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Revenants
The year is 1689. Situated on the northern boundary of the Massachusetts Bay colony, the town of Cold Marsh is a place of secrets, a village characterized by repression and guilt. Fourteen years have passed since the outbreak of King Philip's War and darkness has come to the Cold Marsh. Two of the town's young women have vanished under mysterious circumstances, and the country seethes with rumors of witchcraft and devilry. Even their God has abandoned them. When a third young woman disappears, the men of the village determine to leave the safety of the village and enter the other world of the woods in search of her. Revenants is a lyrical evocation of the colonial landscape, a poetic meditation on the hills and wilds of that vanished country. It also brings back to life, with breathing intimacy, the inner landscape of sombre repression known to the settlers of New England.
292 pages, Paperback
First published February 16, 2011
8 people are currently reading
1025 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Mills
61 books115 followersDaniel Mills is the author of Moriah and Among the Lilies and creator of historical crime podcast These Dark Mountains. His nonfiction work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books. He lives in Vermont.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
May 29, 2017
a winter wind blows through the austere Revenants, chilling any potential warmth to be gained from human companionship, freezing any hope that humans can learn and grow and love and live free. back into the earth, human worms! the open air is no place for you sad, crawling things.
girls have gone missing in the village of Cold Marsh, Massachusetts, in the year 1689. the natives have long been slaughtered; the rigid faith clung to by the villagers likewise slaughters any unseemly outbursts of independence, sexuality, or self-reflection. after a third girl disappears, two search parties are tasked with finding her. they stumble upon strange things during their search.
Mills' descriptive powers when illustrating what this place and time felt like are impeccable.
I'm not usually one for overtly pessimistic novels but when the prose is as beautifully written as this, flowing and poetic yet with a certain icy reserve... I'm not going to complain about the pessimism. Mills' character work is equally strong: solid, deeply felt characterization that still leaves room for surprise and dynamic growth - or regression. of particular interest was one character's move from pleasant, passionate young man to the kind of repressed, spitefully vengeful, small-minded jerk who is only worthy of scorn. that was perfectly accomplished. and of course quite depressing.
this isn't really a horror novel despite some of its supernatural elements. if anything it is in the tradition of Weird Fiction, managing to combine Algernon Blackwood's eerie natural landscapes and obsession with transcendence with Ambrose Bierce's mordant cynicism about the human condition. don't come to Revenants looking for scary thrills or logical answers. instead expect disturbing ambiguity, dreamy meanderings, inexplicable visions, and a slowly paced narrative that does not appear particularly interested in solving its slowly unfolding series of mysteries.
you found a door to a hidden room and in that room is moldering furniture and terrible memories, dead leaves swirling in through an open window, a window looking into a forest, a forest that beckons you to lose yourself in its depths, to jump from that window. you realize that the natural movement of all objects is downward.
girls have gone missing in the village of Cold Marsh, Massachusetts, in the year 1689. the natives have long been slaughtered; the rigid faith clung to by the villagers likewise slaughters any unseemly outbursts of independence, sexuality, or self-reflection. after a third girl disappears, two search parties are tasked with finding her. they stumble upon strange things during their search.
Mills' descriptive powers when illustrating what this place and time felt like are impeccable.
I'm not usually one for overtly pessimistic novels but when the prose is as beautifully written as this, flowing and poetic yet with a certain icy reserve... I'm not going to complain about the pessimism. Mills' character work is equally strong: solid, deeply felt characterization that still leaves room for surprise and dynamic growth - or regression. of particular interest was one character's move from pleasant, passionate young man to the kind of repressed, spitefully vengeful, small-minded jerk who is only worthy of scorn. that was perfectly accomplished. and of course quite depressing.
this isn't really a horror novel despite some of its supernatural elements. if anything it is in the tradition of Weird Fiction, managing to combine Algernon Blackwood's eerie natural landscapes and obsession with transcendence with Ambrose Bierce's mordant cynicism about the human condition. don't come to Revenants looking for scary thrills or logical answers. instead expect disturbing ambiguity, dreamy meanderings, inexplicable visions, and a slowly paced narrative that does not appear particularly interested in solving its slowly unfolding series of mysteries.
you found a door to a hidden room and in that room is moldering furniture and terrible memories, dead leaves swirling in through an open window, a window looking into a forest, a forest that beckons you to lose yourself in its depths, to jump from that window. you realize that the natural movement of all objects is downward.
November 11, 2014
I started the book a couple of weeks ago. Read the first chapter and put it down and almost gave up on it. I read a couple of other things, quite outstanding other things, and thought to myself why go back and read a book I am not enjoying.
Well here's the story. I started the book over again. If there was a contest between the first fifty or sixty pages of this book and watching paint dry, the paint would win. Ok, we get it, life was rough back then and people were not the brightest farming implements under Satin's Sun, and fire and brimstone were the law of the day for the ordinary folks who toiled in the fields all day in order to just survive.
The author uses these first bunch of pages to set the scene for us. Had I not read Mr. Mill's fantastic book of short stories, I would not have known what he was capable of creating. And then around page sixty or sixty five, something happens and the story takes off.
I know that all the folks that gave this book such high praise could not all be wrong. But lat's face it the book is two hundred and ninety pages and sixty plus of them can be used in the out house, I must reserve my praise. Perhaps Mr. Mill's forte is the short story.
Well here's the story. I started the book over again. If there was a contest between the first fifty or sixty pages of this book and watching paint dry, the paint would win. Ok, we get it, life was rough back then and people were not the brightest farming implements under Satin's Sun, and fire and brimstone were the law of the day for the ordinary folks who toiled in the fields all day in order to just survive.
