This was actually pretty creepy! It can see the comparison between Lord of the Flies and the Exorcist. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever Philip Fracassi puts out next!

Hey, book lovers! 📚✨ Just wrapped up "Boys in the Valley" by Philip Fracassi and I’m blown away! This book is a masterful blend of horror and suspense that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

Fracassi’s writing is vivid and immersive, pulling you right into the chilling atmosphere of the story. The characters are incredibly well-developed, making you feel every bit of their fear and tension. One scene that really stood out was when the boys find themselves trapped in a creepy, fog-covered valley—it’s so intense and eerie, you’ll be biting your nails the whole time!

If you’re into gripping, spine-chilling reads, "Boys in the Valley" is an absolute must. It’s a thrilling ride that you won’t be able to put down. Happy reading! 🌟📖

#BookReview #MustRead #PhilipFracassi #HorrorReads 👻📚

Historical horror with an evocative setting and richly conceived characters. Philip Fracassi is a modern horror great and his work continues to exceed my expectations!

4.5 - what a wild ride, the horror starts early and ramps up from there!

A great scary coming of age story, with all the kills and thrills of your favourite horror movie Fracassi knows how to write a horror story! That is for sure

Even without the horror aspect of this novel, Fracassi has managed to pull together a plot full of characters that you find yourself actually caring about.
It was fast-paced without seeming rushed and seemed all too real and possible, even in this era of stricter guidelines for abuse and care of children.
The setting of an orphanage in the wilderness, winter fast approaching, and the looming dread of demonic evil just makes the story sing with a kind of creeping terror that makes you want to keep reading, makes you want to know what is going to happen next, even when the rabbit part of the brain is saying "nope, let's not go there". But it DOES go there, and more than once.

Honestly, I've had some trouble with Fracassi in the past. Mostly his short stories. They never felt fleshed-out and "full" enough for me. But when you turn him loose with a longer work, I'm happy to say the story writes itself.
An easy 4 stars...could have been 4.5 if the demonic aspect had been investigated and developed just a tad more.

Definitely some horrifying elements here, which worked well, but I didn't understand why this was an alternating POV book with one first-person narrator. Ultimately, I think I'm also not the audience for possession stories, as they feel kind of flat to me; this book, I think, wants to exploit the inherent horror of young children being murderous, but since it's a demonic entity taking control of them, it doesn't actually mean anything that the kids are doing it—there's no observation or commentary to be made about humanity when it's literally Evil Incarnate doing the evil things. Hated how the book (as, it seems, many possession stories do) relies on the actual Power of Christ to compel the demonic spirits to leave. Novel's ending also feels like it wants to be meaningful as a character arc, but I didn't have enough investment in the characters to find those arcs exciting.

For fans of The Exorcist and other religious cult horror stories and it definitely is nightmare-inducing. The multiple POVs give the story more depth and a lot of demonic violence. The unnerving atmosphere lasts until the very last page.

In a valley sits a Christian orphanage, full of thin boys and teens that have nowhere else to go. One winter’s night a stranger is brought in from the surrounding wilderness for emergency medical care and things are never the same again. What happened at this isolated orphanage? Will the boys survive it? You’ll have to read this to find out!

There was multiple times during this book that I gasped out loud to. The writing was fantastic and tense all the way through. I don't know why I thought it would about vampires but demons killing priests and children was an interesting concept.

I would like to begin this review with an excerpt of my review for Fracassi's previous book, Gothic, which I read last year:

"So there are highlights, lowlights, and a little in-between. I wouldn't hesitate to read more from this author, he definitely knows his way around keyboard, and I hope his future offerings give me the chills I'm looking for."

I'm thrilled to tell you that Fracassi hit me right in my horror loving heart this time around. While I really hate book comparisons made by publishers I have to admit that The Exorcist meets Lord of the Flies is a perfect fit for this novel.

It's the turn of the century when Peter is brought to St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys after the horrific death of his parents. Here he lives with many other boys working the fields and subsisting on meager rations of food. Father Poole doles out punishments with glee and no one wants to find themselves in "the hole".

Peter, now 16, finds that many of the younger boys look up to him. He makes it his personal mission to take these boys under his wing protecting them from some of the other bullies that also reside in the orphanage.

One night, while the boys are sleeping in their dormitory, they hear a loud commotion. Men have arrived demanding that the priests help them. They have sick passenger and nowhere else to go. The priests, unable to turn them away, decide they will do what they can to help.

They never knew the hell they were about to unleash until it was far too late.

"When the man died," he says warily, as if he isn't sure he wants the answers he's seeking, "Something strange happened inside the dormitory. The doors were thrown open, as if by a strong wind. And the cross....it fell to the floor. It was as if...."

Andrew waits, trying to temper his own apprehension.

"As if something entered that room, Father," Peter says, his eyes no longer delirious, or frightened, or feverish. They look at Andrew steadily. Assured. "As if, something had come inside...and settled there."

Fracassi went full throttle into the world of possession and all the horrifying details that entails. It's brutal, gory, and action packed from start to finish. Don't be fooled into thinking this is going to be some kind of YA horror tale, being that most of the cast are kids, this is an adult horror novel through and through. The one thing that surprised me the most is how much I cared about some of these characters. Peter was perfectly realized and I adored him. I loved how selfless he was and how much he cared about everyone around him. I don't think I'll forget him for a long time to come.

I also need to mention what an excellent writer Fracassi is. This is a man that was born to write. I was so very impressed with what he accomplished here. The older I get the more I struggle to find horror writers I enjoy. A lot of horror novels are too campy, too cheesy, too amateurish, too sexualized. Not the case here. THIS is the literary horror novel I've been craving and Fracassi delivered in spades. Amen! 5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for my complimentary copy.

Horror has always been an avenue to expose the ways forced conformity and submission will breed its own strains of evil. Set in an isolated Catholic orphanage with unsavoury, masochistic adults, vicious demons, and creepy children, Boys in the Valley is easily one of the more immersive horror books to come out this year and has the pace and scares for horror movie buffs too.

"The Exorcist meets Lord of the Flies, by way of Midnight Mass, in Boys in the Valley, a brilliant coming-of-age tale from award-winning author Philip Fracassi."

Told through several POV's we start off learning about some of the boys at St Vincent's Orphanage for Boys and the horrors that brought them to the orphanage. But as several of the boys begin to behave strangely, terror begins to build throughout the orphanage. With each turn of the page I could feel the weight of pending doom. The atmosphere in this book is excellent - an isolated location cut off by the current snowstorm - all the while knowing that the worst horror that these boys will face is not in their past, but yet to come.
I read a quote by Stephen King calling this book "classic horror" and I completely agree; it's creepy, gory and a scary good read!
The magic in this story is in the telling, just so well written.

Thank you to @netgalley and @tornightfire for the gifted copy of this book.

TW: Language, drinking, toxic family relationships, domestic abuse, death by suicide, bullying, violence, gory scenes, blood, blasphemy

<b><big>*****SPOILERS*****</b></big>
<b>About the book:</b>St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys. Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania.Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future... a family.Then, late one stormy night, a group of men arrive at their door, one of whom is badly wounded, occult symbols carved into his flesh. His death releases an ancient evil that spreads like sickness, infecting St. Vincent's and the children within. Soon, boys begin acting differently, forming groups. Taking sides.Others turn up dead.Now Peter and those dear to him must choose sides of their own, each of them knowing their lives — and perhaps their eternal souls — are at risk.
<b>Release Date:</b> July 11th, 2023
<b>Genre:</b> Horror
<b>Pages:</b> 335
<b>Rating:</b> ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

<b>What I Liked:</b>
1. Some truly creepy parts
2. Scary scenes that set the atmosphere

<b>What I Didn't Like:</b>
1. Female voices
2. Bored with story
3. Childish story feel

<b>Overall Thoughts:</b>
I've been reading this book on and off through audio and physically reading the book when I can sit down and I'm going to tell you the narrator doing the female voice drove me insane. That was just terrible. No offense to the narrator it just wasn't good.

I hate it all these priests. The way they treated the boys as a way of power but covering it with religion and saying that God would want it this way is just ludicrous. I love when people use religion to cover up abuse.

I don't know what it was but I found my mind wandering while I was reading this. I should say that I absolutely despised Lord of the Flies <i><b>BUT</I></B> I liked Midnight Mass a lot. As I was reading along though I found it hard to feel like that was what I was indeed reading. Okay bear with me but my boyfriend watches 1923 and in it there is these Christian missionaries schools. The plot of that is based on the reality of assimilation programs of indigenous women forced to be "proper humans." Nuns run the school and a priest. They abuse the girls. So, while reading this book the plot of the boys felt very similar to the realities of 1923. There's more but then I'd be spoiling the show.

This whole time pretty much all the people have been abusing and hurting the children so I didn't understand when the killing began then all the adults started caring about the children. So much so that they would even like stop leaving the house to go get help turn around and come and help the kids that were in the ground. It just didn't seem likely that people who didn't care at the beginning now care. I do understand that there were a few adults that did care but not as many that are helping now to save them.

The gore was definitely here. I was actually surprised how they managed to carry it through the book. Some scenes were downright creepy.

<b>Final Thoughts:</b>
As I continued to read about the boys that started getting possessed, mostly Bartleby it just felt a little bit like I was reading Grady Hendrix's How to Sell a Haunted House. It had this cartoonish feeling to the horror that felt like I was in a Goosebumps story. The door was definitely rated R but the story came across very PG in the writing style. I found myself only really interested in the story once the gore was happening. But once the gore was gone and it went to violence I just kind of clocked out. The boys lacked enough interesting things to make me want to know more about what was going to happen.

This story wasn't bad for me but I think I wanted something more - I am unsure of what that means. It was just a meh story for me. I really appreciated the gore though because that was some wicked creepy stuff.

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<font face="times new roman" size="12pt"><i><b>Thanks to Netgalley and Tor Night fire for this gifted copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I like a good horror, whether it be movie or book. My one caveat though is that there must be a glimmer of hope. This book was dark, creepy, and quite horrifying at times. It got graphic especially with the boys attacking the others. I almost stopped reading at the chapel massacre because it just got to be too much but picked it back up, hoping that there would be a light and that maybe there might be a chance of survival for the innocent.

However, when I finally got to the end, I was left going no no no. Peter gave up his dreams and future for this? I was very disappointed. This book was too dark and my hopes when ever something good happened were dashed a minute later with more death. I think my head was in the wrong place to enjoy but this is my honest opinion. But if you like death and carnage, possessions and destruction, then you will probably enjoy this.

Book Summary:

St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys – thanks to years of literary tales, we know how foreboding or dangerous such a place can be. We know that it may not be the haven it presents itself as.

This is where Peter Barlow grew up after being orphaned at a young age. For the most part, Peter has done a decent job of making a new life for himself. Until one night, a dying man shows up on the orphanage's doorstep, releasing an ancient evil and wreaking havoc.

My Review:

I'll be honest: I wasn't sure what to expect from Boys in the Valley. When it comes to this sort of backstory, it can go in several different directions (not all of them good). That said, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found within.

Boys in the Valley is one of those books that perfectly blends multiple genres: historical fiction, thriller, horror, and even a bit of coming-of-age vibes. I adore it when a book blurs these lines, making it less predictable and much more original.

Primarily, I loved the horror elements. It's that time of year when I can't get enough of spooky reads, and Boys in the Valley sure fits the bill!

Highlights:
Coming of Age
Historical Fiction
Murder/Thriller

Trigger Warnings:
Kid/Animal Concerns

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I'll definitely keep my eye out for more from Fracassi. this book and its horror/gore scenes were so well written and visceral, even if the story itself wasn't always my cup of tea - I think i've realized I don't really enjoy *historical* type of horror in general, but this was definitely a top notch one.

i wasn't expecting to be as scared or thrilled as i was. great one for a spooky october night. not as juvenile as the cover may make it seem. pairs well with THE NUN (the movie)

St. Vincent’s is an isolated orphanage where thirty boys live under the watchful eye of Catholic priests.

However, one snowy night, when a sheriff brings in a dying man covered in strange occult symbols, all hell breaks loose. Evil spreads through the orphanage and so does panic, causing alliances to form between the boys in a fight for survival.

Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi is a bone-chilling religious horror that explores the nature of good and evil, group psychology, and how fear can act as a powerful contagion.

However, I think my main issue with the story is that it inexplicably switches between first and third person. The main boy we follow, Peter's chapters, are written in first-person while other characters are in third person, and I wish either the POVs had been consistent throughout or the story had been set up more purposefully—for instance, making the book a frame narrative with Peter recounting the events or turning it into an epistolary novel with diary entries from the various orphans sprinkled throughout.

Minor gripes aside though, this book is a riveting read that delivers some genuinely unsettling and gruesome scenes and is a must-read for fans of possession or survival horror.

Once I finished this novel, I found myself incredibly conflicted on how I felt about it in the end. The concept of this novel was so interesting to me and I found the prologue to be such an impactful 'cold open' that left me feeling drained, but in the best way. Before going into too many details, this is my general review. After the prologue, the first half of the book was not as interesting or engaging for me and I found myself almost forgetting that I was even trying to read it. The second half is what saved this book for me and brought it to a 3.5/5. Ultimately, I really enjoyed this book. There were a few issues that I had with it but it was a solid book with interesting things happening and children in situations and dealing with bullshit that no child should ever have to deal with. I truly am excited to read more of Philip's work, but I will say that I hope there is more character development in the future. The ending of this book could've had the potential to make me absolutely ugly cry if I cared more about them. I did indeed tear up though.

This book goes zero to sixty very quickly.

Imagine being an impoverished orphan, living in a backwoods orphange under the rule of a despot, and then things get significantly worse late one night. A group of mysterious men barge in to the orphanage, with a strange tale of evilness and possession. Will good or evil prevail?

This fast-paced book is very intense. There are a few trigger warnings: child death and animal death, although it's not graphically described. It's a really great book for the upcoming fall/Halloween season.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC.