I've been a fan of Sarah Lotz's novels ever since I read 2014's THE THREE.
THE WHITE ROAD is another very good novel, one that introduces readers to adrenaline and attention junky Simon Newman - chasing that next viral sensation. First, he travels to the Cwm Pot caves, and then to Everest. It's an intense, suspenseful novel. Lotz's writing is superb, her characters are well-drawn, and the story is gripping. If you're familiar with the author's work already, you'll perhaps know what to expect (in a good way). If not, then I'd still recommend you give Lotz's work a try. Recommended.

She is just not that good, plus this is remarkably similar to the novel "Thin Air"? It could be me and my age, I miss the SK golden years!

Oh my but what a thrill ride this was! From the begining to the end, and all the glorious chapters in between I found myself as obsessed with this book as the characters within were obsessed with their quest. I read during my lunch break. I stole moments with this read throughout my day. I ignored my family and stayed up past my bed time to finish. Worth it.

I don't know how accurate the details were, but I found them fascinating. Made me want to look up some of the books the author referenced just to re-immerse myself. There was a super natural aspect, yes. However it was far overshadowed by a gripping plot and realistic characters. This is one I could see myself reading again on a cold snowy night.

The White Road begins well underground, and the horrors Simon finds there accompany him (almost) to the top of Everest. Intermingled with the tale of a climber who lost her life before Simon's attempt at the summit, this effort sees its characters pushed to physical extremes and punished for their risks. The concepts (particularly the exploration of the "third man" phenomenon) are fascinating, yet it's still hard to like and root for the main character. Overall, this is a good time, and armchair climbers will love it.

Simon, once a troubled youth turn adventure seeker, is now a barista trying to get a spooky website off the ground. The cofounder, Thierry, sends Simon spelunking in search of three bodies left behind in a cave, Cwm Pot. Guided by the unbalanced Ed, they find the bodies, just as a flash flood traps him with the bones. The intense cold and darkness, along with Ed’s corpse, terrorize Simon, but he makes it out alive with his film footage intact. The footage goes viral, against Simon’s wishes, leaving Thierry wondering how to top it. He decides on a literal approach, and sends Simon to climb Mt. Everest to film the climbers who perished in the attempt. Once there, Simon realizes he didn’t escape the cave alone, nor is he the only one haunted.

“I met the man who would save my life twice—and ultimately destroy it—on a potholed road in the arse-end of the Welsh countryside.”

With an opening line that foreboding, I was hooked. Sarah Lotz’s latest novel, The White Road, tells the tale of a doomed Simon, his ill-fated exploits, and the true weight of guilt. Lotz’s prose, though standard, is visceral and compulsory, and she absolutely nails the claustrophobic atmosphere. Both the beginning and end of the novel are excellent, and though it lags in the middle, it’s worth the journey to complete the whole thing. If you’re looking for an easy page turner* with an ending that will haunt you, give The White Road a try.

The White Road is the quintessential summer blockbuster. Fast-paced and intense, it captures your attention and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The plot is intriguing as it explores the extremes people will go for adventure or sponsorship.  Set among the peaks of Mount Everest, the references to freezing temperatures keep you cool during the steamy heat of summer afternoons. Simon may not be the perfect main character, but he always remains honest to himself and to the readers. With a hint of other-worldliness that diverts you from real life, it makes for an exciting read that takes you to the highest places on Earth and some of the lowest - all while you sit poolside.

There are a few interesting avenues down which Sarah Lotz takes readers involving subjects most readers will never experience. The first is the area of extreme sports. Simon does not limit himself to just one of those sports. Caving, also known as spelunking, is vastly different from high-altitude mountain climbing, and Ms. Lotz brings readers along for both adventures. Simon's experiences in the cave are not for the faint of heart. The descriptions of smaller-than-coffin-like tunnels, abrupt cliffs, the true dark, and the constantly running water all make for a scene that would fit right in with a torture movie. Adrenaline junkies will get a kick out of the abnormal twists and sharp turns required to maneuver through the caves and enjoy those moments Simon can only inch through a space using his fingers and toes as leverage. Other readers will shudder with claustrophobia as they confirm that caving is not for them.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are those scenes that take place on Mount Everest. There again, Ms. Lotz's descriptions put you at the heart of the action. She is so thorough in those passages that you begin to feel the cold creeping into your bones no matter how hot it is outside as you read. Her narrative is so compelling that you will find yourself looking up pictures of the various locations on the mountain Simon experiences so you can learn even more about the vista he sees and the death-defying climbs he experiences. As with the caving scenes, adrenaline junkies will be anxious to sign up for the next summit attempt, while those less inclined to extreme sports will only shake their head at wonder.

The other avenue Ms. Lotz explores is making a website profitable. Book bloggers alas know almost nothing about this so it was fascinating to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the work entailed to get the views that brings the sponsors/advertisers that brings the money. Just as the mountain climbers were willing to push themselves to extremes to gain corporate sponsors, Simon and his friend find themselves throwing morality to the side in order to attract viewers. In both instances, Ms. Lotz hints at having to give up something in order to gain what you want. She is not overt in her messaging but rather sets up the topic in a way that encourages dialogue among readers.

The remainder of the story gets a bit lost behind the grandeur of the Himalayas and confinement of the Welsh caves. Simon is a troubled character but not one that encourages sympathy. His dubious morality at the beginning of the story almost encourages feelings of vindication towards his struggles at the end. At the same time, readers might find themselves frustrated with the lack of answers regarding what Simon truly sees in the cave and on the mountain. This is another area that encourages discussion as every reader is going to have a different take on what he sees and why.

The White Road will make for a great book club selection given its many areas open for discussion left by Ms. Lotz. It also makes for a great summer read as it takes you to places you most likely will never experience all from the comfort of your home. Simon is complex and real even though the setting is the true standout character of the novel. Very little can compete with the harsh climate of Mount Everest or the damp confines of caves. For that experience alone, The White Road is a worthy read.

I really enjoyed this book! I love the suspense of going thru the caves and then the climb up Everest. Really felt like I was right there with him. and then to top it off there is even more with the one who walks with us. How spooky is that!! You gotta read it to see what I am talking about! Wish I could find more like this!! A really great story!

Not my favorite of Sarah Lotz', I have to say, but still a good read. The author has a deft hand with dialogue and description - you really feel as if you are there, side-by-side with the characters.

The first quarter is scary as hell, particular if you're claustrophobic and don't understand what on earth would possess anyone to voluntarily go underground and squeeze their body through tiny spaces for no apparent reason. Our protagonist Simon does just that, and it all goes horribly wrong, which makes for some delightfully squirmy scenes. Oh, I loved those bits. I so wish the whole book had just been set in the caves.

However, after that it all falls apart. The mountaineering scenes aren't scary, and are yawningly familiar to anyone who has read Joe Simpson's Touching the Void or Michelle Paver's Thin Air. The ending fizzled right out, making the whole book feel a bit pointless. I love the SL Grey books, but having been so disappointed by The Three I shouldn't really have been surprised. The White Road had so much potential, but is ultimately unsatisfying.

Simon and his American friend and roommate, Thierry, are trying to build up their website Journey to the Darkside, a site that attracts viewers who want to see such sensational posts as images and video of dead bodies that no one has filmed before, like some students who died in an infamous cave in Wales.
Researching spelunker sites, Simon finds a guide who has been to these caves and knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak. Contacting him they arrange a clandestine meeting and exploration of the caves.
When Simon makes the trip and meets the guide, a seemingly derelict individual named Ed, he almost thinks about turning back. After all, he had survived a climbing fall that put him in the hospital for weeks. Did he want to risk his life again?
What happens in the caverns stays in the caverns... or does it? How does Simon go from the depths of the earth to scaling the most intimidating mountain in the world? You will have to follow his journey on The White Road, yourself, to uncover these and other mysteries in author Sarah Lotz's addictively un-putdownable new novel.
Ms. Lotz knows her stuff, too, as she brings to these diverse places a thrilling and breathtaking reality.
The Recommender is a big fan of the Three and Day Four (see these titles previously reviewed here) and the White Road is right up there with these memorable titles. Thank you to NetGalley for the DRC!

