Road of Bones is truly a bone-chilling memorable horror tale set in the harsh and vastly unexplored setting of Siberia in a whole new atmosphere. It took me less than a day to finish it, despite my best intentions to take my time with it. Once the narrative picks up, it doesn’t let go of your attention until the haunting climax.
Felix Teigland, an American documentary producer, takes a road trip along with his friend and investor to a town in Siberia known to be the coldest place on Earth in the hopes of making a brand-new documentary capturing its spooky history and local folktales. The journey takes them on a lengthy highway connecting the desolate town to the rest of the civilization, a highway that serves as a burial ground for prisoners of the Russian Gulag. Once they reach the town, they observe no presence at all; Home-cooked meals left untouched, belongings left behind, and footsteps leading to the dark forest nearby. Only a little girl is left behind who remains in catatonic state. Quickly, the visitors are exposed to a horror unlike any they’ve experienced before, a horror borne of supernatural elements that will stop at nothing to get to them.
Christopher Golden’s Road of Bones rivals the best of the horror genre. The powerfully vivid descriptions of the extremely cold terrain fill you with a deep-rooted sense of gratitude for the warmth radiating from a sunny forecast. There is an eerie awareness of impending doom from the very first sentence of the story. As the story progresses, the characters become more relatable, the situation more immersive, and the fear more palpable. Ordinarily, supernatural horror thrillers can feel disconnected from reality. However, the behavior of the characters in the tense situations make you question what would you do in such a predicament in a manner that pushes away the disbelief.
Road of Bones thrills and scares with no bounds. The fact that the highway known as Road of Bones actually exists with a horrible backstory lends credence to the storyline. You’ll be thinking about this haunted fable long after you’ve finished it. A surprising but undoubtedly stunning read from start to finish.
Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.
Purchase Road Of Bones
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)
Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen
