Wow! Absolutely Wow!
I believe this is a debut and for a debut this book was written so well and kept me engaged the entire time!

Ryne inherits his family's old hunting cabin that is in the Yukon woods. When he was there as a kid he saw weird things, but his father always explained it away. Now as the last person in his family line, Ryne and his 2 friends go to the cabin one last time and boy do they have a fun ride.

This is totally an isolated setting supernatural horror novel and the vibes are there for sure. I really felt cold and secluded reading this! (It didn't help that I read most of this after dark!!) I enjoyed the way the characters were portrayed and how all the spooky things fell. I also love everything that was packed in such a short book! It was not dragged out at all.

The story started off pretty slow and didnt take off til almost the 25-30% mark and while reading it still did not feel like a bore. I wanted to know and I wanted to get to the cabin myself.

Check trigger warnings before going into this!

One sentence review: The author has done a great job of creating an atmosphere of impending doom for the characters, and I was particularly drawn to Ryne's character because of his deeply-rooted traumas. Although the other two characters also have their share of hardships, it would have been interesting to see more diversity in their personalities and backgrounds if at least one of the three friends has had simpler life thereby he can see things more rationally.

What works:
- Ryne's journey
- The atmosphere and the snow storm
- The legends and mythologies presented in the novel
- The horror.


What doesn't work -
- Other character also has equally strong traumas, thereby it sometimes feel like they're in a battle of who has the worst past.
- Repetition of many information over and over.
- Some places the author builds a momentum of horror, but then gets lost in over explanation of things.

I started this book because I was intrigued by the cover and title but honestly its one of the best books I have read so far. It started a little slow but it really picked up and it kept me glued throughout.

It’s been a long time since our protagonist Ryne Burdette last returned to Wolf’s Bone, Alaska. Yet he decides to return there one last time with two friends from his childhood. All of their lives have been irrevocably changed by personal tragedies in the last several years. Little do they know, on what is meant to be one last weekend hunting trip, their lives are about to change a hell of a lot more.

The Broken Places (Wicked House Publishing, March 2023) by Blaine Daigle is a book about ghosts. It’s about the phantoms that we all become when tragedy strikes our lives, and the ones in your own pasts that never let go of you. The book ponders over whether or not it is possible to repair that emptiness once it gets stuck within you. A difficult task, to be sure. A more difficult task still when something is stalking you deep in the Yukon wilderness.

Daigle’s protagonists have each had their life torn away from them - one more literally than the rest. Their unwillingness to discuss these catastrophic moments is mirrored by the silence that surrounds the people of Wolf’s Bone, and even Ryne’s own family’s unwillingness to discuss just what is happening in the snowy forest. Ryne doubts his own recollections - what did he see his uncle doing to the deer when he was only eight? Why isn’t he allowed to eat the meat that’s sold in town? The questions pile up like the snow from the storm as Ryne and his friends find themselves trapped in the cabin, the cold piercing through even though no one can quite discover where.

The book feels inevitable in the way that good horror always does. Whether or not the characters can escape their fates, you know they will be irrevocably changed. Daigle tells an excellent horror story, and this book is definitely one that all readers will enjoy. Mind the antlers on the cover: this book will hook you.

While this didn't scare the pants off me, it did make me think and try and figure out what was going on.
Does the ending leave things open for a sequel?
I wish there was more back story about Ryne's family.
Was this malevolent and sinister or was this protective? In a bit confused on that.
A worthy read though. I probably would have liked it more if it had been storming outside while I was reading.
I received an advance copy from NetGalley.
All opinions are my own.

Was intrigued and captivated from the beginning, however towards the end I lost this a little. Felt dragged out a little at parts. However, it was enjoyable and glad I took the time to read it.

Unfortunately had to DNF this one.
Although the concept initially intrigued me at first, I just couldn't get into the storyline. May be due to the author's writing style or the breakdown of the world. There were a bit too many descriptive words that took away from the overall plot and emotional aspect of the characters. I really wanted to enjoy this one but it just ended up being not my cup of tea.

Three friends, one cabin, epic horror.

The charcter development.... EXCELLENT.

I loved the entire tone and pace of this book. It exceeded every single expectation I had.

It was clever and a real page turner. I cannot recommend this horror more!

5 stars. Take all my stars!!

Thank you to wicked house and netgalley for my gofted copy!

The atmosphere was eerie, the folklore was creepy, the animals were spooky - everything you’d want in a horror book!

Thanks to #NetGallery, Wicked House Publishing, and Blaine Daigle for the chance to read and review #TheBrokenPlaces.