https://lynns-books.com/2017/05/29/the-white-road-by-sarah-lotz/
The White Road is the second book that I’ve read by Sarah Lotz and has definitely cemented her on my list of authors I will automatically pick up. She has a knack for writing the sort of things that just give you the plain old creeps. A wonderful way of wording things that make your skin prickle and give you the feeling that you’re being watched. I simply loved this book.

At the start of the story we meet Simon Newman as he embarks on a journey through the notorious Cwm Pot caves. Simon and his friend Thierry run a blog called ‘Journey to the Dark Side’ and in a desperate attempt to gain more traffic and turn the site into a going concern they’ve come up with a plan to go filming inside caverns that have been closed to the public following a tragic accident involving flash flooding. The TLDR is that things go wrong but the footage Simon manages to take turns the blog viral and Thierry comes up with a new plan for the next venture. Everest. Basically the two are taking footage of the dead and Everest is a perfect opportunity. Not the nicest or most sensitive way to go about things but the two think they’ve hit on something and they’re not going to let morals or feelings of sensitivity get in the way.

Basically, if I hadn’t already read Miss Lotz I might have hesitated about picking this up as caving and climbing are not my usual type of read but I found this absolutely fascinating and I don’t know whether that’s down to the level of detail and descriptions or the element of fantasy realism that accompanies the adventures. The story uses a strange phenomena now known as ‘the third man’ factor. Shackleton was the first explorer to mention a feeling he had of being accompanied when in situations of extreme hardship and following his revelation other adventurers came forward to relate their own similar experiences. The third man became immortalised in a poem by T S Eliot and Lotz has taken this idea and given it a dark and ghostly twist.

I won’t delve any further into the plot but let you find your own path.

What did I love about this? Primarily it boils down to the writing. I have no idea about caving or climbing so how well researched or believable either of these two tales are is unknown to me – but, whilst I might not know all the hard facts what I can say is that the story comes across, without doubt, as plausible and well constructed. The first part of the story where Simon is caving – I didn’t want to leave that story at all, it was so intense I could have kept on reading – and this isn’t the primary focus of the story. It was packed with drama and tension. The darkness, the claustrophobia, the fear – they’re palpable. Reading it made me scared and I was sat on a comfy chair in the living room.

Then we move onto Simon joining a team of climbers making an attempt on Everest. Like I did, you may be thinking ‘no way would he get away with that’ – and why would he even try. It’s dangerous enough for highly trained and experienced climbers let alone relative newbies who stopped climbing after one fall. But again, Lotz pulls this off. She creates a brooding atmosphere that is so believable that you’re sat on the edge of your seat reading, barely able to put the book down. The cold, the fear, the hunger, the frost bite, the extreme exhaustion, the struggle to breath at high altitude. Reading this certainly gives you this whole new sense of wonder and respect really for those who undertake it and Simon certainly doesn’t get off lightly in fact he pretty soon comes to realise just how much in over his head he really is as each day becomes a fight to survive.

In terms of characters – the main character is Simon. He’s not a bad guy really. Okay, he’s made some choices that might not be totally endearing and he’s currently climbing up a mountain with a group of people who he has lied through his teeth to. But, I didn’t find that I disliked him. More I felt sorry for him because he seemed unable to step away from his choices even as he was making things worse. The climbing team is only thinly sketched really, apart from one character who shares a little page space sharing with the readers similar experiences to those that Simon is going through. Simon does steal the show but it was interesting to read the other POV. Then we have Ed – Simon’s original guide down through the caves. Oh dear – what an unusual, weird and incredibly creepy guy. Well, I say that, but maybe he was just a little unhinged. One thing for sure – I would not have wanted him as my guide. In point of fact Simon wasn’t overly keen on the idea but again his inability to step away, make excuses or simply say no stepped in.