The author uses these first bunch of pages to set the scene for us. Had I not read Mr. Mill's fantastic book of short stories, I would not have known what he was capable of creating. And then around page sixty or sixty five, something happens and the story takes off.
I know that all the folks that gave this book such high praise could not all be wrong. But lat's face it the book is two hundred and ninety pages and sixty plus of them can be used in the out house, I must reserve my praise. Perhaps Mr. Mill's forte is the short story.
December 6, 2012
Beautifully written, deeply engaging story of a small, colonial New England town haunted by the weight of its own brief past. The narrative moves through the perspectives of several key characters as a string of disappearances leads to the slow unfurling of the town's secrets. The aesthetic of Puritanism stands in embattled opposition to the abiding terrors of the dark woods, those surrounding the town and those in each man's and woman's soul. Smart, atmospheric, and elegant. Highly recommended.
December 28, 2021
This is exactly the kind of weird fiction I was hoping to find more of this winter. Slow, quiet, character-focused, and contemplative, where the truth of the mystery doesn't matter so much as the mystery itself and the effects it has on these peoples' lives. The most arresting aspect of "Revenants" is Mills' prose - lush, highly textural and with an unmistakably melancholic register, the writing flourishes gorgeously on every page, carrying this story step by step through the brambly undergrowth of beautifully described scenery detail and poetic illustration of natural beauty, described with equal parts fear and reverence. It lends heavily to the eerie mood of this novel, which drips with a distinct and authentic New England atmosphere and colonial social commentary.
Mills' character work is also stunning. These characters are quietly and subtly built, and character development moves from point A to B in a way that doesn't seem forced or ham-fisted like the horror genre can occasionally fall victim to; these men and women feel like real people, ones whose fears and proclivities are lost on most in the modern world, but it's through this lush illustration of their humanities that their concerns and inner workings are crystal clear even to me, someone who is about as far from Puritan as a person could get. Though Mills does seem rightly critical of puritanism and the repression it has wrought upon decent people, the way these people think and feel is nonetheless treated with deep empathy, reserving judgment about their superstitions and allowing them to exist naturally with the setting. Particularly well done is one character's journey - from a kindhearted and contemplative person to a haughty, insular man following in the learned experience of those before him - was exceptionally well executed, a change which simmers quietly until it eventually consumes. There is nothing unsubtle or unbelievable here - it is clear that Mills has careful control over every aspect of this story.
All this leads "Revenants" to feeling more in the vein of classic weird fiction than some of the more modern strands of the genre. In particular, this book takes huge cues from the gothic fiction tradition, both in its lowkey focus on character and deep, atmospheric focus on the sensory (especially the natural world and untamed wilds, as established by authors like Machen and Blackwood). There are shades of Lovecraftian cosmicism in the unknowable nature of what may or may not exist in the wilderness surrounding Cold Marsh, especially exacerbated by the setting, but they are not pronounced, and the existential terror is mined more from these peoples' reactions to it and the emotions it manifests within them than the thing itself. And though it obviously doesn't belong to the category due to the geographic differences, I get a lot of Faulkneresque, southern gothic-twinged vibes from this (almost as much as I get the obvious shades of Hawthorne); in the way it focuses on damaged people, their close-knit communities, and how violence and hatred can strike whiplike at any moment, either towards deserving or undeserving people.
"Revenants" is worth a read for anyone who has even a passing interest in weird fiction; a gorgeously written novel about decay, the disintegration of communities and the pain that divides people, all wrapped up in some stunningly beautiful and ethereal prose. Recommended especially for fans of character-focused fiction, nature lovers, ghost stories without the ghosts (at least not as we understand them...maybe. Or maybe not), and people who don't mind a slow burn.
"This is the myth of the New World, he thinks, the dream that lured him across the Atlantic. From England he sought the farthest shore. He left the coast and settled here, in the heart of the wild, and yet went no farther than himself. Always guilt followed him, as it does all men: a weighted line that must be reeled in and carried home. In the last month, his burdened has lightened, but his sleep remains restless, voice-haunted, and he knows his atonement has only begun. The way is the way. There are leagues he must travel before he can rest."
Mills' character work is also stunning. These characters are quietly and subtly built, and character development moves from point A to B in a way that doesn't seem forced or ham-fisted like the horror genre can occasionally fall victim to; these men and women feel like real people, ones whose fears and proclivities are lost on most in the modern world, but it's through this lush illustration of their humanities that their concerns and inner workings are crystal clear even to me, someone who is about as far from Puritan as a person could get. Though Mills does seem rightly critical of puritanism and the repression it has wrought upon decent people, the way these people think and feel is nonetheless treated with deep empathy, reserving judgment about their superstitions and allowing them to exist naturally with the setting. Particularly well done is one character's journey - from a kindhearted and contemplative person to a haughty, insular man following in the learned experience of those before him - was exceptionally well executed, a change which simmers quietly until it eventually consumes. There is nothing unsubtle or unbelievable here - it is clear that Mills has careful control over every aspect of this story.
All this leads "Revenants" to feeling more in the vein of classic weird fiction than some of the more modern strands of the genre. In particular, this book takes huge cues from the gothic fiction tradition, both in its lowkey focus on character and deep, atmospheric focus on the sensory (especially the natural world and untamed wilds, as established by authors like Machen and Blackwood). There are shades of Lovecraftian cosmicism in the unknowable nature of what may or may not exist in the wilderness surrounding Cold Marsh, especially exacerbated by the setting, but they are not pronounced, and the existential terror is mined more from these peoples' reactions to it and the emotions it manifests within them than the thing itself. And though it obviously doesn't belong to the category due to the geographic differences, I get a lot of Faulkneresque, southern gothic-twinged vibes from this (almost as much as I get the obvious shades of Hawthorne); in the way it focuses on damaged people, their close-knit communities, and how violence and hatred can strike whiplike at any moment, either towards deserving or undeserving people.
