Old Mill Road

by L.V. Gaudet

There is safety in pretending a thing is not real. Even when every fibre of your being knows that is a lie. There is safety in forgetting. In a way.You can’t escape the dreamTwelve years ago four kids found something in the woods that tore their innocence away. They made a vow to keep it secret. Now, impossibly, someone found it again.The abandoned mill off the old Mill Road has a dark history that has been told for generations, a story about something sinister haunting the woods.Unable to remember the events of twelve years ago and troubled by the haunted look he sees every time he looks at his sister’s eyes, Nick has returned to learn what happened when they were kids.Still obsessed with Felicia and Nick’s family suddenly vanishing in the night after their childhood discovery, David is determined to get answers from Nick, while his brother Ian tries to temper his obsession.Felicia’s return to help Nick will trigger new revelations about the mummified bodies of children appearing in the woods decades apart.

320 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2019

About the author

LV Gaudet is a Canadian writer and mother of two. Her writing endeavors range from stories written for her young children to the realm of horror.

Some of her short stories can be found scattered in the dark void of the internet.

Other author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

And this is my third author page to claim authorship of my own books
https://www.goodreads.com/L_V_Gaudet

Reviews

[L.T. Getty · Rating 4 out of 5]

When two sets of siblings finds the corpse of what appears to be a mummified child, they make a pact to never speak of it again. Two of those children leave town shortly thereafter when something spooks their family, but when the youngest returns to the town for a job more than a decade later, the brothers who are still haunted are sucked back into that world as another, similar corpse is found and a decades-old investigation starts to uncover the truth, if it can be found, from Old Mill Road.

Gaudet pens a tale of suspense and murder concerning brothers David and Ian who are plagued with memories of what they found when they were ten years old, as well as the disappearance of childhood friend Felicia and her kid brother Nick, who fled town in the middle of the night around the time their creepy uncle returns to town after his latest stint in jail.

I really liked how Uncle Harvey was set up to be both the potential suspect as well as the guy no one listens to who knows what's really going on in the woods. The story revealed itself to the reader very slowly, and felt more like a fictional suspense drama as opposed to a creature in the woods.

If I were to complain though, I thought the ending ended a little suddenly and I had to go back and read it a few times to make sure I didn't miss anything. Given the nature of the genre, ending on a note where not everything is explained might work for many readers more familiar with the genre than me.

Contemporary thriller, most psychological than gross-out if you're curious about giving it a shot.

[Alastor Moopy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange and convoluted read this was, but in the best way. Four children playing in the woods find the long desiccated body of a child nestled under a dead tree. Two days later, two of the children have fled the town leaving everything behind. Years later the quartet have reunited and there are bodies in the woods again.
I was kept guessing right up until the end what exactly the nature of the 'beast' was; in fact I'm still coming to grips with the various facets of it. Suffice it to to say that this is not a simple creature feature or whatever the equivalent is in book form.
My list of complaints would be that
1. Not enough time is devoted to the climactic build up.
2. Far too much time is wasted on the coming and going and drinking of a trio of barely adult, whiny, man babies.
3. Detective Liam Tobin is given too little leg room to stretch out and flex his sleuthing muscles. And the man is an interesting enough character that the reader feels cheated about this.

All those things work in conjunction with each other and make the climax too rushed and confusing. I'm a fan of ambiguity in endings but it could be done better. Overall a solid effort in the horror/mystery genre.

[Joan Havelange · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this, story, suspense and adventure top of my list