Now lets talk about the whole ‘realism’ aspect of the story. The whole issue of whether Simon is being accompanied by an ‘other’. An apparition or maybe an hallucination caused by trauma? What Lotz manages to do is manipulate your own fears in an expert way. Whether you believe there is something sinister stalking Simon or whether there’s a scientific explanation underlying it all what is really clear is that his story is scary, its gripping and it will hold you until the end of the book where you’ll actually find yourself wanting more.

Okay, that’s it for me. I had no criticisms for this at all – or at least nothing that springs to mind immediately. I thoroughly enjoyed this, it surpassed my expectations and has pretty much cemented Lotz on my ‘go to’ list of authors.

I received a copy through Netgalley courtesy of the publisher. The above is my own opinion.

“Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together.
But when I look ahead up the white road,
there is always another one walking beside you” T S Eliot, The Wasteland

Anyone who knows me well knows I have some pretty hard deal breaker rules. Things that I have forbade anyone in my life to participate in. The first is joining a motorcycle gang. I have watched Sons of Anarchy. I know this is bad news. The next one is going to space. Nothing good happens in space. The third, and very serious deal breaker I have, is Everest. Do not climb Everest.
Needless to say, this book helped to justify all my fears and terrify me to the core.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nothing good happens on Everest!

The White Road, the upcoming release by Sarah Lotz follows Simon, a thrill seeking adrenaline junkie, films tragic situations and creepy places for his website Journey to the Dark Side. After an incident in a cave goes wrong, Simon begins to struggle with some PTSD; but, after the footage recovered from his time in the cave goes viral, Simon latches on to this internet fame and makes the trip to Everest. Ignoring the signs of his mental trauma and uncovering a decade old tragedy, Simon learns the truth that will change him and anyone who views his footage…forever.

From the first moments of this book, I was completely sucked in. After Simon faces his near death experience in the caves and it becomes clear that he will be going to Everest, I couldn’t stop myself from becoming entirely consumed in the text. The novel is broken down into sections. The first, narrated completely by Simon as he goes into the cave and the experiences he faces there. The second, as Simon prepares and arrives at Everest, is narrated by Simon and also by a female climber, who is writing a book based on her experiences climbing Everest. The third section blends all the facets of the plot together.

This novel brought up so many concepts that I find chilling; the human fight for survival, the idea of the third man factor (a phenomenon people experience in life threatening scenarios where they feel a presence of someone who is not truly there either encouraging them to keep going or give up- CREEPY!), and, truly, the uncertainty of nature. There are so many moving pieces to this plot and it is truly impossible to discuss without giving away key pieces to the text, but please note, that if you are someone who likes an authentic feeling text that will unnerve you, The White Road will appeal to you.

Dark, twisty and ominous, I’m giving this one a 5 star rating. It has been days since I have finished this one and I am still thinking about it.

This story was just as frightening and suspenseful as I expected, but I was surprised to find some rather touching moments as well. Simon is a complex character, and the horror that he goes through is rooted as much in the "real world" as it is in the supernatural. Can't wait to start recommending this to people.

I’ve always held a bit of a fascination for mountaineering stories, which is really ironic considering my deathly fear of heights. Certainly I’ve never harbored any desires to scale anything more extreme than a steep hill, which is why when I first picked up Sarah Lotz’s latest novel about death and danger on Everest, I thought I there would be little chance of her “ruining” mountain climbing for me the way she put me off from cruising for a whole year after I read her shipbound horror-thriller Day Four. And yet, books like The White Road still have this way of sending chills down my spine, even when I’m reading them from the warm, cozy comfort of my living room couch.