"Revenants" is worth a read for anyone who has even a passing interest in weird fiction; a gorgeously written novel about decay, the disintegration of communities and the pain that divides people, all wrapped up in some stunningly beautiful and ethereal prose. Recommended especially for fans of character-focused fiction, nature lovers, ghost stories without the ghosts (at least not as we understand them...maybe. Or maybe not), and people who don't mind a slow burn.
"This is the myth of the New World, he thinks, the dream that lured him across the Atlantic. From England he sought the farthest shore. He left the coast and settled here, in the heart of the wild, and yet went no farther than himself. Always guilt followed him, as it does all men: a weighted line that must be reeled in and carried home. In the last month, his burdened has lightened, but his sleep remains restless, voice-haunted, and he knows his atonement has only begun. The way is the way. There are leagues he must travel before he can rest."
April 19, 2013
Daniel Mills is a writer who is fast becoming a favorite here at The Arkham Digest. In previous reviews of A Season In Carcosa and Fungi, I found both of his stories (MS Found Dead in A Hotel Room and Dust From a Dark Flower) to be among the finest in either anthology. Also recently I picked up a copy of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23, and seeing that Mills had a story published in there I read it straight away. The Photographer's Tale was everything I had come to expect from the author; another unsettling period piece with wonderful prose. In the last couple years Mills has hit the scene running, and has been putting out stories that read like they've been written by a weird literature veteran.
As much as I've been enjoying his short fiction, imagine my delight when the opportunity arose to review Revenants, his first novel. As Mr. Mills pointed out to me in correspondence, Revenants was published last year by Chomu Press, and while pulling in some good literary reviews, it seemed to lack some exposure within the genre community. That's a shame too, because Revenants deserves to be read by any fan of weird, historical fiction.
Revenants is a story about Cold Marsh, a colonial town in 1689 New England. Typical of most towns of the time, it is strictly Puritan. The novel follows a few characters and their experiences when a third young lady, Ruth, mysteriously goes missing from the isolated town. The story mostly follows a few characters: Ruth's father James, her betrothed Edwin, Edwin's father William, Ruth's mother Constance, and the reverend Isaiah Bellringer. Each character is flawed, and has his/her own secrets. Many of them are filled with regret, and what they perceive as their past sins (some rightly so) haunts them.
The plot follows the men as they split into groups and strike out into the dark wilderness in search of Ruth. Their individual past deeds haunt them as a mysterious force in the woods grants each of them separate visions, causing all of them to have a crisis of a faith. The plot takes a bit to get started, taking it's time to establish the characters and their relationships between each other. When everything finally comes together in the end, and certain revelations are made, the novel ends exactly the way it should.
The character's themselves are difficult, and Mills is accomplished at making each of them interesting, if only a few of them likeable. William Brewer is perhaps the most likeable throughout the book, and the only one who seems to truly seek redemption for his past sins. James has made some wrong choices, but his downfall is mostly the way he handles dealing with them. Edwin is perhaps the character who elicits the biggest change as we see him make some of the same mistakes some of the elders have in their past.
The weird elements of the book tend to be more subtle, and while there aren't many scenes of hair-raising horror, the mood and tone of the book remain eerie and melancholy throughout. I found the biggest horrors of the book to be the people themselves, and the Puritan way of thinking as opposed to the weird elements. The attitude of the townsfolk and how easily some of them are led is quite scary, and Mills drives the point home throughout the novel.Their stifling, rigid attitude about sex especially, which is so completely different from today's view that modern readers such as myself find it downright disturbing. The ease in which the people of the time would do terrible things at the behest of their firebrand religious leaders is an aspect that I find especially terrifying.
Revenants has a good, if simple plot, and interesting characters, but where it truly shines is the language Mills uses. The back cover describes the book as "a poetic meditation on the colonial landscape of New England, the hills and wilds of a vanished country." This description is accurate, and Mills is quite at home taking his time describing the landscape. He paints a beautiful, eerie portrait of a town in isolation, surrounded by deep, dark woods and stagnant, rotting bogs. In reading it I could picture it perfectly, could even smell the forests, and I enjoyed his evocation of place just as much as seeing the plot come together.
Although the book tends to move at a somewhat slow pace, and seems to take awhile for the plot to kick into gear, I enjoyed every page. Some might find it a bit too slow for their liking, maybe a bit longer than it should be, and skimpy on the weird supernatural elements, but I found that these few small criticisms are just that - small nitpickings and nothing more. This novel didn't need to be as overtly weird as his short stories, because the important things are the characters themselves, how they dealt with regret, and how they got along through a dark time in history. Never have I seen the harsh coldness of colonial times depicted so strongly.
Revenants is a moody novel, and is all fog and melancholy. Anyone looking for a strange, literate, gloomy and atmospheric book will find a lot to like. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interested in colonial period pieces. There is just enough weird and horror there to satisfy genre readers, and not too much there to scare off non-genre readers. With this novel Daniel Mills further cements himself as a great new voice in the world of the weird. I for one can't wait to see what he does next.
Originally appeared on my blog, The Arkham Digest.
