#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 63: Road of Bones by Christopher Golden

 Today I have an ARC of one of the first big Horror novels of 2022; a book I gave an unequivocal star to in the October issue of booklist here. Giveaway below, but first, here is a refresher on the basic rules to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that  week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #62. Our winner was Carolyn from Fulton County [GA] Library System. Now on to today's giveaway: 

Road of Bones is the upcoming stand alone release by bestselling author and library patron favorite, Christopher Golden. You can click here to read my full STAR review [or see below], but I cannot stress how much I loved this book. 

You nee to order it ASAP if you have not already. It will be on best lists when 2022 comes to an end. Good luck to all who have entered.

Road of Bones by Christopher Golden [link is to my original post announcing the Booklist review]

Golden firmly plants his flag at the top of the Horror-Thriller hybrid mountain with a tale that will chill even the most jaded readers. Tieg, documentary producer, with ghosts in his past, is travelling the Kolyma Highway through Siberia, a road paved with the bones of gulag victims, to scout a village for his next project. The cold is so intense, cars must be left running and people can only survive for minutes outside. As Tieg and his best friend/cameraman travel the road, they meet those who call this place home. But when they get to what they thought was their final destination, the town is deserted. Every villager has fled their homes, into the uninhabitable forest, all except one young, traumatized girl. At the edge of said forest, appears a parnee, a shaman and his animal spirit army, and they are not happy. Opening with a high anxiety sequence, and relentlessly building on the dread of the setting, the ceaseless terror, the unrelenting cold, and the omnipresent, well organized force stalking them, Golden places the action, violence, and fear front and center. However, because it is told from multiple points of view, the character development allows the reader to see that the real threat may actually be human hubris, a realization that ultimately adds a gentleness, depth, and beauty to a story that could have been centered around carnage. Give to fans of emotional, thought-provoking, nature inspired Horror like The Only Good Indians by Jones or Wonderland by Stage.

YA: The combination of non-stop action, fascinating and terrifying setting, and folk horror and nature gone wild elements will draw teens into the story immediately, while the characters will keep them turning the pages, even as the terror increases exponentially. 

Further Appeal: I need to stress that the dread, anxiety, and danger is here from the very first scene and never lets up. 

Here are my notes from as I was reading:

• Opening with a high anxiety sequence, the story builds upon the danger, claustrophobia, and freezing temperatures non-stop and that is before the "parnee" comes out of the forest. 
• It is told from multiple points of view, allowing the characters to build and the terror burrows even deeper into the reader, the chill searching for warmth anywhere it can find it. 
• Violence and fear. 
• Human Hubris. What is evil? What is out there? Who is civilized? Answers are not easy and they challenge the very nature of human hubris and reason.. And yet, it is all very real.-- not really so rewrite that. Smack in the face of westerners who think we know it all-- spoiler alert [not really]-- we don’t.
• Social commentary about what we really don’t know about the world. How small we are. Golden straight up shows us westerners what jerks we are. The world is large and we think we are better than everyone else, but in reality people live everywhere-- happily and thriving-- and yet we think, how can they?
• Chilling [pun intended but also accurate on every level].
• Finally, there is a moving tribute to Bruce Springsteen in one of the important subplots. So Bruce fans will love this book. My deceased Father-In-Law was a huge Springsteen fan and he would have loved this book. 

Three Words That Describe This Book: Ceaseless Terror, Strong Sense of Place, Human Hubris

Readalikes: The nature gone wild elements are huge here. The Jones and Wonderland recs, have much to say about human hubris, nature's power, and how we need to respect it more.