Our story begins in the winter of 2006, and protagonist Simon Newman and his roommate Thierry are a couple of slackers whose ambitions amount to nothing more than throwaway barista gigs at the local coffee shop and running their clickbait website on the side. At this point, YouTube stars and listicles are just starting to become a thing, and the two friends are hoping to grow their following enough to score a sweet advertising deal of their own. The idea for their big break comes when Simon first learns of the Cwm Pot caves in Wales, where several years ago a group of spelunkers had gotten trapped and died. Their site “Journey to the Dark Side” would become an internet sensation if Simon could go down there come back with actual never-before-seen footage of the dead bodies, Thierry insists; it is the perfect material for their morbid audience.

Unfortunately for Simon, his venture into Cwn Pot ultimately ends in disaster. But while the incident leaves him traumatized, the salvaged footage from his harrowing experience along with the ensuing media attention does propel the website into the top ranks. Eager to take their newfound popularity to the next level, Thierry proposes the idea for another attention-grabbing stunt: Now that Simon has gone deep down underground in search of corpses to film, why not go the other way this time, and do the same thing on the highest point on earth? Mount Everest is said to be the final resting place of more than 200 victims; the shocking reality is that there’s very little anyone can do for those who lose their lives at such altitudes, and their remains are often unrecoverable and left where they fell, sometimes for years and years. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard for Simon to go up there and capture more footage of a couple of dead bodies, which would undoubtedly bring even more traffic to their website.

But up above 8000 feet up in the Death Zone, anything can happen. And the reality is, Simon did not emerge from Cwn Pot the same person. He is a haunted man now, after the things he’d seen in its terrifying depths, and he’s brought some of that darkness with him to the world’s highest open grave. The White Road is a story divided into three distinct sections, with the first focusing on Simon’s misadventures in the tight, twisty tunnels of the Welsh caves. This, in my opinion, was the best part of the book. I read these first fifty pages or so feeling like my heart was stuck in my throat, the fear practically choking off my breath—and I’m not even a claustrophobe. If I had to go through even a fraction what Simon did, I would never turn a single light off in my house again, soaring electricity bills be damned. Sarah Lotz’s descriptions of the oppressive darkness and unbearably cramped spaces closing in all around our lonely protagonist while the underground water rose higher and higher stirred up some of my deepest fears.

Compared to that, the rest of the book almost seemed tame, even in Part II when Simon heads off to Nepal to climb Mount Everest. There are certainly plenty of frights in this section, though in a much different way than Cwn Pot. Here, we get to see the cold, merciless nature of the mountain, dispassionate about the fates of those who attempt the summit. A few years ago, I became obsessed with Everest-related history and literature after reading The Abominable by Dan Simmons, which was one particularly dark rabbit hole I fell into. I found plenty of amazing true accounts of great feats accomplished by great people, but just as plentiful were the traumatizing stories of death and disaster. Most of the fatal incidents on Everest occur in the mountain’s oxygen-starved Death Zone, which not only pushes a climber’s body to their physical limits, but also threatens to literally push their minds to the brink of madness. This is where some of the vagueness in The White Road comes into play. Are the strange things experienced by the characters merely the symptoms of altitude sickness, or are there supernatural shenanigans afoot? It could go either way, and the ambiguity contributes much to the suspense.

But while I really enjoyed The White Road, with perhaps the exception of the first section, I thought the book failed to pack the same punch as the author’s two previous novels, The Three and Day Four. This might have something to do with the formatting, since the three disparate sections can make the story feel a little disjointed, especially in the beginning of Part II when we are introduced to an incidental character through a series of journal entries. There’s also an anticlimactic resolution, along with a few plot points that seemingly went nowhere and which I felt were implemented too awkwardly to be mere red herrings. Furthermore, Simon is not a very sympathetic character, and just when you think there’s hope for him yet, he pulls a reversal that makes you hate him all over again. Still, it’s hard not to feel bad for the guy, and Lotz makes getting invested in his story worth your time.