As much as I've been enjoying his short fiction, imagine my delight when the opportunity arose to review Revenants, his first novel. As Mr. Mills pointed out to me in correspondence, Revenants was published last year by Chomu Press, and while pulling in some good literary reviews, it seemed to lack some exposure within the genre community. That's a shame too, because Revenants deserves to be read by any fan of weird, historical fiction.
Revenants is a story about Cold Marsh, a colonial town in 1689 New England. Typical of most towns of the time, it is strictly Puritan. The novel follows a few characters and their experiences when a third young lady, Ruth, mysteriously goes missing from the isolated town. The story mostly follows a few characters: Ruth's father James, her betrothed Edwin, Edwin's father William, Ruth's mother Constance, and the reverend Isaiah Bellringer. Each character is flawed, and has his/her own secrets. Many of them are filled with regret, and what they perceive as their past sins (some rightly so) haunts them.
The plot follows the men as they split into groups and strike out into the dark wilderness in search of Ruth. Their individual past deeds haunt them as a mysterious force in the woods grants each of them separate visions, causing all of them to have a crisis of a faith. The plot takes a bit to get started, taking it's time to establish the characters and their relationships between each other. When everything finally comes together in the end, and certain revelations are made, the novel ends exactly the way it should.
The character's themselves are difficult, and Mills is accomplished at making each of them interesting, if only a few of them likeable. William Brewer is perhaps the most likeable throughout the book, and the only one who seems to truly seek redemption for his past sins. James has made some wrong choices, but his downfall is mostly the way he handles dealing with them. Edwin is perhaps the character who elicits the biggest change as we see him make some of the same mistakes some of the elders have in their past.
The weird elements of the book tend to be more subtle, and while there aren't many scenes of hair-raising horror, the mood and tone of the book remain eerie and melancholy throughout. I found the biggest horrors of the book to be the people themselves, and the Puritan way of thinking as opposed to the weird elements. The attitude of the townsfolk and how easily some of them are led is quite scary, and Mills drives the point home throughout the novel.Their stifling, rigid attitude about sex especially, which is so completely different from today's view that modern readers such as myself find it downright disturbing. The ease in which the people of the time would do terrible things at the behest of their firebrand religious leaders is an aspect that I find especially terrifying.
Revenants has a good, if simple plot, and interesting characters, but where it truly shines is the language Mills uses. The back cover describes the book as "a poetic meditation on the colonial landscape of New England, the hills and wilds of a vanished country." This description is accurate, and Mills is quite at home taking his time describing the landscape. He paints a beautiful, eerie portrait of a town in isolation, surrounded by deep, dark woods and stagnant, rotting bogs. In reading it I could picture it perfectly, could even smell the forests, and I enjoyed his evocation of place just as much as seeing the plot come together.
Although the book tends to move at a somewhat slow pace, and seems to take awhile for the plot to kick into gear, I enjoyed every page. Some might find it a bit too slow for their liking, maybe a bit longer than it should be, and skimpy on the weird supernatural elements, but I found that these few small criticisms are just that - small nitpickings and nothing more. This novel didn't need to be as overtly weird as his short stories, because the important things are the characters themselves, how they dealt with regret, and how they got along through a dark time in history. Never have I seen the harsh coldness of colonial times depicted so strongly.
Revenants is a moody novel, and is all fog and melancholy. Anyone looking for a strange, literate, gloomy and atmospheric book will find a lot to like. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interested in colonial period pieces. There is just enough weird and horror there to satisfy genre readers, and not too much there to scare off non-genre readers. With this novel Daniel Mills further cements himself as a great new voice in the world of the weird. I for one can't wait to see what he does next.
Originally appeared on my blog, The Arkham Digest.
February 28, 2012
I've been lucky enough to share a few ToCs with Daniel Mills, which is where I was first introduced to his work, though I've been hearing his name coming from authors of weird and supernatural fiction for a little while now. I've loved everything I've read from him, and quickly found myself looking forward to each new thing I ran across. That said, it took me longer than it probably should have to pick up his debut novel, though now that I finally have I can say without hesitation that it's every bit as good as the hype, and better than I'd dared hope.
A restrained tale of past sins and the haunting power of the untamed wilderness, Revenants reads like Hawthorne-by-way-of-Blackwood, while at the same time being 100% Mills. It's an accomplished debut that made me frequently shake my head and think, "Man, I wish I was that good," which is about the highest praise I can give.
A restrained tale of past sins and the haunting power of the untamed wilderness, Revenants reads like Hawthorne-by-way-of-Blackwood, while at the same time being 100% Mills. It's an accomplished debut that made me frequently shake my head and think, "Man, I wish I was that good," which is about the highest praise I can give.
February 19, 2022
Never before have the woods seemed so dark to him as they do now: so boundless, so forbidding. In October, the sun begins its retreat, confining its daily arc to an ever-shrinking slice of sky, leaving the world stark and shadowed. These are latter days. Already the trumpets blow, bringing rumors of war in the east. The seals are broken, the best set loose upon the world: her howl will shake the vault of heaven.
He breathes on his hands and rubs them together.
Wind stirs the rotting leaves. He waits.
This book had some of the best prose I've read in a long while. Every sentence felt so carefully crafted to reinforce this overall sense of... I don't wanna say 'dread' but definitely that feeling of melancholy when fall begins to slip into winter. There are honestly over a dozen mentions and metaphors relating to dried up and dead leaves in this book, but they all work.