Oooh don’t often get a solid spooky Yukon story! Definitely give this one a shot if you’re into solid stories and characters you actually care about? I was most impressed with Daigle’s ability to get me invested in these friends.

This is a tight horror novel with an ever-growing sense of dread. The three main characters are all defined by different traumas, but they are distinct and relatable, or at least understandable. I enjoyed the overall story as well as the structure and pacing, and thought the flashbacks and other reveals about the characters’ histories were well done, not giving everything away in an exposition dump anywhere but filling in the pieces slowly. The folklore is an interesting twist on other isolated forest-based mythologies, and I again I appreciated that we were only revealed things bit by bit, with some questions still unanswered by the time the immediate story ended. The setting itself, the isolation of a cabin in the middle of a remote taiga during a solstice snowstorm, felt menacing and real. So, intriguing and fleshed out characters, a well-plotted and tight plot, and an overall engaging story, which succeeded in bringing dread and some horrific imagery, makes for an overall fun read, especially for anyone interested in the folk-horror subgenre exploring when modernity is in a fight with the natural world it is trying to either conquer or leave behind.

That said, it wasn’t a perfect read for me. While the flashbacks went a long way toward it, I did wish that I actually felt the connection between the characters as much as they described their love for each other. They repeatedly referenced their deep commitment and brotherhood, and while it felt genuine in the story, I would have liked to see it a little more. There was also a clear attempt at making the forest a character in the story, and the setting did feel genuine and creepy but I never really felt it to have the kind of heft it needed to really be an active participant, except for a few moments here and there. And while I don’t think every rule of the supernatural experience needs to be explained, I enjoy when stories refuse to handfeed you everything rely on the unreliability of the narrator’s experiences, I felt like there was some hand-waving at making the supernatural legacies fit the story. It just felt like anything could have happened in the plot and it would have been fine within the fuzziness of the mythology of the story, as the rules and expectations of the supernatural elements just didn’t seem to have any real heft. I just needed a little more to anchor things, so I didn’t feel like rules were arbitrarily being made up as we went along. And, lastly, some of the actual prose was a little too purple for my taste. I really appreciate poetic prose, especially in genre stories, but here it often felt forced, with every page having far more adjectives and qualifiers than necessary and sentences that felt like they were crafted just to sound important. Overall, the writing was strong and I did enjoy some of the flourishes but some of it just felt unnatural, it was just too heavy-handed.

I did really enjoy this story, and blew through it in just a few sittings. The chapters felt long enough to provide actual sustenance while still being able to end with some nice hooks that urged me to keep reading. It has strong plotting coupled with a good dose of ambience that makes for a compelling read. While there were some things I think could have been improved upon, I still heartily recommend it, especially for anyone terrified to find what might be buried in the frozen legacy of family history, hiding in plain sight in the middle of a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

I want to thank the author, the publisher Wicked House Publishing, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I'm so thankful to have received both a physical copy and digital access to Blaine Daigle's The Broken Places leading up to its publication date of March 24, 2023. I thought this piece of horrific literary fiction was so well done, and I can't wait to run to my feed to see what my fellow readers think of this work of art. I am so thankful to NetGalley and Wicked House Publishing additionally for the bookish love.

This book has it all; creep factor, gore, great characters and plot, and more. Great read for anyone who loves horror, especially with a lore that is woven into the story.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

The Broken Places is a horror book featuring our main character Ryne. Ryne and his friends take a trip up to the cabin he inherited from family to get away and destress, BUT there's something wrong in the woods near the cabin. The animals are acting weird.... and there are whispering voices coming from the woods?

There is a bit of a folklore-ish theme to the book. The author did an amazing job with the storyline and character development. This isn't your typical horror book, there's multiple levels to this book.. and it seems to bypass just the typical horror genre/ trope.

Well worth the read!!

"Blaine Daigle" is an outstanding new horror writer that readers need to be aware of if they want to be chilled and thrilled in the best way possible!