Is it any wonder why I’m such a big fan of the author and why every new book by her automatically gets added to my must-read list? A master of the horror genre, Sarah Lotz’s talents were especially in clear evidence in this novel with its atmosphere of tangible suspense and pure, icy terror. Thoroughly entertaining and astonishingly realistic, The White Road is a gripping, high-climbing thriller which will be sure to creep its way under your skin and stay with you for a very long time (...like fingers in your heart).

The White Road will creep under your skin, fill your mind with all the ghastly things and make you leery of participating in activities like, oh, let's say caving or mountain climbing. I was totally going to go climb Everest next year, really! Never mind that I have a bum knee, a bum ankle, and maybe I'm scared of heights and also am a wimp, maybe I could have considered it anyway. But nope. Not now. None of my more rational reasons for never climbing Everest are nearly as convincing as reading this book. My knee may hurt, but it doesn't haunt me night and day and give me the creeps. Maybe this is fiction, maybe there really aren't haunted caves or mountains, either way, I am very content staying planted on the ground (not beneath or above) letting other people figure that out. I will bask in the experience vividly given to me via Lotz's book. Kind of like how I felt about cruises after reading Day Four.

Lotz has cemented herself as one of my favorite horror authors with this book. The characters are real and fascinating. The book is just downright creepy! I love it! The dark sense of humor that is layered through out is one of the things that makes her work so memorable and enjoyable for me. The vast majority of this book is from Simon's perspective. He is blessed with this dark sense of humor, he is self deprecating, irreverent (at least in his inner thoughts), and just absolutely wonderful to read. There were a few sections from another perspective and while I did like these sections, and do think they are critical for the book, I did not love them in the same way as Simon's perspective and it was definitely because I missed the humor. Keep in mind, this is not a criticism, those sections are necessary and good, I just missed the laughs that I was having with the rest of the book. Those types of things that you think "oh, I shouldn't really be laughing, but damn! That is so funny! So wrong, yet hilarious!"

The story all starts because Simon and his friend want to drive more traffic to their website. It is full of lists whose titles start with things like "Top 10 most disgusting things...". The type of lists that are all about shock value and can be summed up in one amazing click baity title. It was decided that Simon should venture down into a dangerous (and closed down) cave system, not because the descent would be scary enough, but because deep down in those caves are the bodies of three boys who became trapped and died there. With the cave system being so hard to traverse, there was just no way to recover the bodies. So why not send Simon down and film them for the website? Yeah, this is the type of disrespectful stunt they are willing to pull to gain page hits. Added bonus, Ed, his random tour guide found off a forum on the internet, is about the creepiest fucker I have ever read. Just thinking back to him makes me cringe and shudder.

In terms of traffic to their website, the caves were a hit, however, the trip down Simon's life forever, haunting him. And wow, it's changes in some creeptastic ways. His partner in crime decides that his next big venture (to renew interest after the traffic boost gained from the caves starts to taper) is to pull a similar stunt on Everest. Once again, sending Simon to do the dirty work. And in addition to any supernatural type of horror you might find in this book, I have to say, just the description of the vividly harsh conditions on Everest are enough to scare me away from the mountain.

Another thing I love about Simon, is he does have a conscious. He is actually quite conflicted by all of this, and it may be part of why the story really spirals for him. He just does not seem to have the energy or backbone to stand up to his friend. It is often this internal conflict that would give moments of levity as he could see the absurdity of his "mission". Maybe this could be a lesson to listen to your conscious (and maybe choose your friends wisely). So while, Simon may do some questionable things, I found him extremely relatable and very likable.

I really can't recommend this book enough. Seriously, I never want to meet a person named Ed. I never want to go caving. I never want to climb Everest. Just to make sure I add something positive, this book may also have shown me the appeal of curling up in a ball. All kidding aside, this is one of my favorite horror books in quite a while. I know this story will stick with me because of how much it got under my skin while reading. Absolutely loved it!!