At face value, there's not a whole lot of dramatic action that happens in this story, but the prose and in-between bits were so well-written that I didn't even mind. Basically a small, isolated town of Puritan colonists in 1680's Massachusetts has had two young women go missing in the span of a few weeks, and we follow another one shortly before she also vanishes. The men of the town form search parties and split up as they enter the thick woods that hem in their village. But in doing so, the older men are forced to confront the repercussions of something they carried out fourteen years earlier that the younger generation never fully understood.
Honestly one of the main things I'll remember about this book is the time period and setting. I find that most historical fiction tends to crowd around specific eras and places, but pre-Revolution America tends to get overshadowed, save for the famous examples of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible. And the nature of Puritanism absolutely informed the decisions of the characters in this story; many of the events, and definitely the climax, just would not have happened in a more tolerant culture. Ideas of "impure thoughts" and "unforgivable sins" also goes a long way towards explaining why certain characters change so much from beginning to end.
This book is categorized as Horror on GoodReads, and I half agree with that, but don't come into this expecting a bunch of buckle-hatted pilgrims getting slashed up in the woods. The supernatural elements of this book are subtle, just like everything else. It's more of a character study with some vaguely weird shit happening in the background, though I do wish the spooky factor was dialed up a notch. If you do decide to pick this one up, definitely wait until October/November-ish for the full effect.
He breathes on his hands and rubs them together.
Wind stirs the rotting leaves. He waits.
This book had some of the best prose I've read in a long while. Every sentence felt so carefully crafted to reinforce this overall sense of... I don't wanna say 'dread' but definitely that feeling of melancholy when fall begins to slip into winter. There are honestly over a dozen mentions and metaphors relating to dried up and dead leaves in this book, but they all work.
At face value, there's not a whole lot of dramatic action that happens in this story, but the prose and in-between bits were so well-written that I didn't even mind. Basically a small, isolated town of Puritan colonists in 1680's Massachusetts has had two young women go missing in the span of a few weeks, and we follow another one shortly before she also vanishes. The men of the town form search parties and split up as they enter the thick woods that hem in their village. But in doing so, the older men are forced to confront the repercussions of something they carried out fourteen years earlier that the younger generation never fully understood.
Honestly one of the main things I'll remember about this book is the time period and setting. I find that most historical fiction tends to crowd around specific eras and places, but pre-Revolution America tends to get overshadowed, save for the famous examples of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible. And the nature of Puritanism absolutely informed the decisions of the characters in this story; many of the events, and definitely the climax, just would not have happened in a more tolerant culture. Ideas of "impure thoughts" and "unforgivable sins" also goes a long way towards explaining why certain characters change so much from beginning to end.
This book is categorized as Horror on GoodReads, and I half agree with that, but don't come into this expecting a bunch of buckle-hatted pilgrims getting slashed up in the woods. The supernatural elements of this book are subtle, just like everything else. It's more of a character study with some vaguely weird shit happening in the background, though I do wish the spooky factor was dialed up a notch. If you do decide to pick this one up, definitely wait until October/November-ish for the full effect.
August 11, 2011
Revenants takes place in late 1600s New England, in a small, isolated town of Cold Marsh. Three women have disappeared and the minister and most residents fear the devil is loose in the surrounding woods. Old sins (individual and societal) return to haunt each of the inhabitants. Mills has the patience to slowly build the large cast of characters toward a climax that is both inevitable and still shocking. If not for some of the harsher, more violent details that emerge (that Mills wisely choose to not gloss over and show the reader), this read like a book that easily could’ve been written during Hawthorne’s time. An atmospheric, pensive, and impressive debut novel by Mills.
June 9, 2014
This is a beautifully written book about regret and atonement. Told through the eyes of many characters as they search for a missing girl in the feared realm of the woods. As the search goes on and time seems to be running out, some begin to crack under the pressure, others rise up, but they will all be haunted with the ghosts of their past deeds. Revenants is poetic in it's descriptions and the story is an interesting one but I'm left with many questions and I would have traded poetry for answers.
March 6, 2011
I really like the intensity of atmosphere the author created. Although the story takes place in the late 1600's I feel it has a message for now.
January 14, 2021
Revenants by Daniel Mills is a really tightly-written and beautiful book. Mills does a wonderful job at exploring interesting characters through really easy to read prose that keeps the reader going throughout the story. Revenants is a wonderful book that explores pre-United States colonists’ personalities and culture with great prose and characters while managing to only occasionally being bland towards the middle of the book.
The main strengths of this story are found in the characters and writing itself. The characters are interesting and diverse while still being easy to relate to and understand. This second point is really important considering that the book is under 300 pages. It’s important that the characters be easy enough to grasp while still being compelling in a short amount of time. This is easily achieved through the wonderful prose that is both poetic and pithy. It succeeds in painting beautiful imagery when necessary while also being able to clearly and concisely disclose events and character motivations. The main reason I want to read more of Daniel Mills’ work is to see how this writing style progresses.
This book was a very easy read for the most part, but there is a section in the middle that feels rather bland and almost like a time set aside to tell you the characters’ motivation in a rather clumsy way. It feels almost forced. While I enjoyed what I was being told what I was being told was clearly presented, the execution was not near as skillfully handled as the other parts of the story. There is a blandness to the way this section of the book is handled that made me feel as if I was treading water instead of going in a compelling direction. The end of the book does a wonderful job of paying off this section, but still wish I would have enjoyed as much as I did the rest of the book.
Revenants is a wonderful read that examines the English-colonial landscape in North America through wonderful characters and beautiful prose, and while it does have a little bland and clumsy execution in some sections of the book, it does an overall good job at its examination.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a character-driven story that is easy to read while still being compelling.
