by Alyson Faye | Original review at ALYSONFAYEWORDPRESS
The Fiends in the Furrows is the latest horror anthology from indie publisher Nosetouch Press (published September 2018).
It contains 9 tales of folk horror (film wise think ‘Wicker Man’ crossed with ‘The Witch’). Within these pages haunted landscapes, isolated rural communities with pagan traditions, occult practises and the power of preachers jostle side by side with modern life – which often loses, or indeed has no relevance in these stories.
This book would be an ideal purchase for this bleak autumnal time of year where Halloween dominates and the countdown to Christmas has started. So if you’d like a gift for a bibliophile who loves horror then buy this one.
All the stories are well written, with huge gobbets of terror and weirdness running through their veins. With nine to choose from, you can sample taste from a literary buffet of varied writers’ voices and styles, as each one elegantly creates their own fictional world with its own boundaries into which you, the reader, can step inside, visit and unlike some of the characters trapped within, you are allowed to leave. This is quite a privilege.
If I had to pick a couple which stood out for me- well here goes- but I enjoyed all nine:- S.T.Gibson’s ‘Revival’ – be warned if you have a snake phobia best to skip this one. This is a powerful account of a young girl’s coming of age within her twisted pastor’s family patriarchy and the power of religious hysteria in a small community. Stephanie Ellis’ ‘The Way of the Mother’- again it will put you off moving to a village for a better quality of life! Mothers are expected to make sacrifices for their families, aren’t they? Here a community condones and accepts in silence an horrific act – though there is beauty too in the new creation.
Third shout out to Sam Hicks’ ‘Back Along the Old Track’- this really creeped me out, reading it late at night. A feral fearsome farming family terrorise a new arrival in the village, who has to learn the olde ways pretty fast.
Highly recommended.