I loved this whilst being inordinately disturbed by it – you know those times where you read something or watch something and it plays on your mind for days even weeks afterwards, leaving you feeling slightly perturbed for no reason you can put your finger on. I’m a fan of books that do that – means they really have gotten under your skin.

‘Who is the third who walks always beside you?’

Yes. That.

So with “The White Road” then, Sarah Lotz gives us a kind of a ghost story, with an edge of horror and a side of creepy “look behind you” vibe. Simon is not particularly likeable and falls into things – after a caving expedition goes awry he finds himself somewhat of a You Tube superstar. Trying to cash in on that his friend sends him off to climb Everest – the narrative jumps between Simon and Juliet, a previous climber, its not until much later that their two stories come together.

Sarah Lotz as she always does writes with an atmospheric, darkly twisted tone that just gets right to the heart of things. I shivered my way through this, I was living on that mountain with Simon and with Juliet – I couldn’t look away and the night in between the two days I read this over was full of those weirdly incoherent dreams that you only half remember when you awake. For me, that’s clever, beautiful writing right there.

I don’t want to talk about the actual plot much – there are many levels I could dissect for you but let’s not do that – Just know that if you are a fan of creepy, intense and authentic feeling stories then The White Road will tick every box for you. The author walks the line between the real and the imagined so beautifully, the mythology that she builds The White Road from – the third man factor – is enough to make you nervous to begin with. The tension and the sense of unease build inexorably over the course of the storytelling, the setting is wild and uncontrollable and that comes across brilliantly. By the end, an end that haunts, I was so involved that it was hard to leave behind.

The White Road is chilling, in more ways than one, it is also intelligent, wonderfully written and has an enigmatic, mysterious other sense about it that will dig deep into your consciousness. From the opening claustrophobic and downright scary set up to the strangely even more claustrophobic mountain, you will get hook line and sinkered into this one – when a novel literally heightens all your senses as you read it you know you’ve got a good one.

Highly Recommended.

I really enjoyed this book. I could not put it down. The only other book about Everest that I have read was John Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air'. That being said I was immediately drawn to this horror novel about a man seeking fame and the macabre at the top of the world. Honestly the parts about Everest didn't scare me-yes they sent chills up my spine-but the parts that really got my heart thumping were the Cwm Pot parts. This was when the main character (Simon) goes spelunking with a guide in order to film bodies in the cave. Everything that could possibly goes wrong does.

As far as the characters go I thought they were predictable but their predictability made them all the more real to me. I really enjoyed it. Can't wait to see what Sarah has in store next!

I absolutely LOVE Lotz' books - they are always fun, scary, and addictive. This time round we are deep underground in a cavern and then freezing atop MT. Everest - why? To find out who the Third Man really is - psyche or monster? Talk about unputdownable! I was spellbound by Lotz' writing, characters, and story. A definite must-read for fans of her works - you will LOVE this latest book!!

"I had a serious case of Miserable Bastarditis; it wasn’t the physical strains that were bothering me now, rather the images my brain kept latching onto."

This is a strange book. I would call it a low-key horror book. It is written from a couple of points-of-view and includes journal entries, blog posts, and emails besides the straight narrative. I enjoyed the mix-up of writing styles.

Londoner Simon Newman is a struggling filmmaker/blogger. Along with his best friend Thierry they run the website "Journeys to the Dark Side" which posts photos and blogs of controversial/dark subjects.

Thierry talks Simon into going to the Cwm Pot cave system in Wales where a trio of young men died and their remains are still in the cave. Thierry wants pictures of this grisly site. Simon hires a guide from a caving forum and they start having personality and technical problems almost immediately meeting at the cave.

Then the story travels thousands of miles to Mt. Everest. The story then centers around a few different climbers and their personal stories.

Is this a particularly scary story? No. I happen to enjoy stories about spelunking and stories about mountain climbing so because of that, the story was an alright read. Would I ever read it again? No. If you're looking for an outright horror tale, I wouldn't suggest this.

I received this book from Mulholland Books through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review.