The main strengths of this story are found in the characters and writing itself. The characters are interesting and diverse while still being easy to relate to and understand. This second point is really important considering that the book is under 300 pages. It’s important that the characters be easy enough to grasp while still being compelling in a short amount of time. This is easily achieved through the wonderful prose that is both poetic and pithy. It succeeds in painting beautiful imagery when necessary while also being able to clearly and concisely disclose events and character motivations. The main reason I want to read more of Daniel Mills’ work is to see how this writing style progresses.
This book was a very easy read for the most part, but there is a section in the middle that feels rather bland and almost like a time set aside to tell you the characters’ motivation in a rather clumsy way. It feels almost forced. While I enjoyed what I was being told what I was being told was clearly presented, the execution was not near as skillfully handled as the other parts of the story. There is a blandness to the way this section of the book is handled that made me feel as if I was treading water instead of going in a compelling direction. The end of the book does a wonderful job of paying off this section, but still wish I would have enjoyed as much as I did the rest of the book.
Revenants is a wonderful read that examines the English-colonial landscape in North America through wonderful characters and beautiful prose, and while it does have a little bland and clumsy execution in some sections of the book, it does an overall good job at its examination.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a character-driven story that is easy to read while still being compelling.
August 16, 2024
Not exactly what I expected, but really good for what it was. A story of haunted, misguided men
December 21, 2025
i have never wanted to finish a book faster this was horrible it had potential but didn’t go anywhere
November 18, 2020
Would your tenth grade English class have been more enjoyable if The Scarlet Letter was a better-written book? Probably. I wish Dan Mills's "Revenants: A Dream of New England" could replace The Scarlet Letter and show young minds what literature can really do.
The Scarlet Letter was innovative and inventive, but it is poorly written. Characterizations are flat, action and insight are told and not shown, and most of the events that are important to the narrative occur offstage. When he describes what happens, Hawthorne is a powerful wordsmith, but... Not. Much. Happens.
In Revenants, Dan Mills creates a fully-realized world, richer and more captivating than Hawthorne's empty Boston. Most importantly, Mills fills that world with real people. These are people with histories, nuances, deep desires, and ancient guilts. They are a people of early America, and they are also you and your neighbor. And once this vivid world and characters are in place... things HAPPEN. Disappearances, strange sightings, adventures, heroic and desperate acts with consequences.
A third of the way into the book, a series of events forces the men of the village to enter the woods. Hawthorne's woods are only a barely realized symbol. Mills's woods are also a place where our own passions and evils follow us and gain voice and misty reality, but these are woods so clearly and powerful drawn that you will scarce believe that your chair is still under you. You will wade through a frigid October bog, you will scramble between the sodden fir trees... and when the characters encounter terrors, be they imagined or real, you will know them yourself.
Revenants is a challenging book. It is at times slow, ponderous, and endlessly descriptive. The horrors are more like a deep burn than a sharp cut. But if you invest yourself in this book's world, you will learn something of fatherhood, something of passion, and you will know more fully how our actions must shape us, not our lifelong guilts or fears. You will gain and then lose sympathy for characters, you will admire the fallen, and you might encounter your own revenant.
The Scarlet Letter was innovative and inventive, but it is poorly written. Characterizations are flat, action and insight are told and not shown, and most of the events that are important to the narrative occur offstage. When he describes what happens, Hawthorne is a powerful wordsmith, but... Not. Much. Happens.
In Revenants, Dan Mills creates a fully-realized world, richer and more captivating than Hawthorne's empty Boston. Most importantly, Mills fills that world with real people. These are people with histories, nuances, deep desires, and ancient guilts. They are a people of early America, and they are also you and your neighbor. And once this vivid world and characters are in place... things HAPPEN. Disappearances, strange sightings, adventures, heroic and desperate acts with consequences.
A third of the way into the book, a series of events forces the men of the village to enter the woods. Hawthorne's woods are only a barely realized symbol. Mills's woods are also a place where our own passions and evils follow us and gain voice and misty reality, but these are woods so clearly and powerful drawn that you will scarce believe that your chair is still under you. You will wade through a frigid October bog, you will scramble between the sodden fir trees... and when the characters encounter terrors, be they imagined or real, you will know them yourself.
Revenants is a challenging book. It is at times slow, ponderous, and endlessly descriptive. The horrors are more like a deep burn than a sharp cut. But if you invest yourself in this book's world, you will learn something of fatherhood, something of passion, and you will know more fully how our actions must shape us, not our lifelong guilts or fears. You will gain and then lose sympathy for characters, you will admire the fallen, and you might encounter your own revenant.
March 30, 2011
This was a creepy book. I was drawn to it because a.) I have rarely ever thought of Puritan-age fiction other than that involving witch trials, b.) I like hysteria, c.) I have been reading some different eras of historical fiction lately (other than my usual Middle Age/Renaissance British monarchy type).
The story starts out innocently enough, so to speak. Pilgrims have settled in the new world, facing challenges and keeping their faith. After mysterious disappearances of a few young ladies freaks the village out, a bunch of men decide to go into the woods (the Devil's territory) and search. What ensues is both creepy and makes you sort of wonder what it must really be like, living in a strange new world.
The writing is very good, and the book jacket describes, poetic. It's not overdone and flows extremely well through the entire book. Perhaps we will see more of Mills in the future.
The story starts out innocently enough, so to speak. Pilgrims have settled in the new world, facing challenges and keeping their faith. After mysterious disappearances of a few young ladies freaks the village out, a bunch of men decide to go into the woods (the Devil's territory) and search. What ensues is both creepy and makes you sort of wonder what it must really be like, living in a strange new world.
