 rated episode of Supernatural. Three mercenaries are hired for a rescue mission inside a remote religious cult compound in the late 1960s. The horror at the core of this isn’t the cult but something eternal and insidious. Shall we begin? The backstories of the trio reveal wounded amoral souls which tempt the reader’s sympathy especially in contrast with Lovecraftian horror.
There is excessive gore and most of the book is revealed in flashbacks, and the conclusion is jarringly tepid, much like the cosmic evil in King’s The Outsider being killed by rocks in a sock. I won’t spoil such, but it appeared resolved by a focus group, as if myriad plot contrivances were selected via survey. Not sure if I’d approach another work by Cutter.
There is excessive gore and most of the book is revealed in flashbacks, and the conclusion is jarringly tepid, much like the cosmic evil in King’s The Outsider being killed by rocks in a sock. I won’t spoil such, but it appeared resolved by a focus group, as if myriad plot contrivances were selected via survey. Not sure if I’d approach another work by Cutter.
February 2, 2017
I did a small happy dance when I finished this book (who am I kidding, I was thrilled) but not for the obvious reasons. I did the dance basically because I was done. This book had such promise. I own "The Troop" and "The Deep" and after hearing such good things about them, I probably should have started my Cutter experience there. "Little Heaven" reminded me of a lot of things. It was slightly reminiscent of Stephen King (in character development and in that the setting of the book was almost a character of its own), and caused flashbacks of The Twilight Zone. Let me explain. In the beginning, when it's talking about the formation of the Long Walker (A.K.A. the Big Bad - my name, not Cutter's) I kept thinking of my favorite Twilight Zone episode, "It's a Good Life," where little Anthony Fremont, a 6-year-old, wishes anything he doesn't like into a cornfield, even the horrible creatures he makes to play with (like a three-headed gopher). The Big Bad needed wished into that cornfield and the book could have been about 100 pages shorter. I don't mind long books, in fact, I love them, but not THIS long book.
"Little Heaven" has dual timelines. The reader is taken into the past, where we see how our team of bounty hunters comes together and where they first encounter the Big Bad. Then we are treated to Micah's current life where he wakes up one morning to find his daughter Petty has been kidnapped by a Long Walker and only he and his gang of misfit bounty hunters know what must be done to save her. For some reason, I had some trouble with the back and forth - perhaps because it took so long for things to develop. I spent the first hundred pages or so utterly confused.
There were some things I liked about "Little Heaven." I liked the team of bounty hunters, with Ebenezer being my favorite character. An African American British man, who in my opinion brought some much needed "snark" to the book at times. I also thought the end was pretty terrifying and if I hadn't been so thrilled to get to it and be done, I probably could have really enjoyed it. I also must admit that Cutter's mind scares me and it's a place I'd hate to visit alone. Now I think that's a good quality for a horror writer to possess and I'm sure I'll pick up both future and past works to see what else he creates.
I've seen mixed reviews of "Little Heaven" and not having read Cutter's other works, I can't honestly tell you if this is where to start with him. If you aren't turned off by horror novels, "Little Heaven" might be a good choice for you. I think I set myself up for failure with this book because I wanted to love it and I just didn't. Oh, and I almost forgot, there are some truly awesome illustrations in the novel so because Goodreads won't allow 1/2 stars, and because of the Cutter's imagination, and given the great pictures, I'm giving "Little Heaven" a weak 3/5.
Edited on 2/2/17. A good blogging friend mentioned today I should really lower my rating as much fits as this book gave me and you know what, I think she's right.
"Little Heaven" has dual timelines. The reader is taken into the past, where we see how our team of bounty hunters comes together and where they first encounter the Big Bad. Then we are treated to Micah's current life where he wakes up one morning to find his daughter Petty has been kidnapped by a Long Walker and only he and his gang of misfit bounty hunters know what must be done to save her. For some reason, I had some trouble with the back and forth - perhaps because it took so long for things to develop. I spent the first hundred pages or so utterly confused.
There were some things I liked about "Little Heaven." I liked the team of bounty hunters, with Ebenezer being my favorite character. An African American British man, who in my opinion brought some much needed "snark" to the book at times. I also thought the end was pretty terrifying and if I hadn't been so thrilled to get to it and be done, I probably could have really enjoyed it. I also must admit that Cutter's mind scares me and it's a place I'd hate to visit alone. Now I think that's a good quality for a horror writer to possess and I'm sure I'll pick up both future and past works to see what else he creates.
I've seen mixed reviews of "Little Heaven" and not having read Cutter's other works, I can't honestly tell you if this is where to start with him. If you aren't turned off by horror novels, "Little Heaven" might be a good choice for you. I think I set myself up for failure with this book because I wanted to love it and I just didn't. Oh, and I almost forgot, there are some truly awesome illustrations in the novel so because Goodreads won't allow 1/2 stars, and because of the Cutter's imagination, and given the great pictures, I'm giving "Little Heaven" a weak 3/5.
Edited on 2/2/17. A good blogging friend mentioned today I should really lower my rating as much fits as this book gave me and you know what, I think she's right.
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