Deep in the wilderness of the Yukon sits an isolated log cabin that has been owned by several generations of the Burdette family and is now passed down to Ryne Burdette who needs a healing vacation along with his two lifelong best friends who have all been through some tragic events the past few years. Ryne has always had a love/hate relationship with his cabin memories without fully understanding the reasons behind his feelings because he knows there were many family secrets that his father and uncle had kept from him. On the slow, treacherous and tedious drive where the roads are narrow while covered with snow and ice the friends wonder if they should turn around as news of another blizzard is headed their way but Ryne is determined that the cabin will be the safest place to be in the upcoming storm. When they are only a few miles from their destination an enormous buck with some of the largest antlers the trio have ever seen stands dead still in the middle of the road blocking their way. This buck seemed to have no fear and whatever they tried to scare him, he still would not budge and inch. The most disturbing thing about this deer were his eyes, they were the deepest black, void of any energy or spark of life and the way it stared at them made the hairs on their necks prickle with some sort of primal fear. The men are hunters and very familiar around wildlife so they understood how unnatural this behavior was for an animal. This will be another clue that that they should turn around and go back since it might be their last chance since the blizzard has picked up speed and is almost on top of them and visibility will soon make it impossible to travel plus the nearest town is twenty miles away so if they needed help in a hurry there will be no chance of anyone being able to save them. Their brotherhood bond will now be tested in ways that they could never imagined in their wildest nightmares.

Believe Me, This Is Not A Bad Dream!

WoW! This was quite a nightmare of a horror. So Wickedly Great!

The story starts as a slow-burn as it steadily builds and builds then escalates into a nonstop creepy, shiver inducing, hurry turn the lights on type of story where you will be rapidly turning the pages OR pausing, trying to catch the breath that you didn't know you were holding while trying to settle yourself for the next chapter. I can't believe this was "Blaine Daigle's" debut book and I certainly hope he is in the process of writing another because I will be at the front of the line waiting impatiently to get my hands on it. The storytelling and writing were everything that I could ask for in a horror book. It had it all, creepiness, continual cold, eerie feelings throughout the story, the claustrophobic snow driven atmosphere was just spot on. The length of the book was perfect. I felt as if this author packed 600 pages of detail into a less than 300 page novel. I'm in awe of how he accomplished this feat. The characters were so detailed with their back stories that they felt like real people where I cared about them and their experiences and hoped they would make it through this horrific nightmare of a story.

Last but not least for Horror Lovers was plenty of violence, blood, gore, chilling animal horror, body horror, spooky folklore becoming reality and the best eerie atmosphere imaginable!

I want to thank the publisher "Wicked House Publishing" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this fantastic book and any thoughts opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I have given this novel a rating of 4 1/2 TERRIFYING AND HEART SHATTERING 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌠 STARS!!

This is horror of horrors, real terror lurking in the darkness... I wasn't sure if I could get into this, I didn't feel that I could relate to the people, but having kept reading and delving deeper into the woods I was caught up in legends, menace and darkness that haunted the frozen forest. The three characters grew on me and carefully written and developed characters became real, I wanted them to run, but mostly to survive this nightmare. Winter in a storm in an old cabin in the woods is never going to be a great idea and when the animals begin to behave strangely it is clear that Ryne, Shawn and Noah are in real trouble. The past and it's secrets lurk just below and when they rise to the surface there is no way out. Genuinely creepy and at times truly terrifying I certainly recommend reading, just not at bedtime!

This book is outstanding and heartbreaking. I love wintery, isolation filled books, and this book delivers in big ways. It's cover is exquisite, and lets the reader know what they are in for. I found the folklore horror to be grotesque, beautiful in a macabre way, and utterly heartwrenching. This author has a ton of talent, and I will be first in line to get the next book they write.

I love horror set in cold, snowy places. Whenever I see one I definitely need to check it out, so when I saw this book I put it on my to read list. And this story wasn't bad, but for some reason it didn't completely work for me. The characters were a bit flat, the horror bits should have been really creepy but they felt off to me. Like cool idea, love the concept, but the execution was fine, but also not keeping me on the edge of my seat. I couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was as when I was reading I kept thinking I should be loving this....but it was just okay. I would try another by this author and see if I enjoyed it more.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for a copy of this book.

Ryne Burkette inherits an old hunting camp deep in the Yukon Wilderness. He invites two of his best friends to spend the weekend at the cabin and to enjoy the wilderness. Once they are there, they begin to experience strange behaviors of the local wildlife. This book is told in two timelines. One timeline is told when Ryne was a child . He was at the cabin with his father and uncle. Ryne can barely remember seeing his uncle at the edge of the woods facing some kind of mystical being and later hearing his father and uncle arguing afterwards. The second timeline is set in the present. A winter storm sets in, trapping Ryan and his friends at the cabin. Something is watching them, calling to them. Will Ryne solve the mystery as to why he was compelled to come back to the cabin.

Awesome 👍 I could not put it down . I will definitely be reading more by Blaine Daigle!
I received a Arc copy from netgalley.