The writing is very good, and the book jacket describes, poetic. It's not overdone and flows extremely well through the entire book. Perhaps we will see more of Mills in the future.
May 18, 2014
Well-written and atmospheric. The story involves a series of creepy events in a remote colonial New England town; the action takes place shortly after King Philip's War, the bloody conflict between the settlers and the native Americans in the late 1600s. The setting is very convincing, but we're never hit over the head with "colonial New England"; we're just there.
Mills's prose is excellent and contains many memorable moments, such as "this is a true wilderness, a place of permanent eclipse" and "ghost-like images with points of dusk for eyes." Overall the novel is filled with rich imagery and a thick atmosphere of eeriness and repression. My only criticism is that there is a bit of an excess of descriptive passages; they are all very nicely done, but the book would have been better off with fewer of them.
Definitely recommended for those with an interest in the time period and/or those who enjoy literature with a pervasive sense of the spooky and strange.
Mills's prose is excellent and contains many memorable moments, such as "this is a true wilderness, a place of permanent eclipse" and "ghost-like images with points of dusk for eyes." Overall the novel is filled with rich imagery and a thick atmosphere of eeriness and repression. My only criticism is that there is a bit of an excess of descriptive passages; they are all very nicely done, but the book would have been better off with fewer of them.
Definitely recommended for those with an interest in the time period and/or those who enjoy literature with a pervasive sense of the spooky and strange.
January 15, 2021
This book is a form of scourging. Using a limpidly evocative prose-style, it induces an empathy with a Puritan-like outlook: its temptations, retributions, atonements, possessions, guilts, the oxymorons of faith, all strobing, as it were, often imperceptibly, sometimes in poignant defined slow-motion, between people and landscape. The book’s concatenation of name-pictures evokes the solidity of real people but also, in relationship with each other, their attenuities, their thinning-towards-transparencies laid bare upon each other, bolstered, one infers, by a conscious or sub-conscious faith in angel shadows encroaching and staining them back towards a default, ‘existence-needful’ reality.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
May 2, 2015
lately i'd been craving ultra-modern writing. i wanted to read writing that was so fresh i had to look over the author's shoulder as she wrote it. i wanted something new and cutting-edge and never seen before so that it would shock me out of my post-modern despair.
so it may be ironic that the book that found me was Daniel Mills' Revenants, a story that takes place in 17th century new england.
this isn't a pride and prejudice meets zombies mash-up of terror and nostalgia. this is the real thing. the past literally coming back to haunt us.
this is a story about personal sin and collective transgressions, a story that casts its eye forwards upon us as well as back to where we have come from.
it's probably the best book i've read all year.
so it may be ironic that the book that found me was Daniel Mills' Revenants, a story that takes place in 17th century new england.
this isn't a pride and prejudice meets zombies mash-up of terror and nostalgia. this is the real thing. the past literally coming back to haunt us.
this is a story about personal sin and collective transgressions, a story that casts its eye forwards upon us as well as back to where we have come from.
it's probably the best book i've read all year.
September 7, 2015
I'm a sucker for 17th century New England history... and, as a setting for supernatural horror, it's hard to beat an isolated, close-knit Puritan community. Mills nails the essential pathos of early New England: when the Connecticut River Valley was the frontier, a nexus between competing empires- and between the domain of the Puritan's stern God and, perhaps, other forces: veiled, arcane, and malevolent. The story is in no particular hurry to get anywhere, but Mills doles out the dread in even measure as the denizens of Cold Marsh grapple with threats both internal and external as a grim reckoning looms. Highly recommended for supernatural horror fans, as well as those curious about Hawthorne's literary legacy.
November 23, 2012
Revenants was a wonderful real, dark and mysterious and full of some very deep desperation. I honestly have no words to say how much I enjoyed Mills's writing style which reminded me of fine and intricate lace - delicate and smooth and endlessly beautiful.
If I ever manage to become half the writer he is, it would be an achievement of my life.
The story was told from several POVs, all of them strong and carrying something the other couldn't contain and present thus making them dependent on one another. Like pieces of a puzzle that mean little without one another but together they form a complete and clear picture.
Highly recommend to everyone who is in historic/Gothic novels!
If I ever manage to become half the writer he is, it would be an achievement of my life.
The story was told from several POVs, all of them strong and carrying something the other couldn't contain and present thus making them dependent on one another. Like pieces of a puzzle that mean little without one another but together they form a complete and clear picture.
Highly recommend to everyone who is in historic/Gothic novels!
January 12, 2023
It could just be my naivety but I'm not really sure I understood much of the Reverend's story and how it relates to Ruth's disappearance and reappearance. I also don't think I understand the burned village or the headstone. I think the burned village is foreshadowing the fate of Cold Marsh, and I think the unborn deer fetus in the opening scene alludes to Ruth? I'm really not sure. Other than trying to unscramble everything, I enjoyed this book. It's beautifully written, even when it doesn't have much to say. I just wish it made a little more sense. I'll have to re-read it some day knowing what I know now.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 30, 2011
I really enjoyed this story. It's not my usual genre of choice, but it is a beautifully written book. The imagery in the writing really is quite stunning, and greatly contributes to the overall richness of the story and setting without becoming overly baroque.
February 4, 2024
A well written horror tale of puritan New England. Lovecraftian in the sense that the environment suggests a boundless horror, but unlike Lovecraft the horror suggested here is rooted more in our characters inability to reach beyond their own self imposed limits of understanding.
November 2, 2014
Truly superlative. Shades of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
November 21, 2015
Verily I say that this an exceptional read, especially for those folks who like supernatural thrillers involving sinners of our puritanical past! Excellent craftsmanship and character development.
January 24, 2023
*FULL DISCLOSURE I HAVE PUBLISHED DANIEL MILLS*
Over a decade after it was first published and I have finally gotten to read this (highly rated) novel.
The blurb pretty much gives the outline of the first half of the book the events being narrated by how they impact upon various protagonists - the main ones woman’s fiancee (who is probably going to replace an aged, autocratic and charismatic Puritan preacher), the woman’s father, the father of another previously missing woman and a number of lesser characters.
It becomes apparent that the older generation carry some sort of guilt for their past actions that plays into the present and these become more exacerbated as they begin their search of the woods for the missing woman.
The first half of the book is primarily spent establishing the characters and their relationships with themselves and their shared past with the woods as almost another character, an object filled with fear and mystery. This has good moments within it as Mill’s attempts to evoke a poetic but dangerous landscape which becomes more so as the weather closes in, but because he writes in the somewhat clipped, short sentence style beloved of many writing schools it does not have the lyricism of nature writers such as Blackwood. Indeed, I thought the first half tended to drag a little.
However at almost exactly the half way mark the tale suddenly leaps into life with an excellent night-time camping scene in which Mills’ clipped style really captures the chaos and jumpiness of the protagonists thoughts and actions as they try to process the unfolding events. From this point on the book is far more gripping as new pieces of the jigsaw emerge and the plot becomes more driven by events. There is a lot to like in this part and this means that overall a lot to like about the book.
I am am glad I persevered with this novel and enjoyed this book far more the further I progressed. I especially liked way he evoked the repressive atmosphere and (conflicted) Puritan lifestyle of its characters without getting into the whole romance of ‘Puritan New England’ thang which, being based in England makes the book more accessible. Many people (the author included) refer to the influence of Hawthorne, a writer who I have never really ‘got on with’. I would say that Mills is better than Hawthorne as his characters seem less romantic and more more solid than Hawthorne’s and his plotting more intricate.
Although the first part of the novel means I dock him a couple of stars I certainly came away from it feeling the urge to explore more of the (surprisingly slender) Mills back catalogue and that is not something I feel for many contemporary writers nowadays.
Its perhaps worth pointing out that the publishers, Chomu, have (since 2022) ceased operations so I am not sure how long this is readily available for, I guess until the distributors exhaust their stock. Just observin'...
Over a decade after it was first published and I have finally gotten to read this (highly rated) novel.
The blurb pretty much gives the outline of the first half of the book the events being narrated by how they impact upon various protagonists - the main ones woman’s fiancee (who is probably going to replace an aged, autocratic and charismatic Puritan preacher), the woman’s father, the father of another previously missing woman and a number of lesser characters.
It becomes apparent that the older generation carry some sort of guilt for their past actions that plays into the present and these become more exacerbated as they begin their search of the woods for the missing woman.
The first half of the book is primarily spent establishing the characters and their relationships with themselves and their shared past with the woods as almost another character, an object filled with fear and mystery. This has good moments within it as Mill’s attempts to evoke a poetic but dangerous landscape which becomes more so as the weather closes in, but because he writes in the somewhat clipped, short sentence style beloved of many writing schools it does not have the lyricism of nature writers such as Blackwood. Indeed, I thought the first half tended to drag a little.
However at almost exactly the half way mark the tale suddenly leaps into life with an excellent night-time camping scene in which Mills’ clipped style really captures the chaos and jumpiness of the protagonists thoughts and actions as they try to process the unfolding events. From this point on the book is far more gripping as new pieces of the jigsaw emerge and the plot becomes more driven by events. There is a lot to like in this part and this means that overall a lot to like about the book.
I am am glad I persevered with this novel and enjoyed this book far more the further I progressed. I especially liked way he evoked the repressive atmosphere and (conflicted) Puritan lifestyle of its characters without getting into the whole romance of ‘Puritan New England’ thang which, being based in England makes the book more accessible. Many people (the author included) refer to the influence of Hawthorne, a writer who I have never really ‘got on with’. I would say that Mills is better than Hawthorne as his characters seem less romantic and more more solid than Hawthorne’s and his plotting more intricate.
Although the first part of the novel means I dock him a couple of stars I certainly came away from it feeling the urge to explore more of the (surprisingly slender) Mills back catalogue and that is not something I feel for many contemporary writers nowadays.
Its perhaps worth pointing out that the publishers, Chomu, have (since 2022) ceased operations so I am not sure how long this is readily available for, I guess until the distributors exhaust their stock. Just observin'...
August 23, 2021
Very good and very close to brilliant, but let down by an occasionally muddled attempt to do a bit of obfuscation in the supernatural plot line and the occasional appearance of incongruous modern words like “snuggle” in an otherwise very carefully written novel. The central mystery is something of a MadGuffin, with the real horror coming in three astonishing sequences with the hunting party. These are beautifully written - as is most of the rest of the book - and lyrical and desperately sad. I’ve read a fair few novels of late about dark, desolate and mysterious woodlands, and this elegantly leaps over the florid and overwritten cliches of the genre and has a lucid, clear and very tangible sense of that damp, decaying yet also thriving dichotomy of ancient woodlands that so many writers come a cropper with. My issues with it are minor though and for the most part it’s an astonishingly accomplished debut with so much promise as to how he will develop as a writer
September 4, 2017
Not that it wasn't well written, just rather a dull story.
August 13, 2020
Beautifully written.
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