The Night Will Find Us - Review

Author: Mathew Lyons

Genre: Horror

Format: Paperback

Pages: 336

There's nothing else scarier to me than the woods at night, especially in a place I don't know. Add being lost in the woods and hunted by something, and you've got my attention. So not only did The Night Will Find Us have a great cover, but it ticked a lot of boxes of things I like in a horror story. Thankfully it did not disappoint. 

In fact, this doesn't even give you time to find your feet, just throws you right in on Mary Kane's last day, and you're left playing catch up. Which you get to do through the rest of the story as one of the teenagers, Chloe, connection to her. So it's really a story within a story that keeps you on your toes. Matthew Lyons gives you just enough information for you to start to put it together, but you, or at least didn't put the whole puzzle together. This made the book hard to put down, and the only reason I did was that the Holidays happened. 

However, when I came back to this story a few days later it was very easy to pick up again. While so much does happen in the books, it's easy to keep with because it all happens over the course of three days. Also, the story follows a pretty set horror movie standard and spent a lot of time yelling about it. 

Mostly it was me yelling, "that's a cursed object" or "this how bad things happen".

I also really liked the mythology that Mathew Lyon created for this. How creepy he made the trees when you realize what exactly they are, and how some things didn't really get explained. Like the thing in the lake, or what exactly happened to Parker's father. Or, more importantly, what was going in that church. Seriously, was that Phipps doing and how many people had continued doing it? I need to know how why so many people have gone missing in the Pine Barrens!

Though I do like how the actual story ends, and if felt a fitting ending for that character. However, I could have done without the epilogue. I didn't honestly feel like it added much to the story. Mostly because I didn't care for the character that survived. This would have been one of the times I'd been okay with not knowing, or maybe if it had been done a different way. I don't know, I didn't really read the epilogue, just sort of skimmed it.

There was really only one other thing I kept this from going five stars. It's been a few days between me finishing the book and writing this, and the only things that stuck with me are how creepy the Pine Barrens was written and the story of Mary Kane and Phipps. The rest of the characters, the teenagers, felt pretty much like cannon fodder and background noise. Two of which I was kind of glad to see get killed off because they added nothing to the story but me wishing I could throttle them. In fact, there were times when it felt like Lyons was trying to give them more definition, but sort of gave up in the same breath.

But since the teenagers felt more like background characters it wasn't too much of an issue. Only I feel like their deaths would have packed a bigger punch if they'd had a bit more depth to them.

All that being said, I really did like this story. I'm glad it came across my library dash and Matthew Lyons will be an instant add to cart author going forward. 

HAPPY READING!!