Well. Where to begin? This was my first foray into the works of Wendig. And oh my goodness, what an excursion it was! This is a massive horror tome that delves into the likes of good vs. evil, the eating of the forbidden fruit, and the bad blood that runs through both time and earth. A man obsessed. An orchard grown in the most terrifying of ways. And the few strong enough to stand against it all.

I was impressed with the originality of this book. I loved how Wendig slowly brings you along, leading and giving only bits of answers as you go. Each revelation is more horrifying than the last. Horror done just the way I like it. Bravo to the one who can make me cringe and wince without throwing shock gore in my face. He fabulously sets the scene and allows your mind to fashion the holy terror of it.

The only con I encountered is that there are huge amounts of characters, back-stories, and interconnected happenings. I kept looking at my percentage read and wondering, "How can there still be that much left?" There is a lot happening here, but it really doesn't detract from the worth of the read.

Final thoughts? A narrative to sink your teeth into: flavorful, juicy, crisp. Well done, sir. I will be reading more!

An apple that can make you better, stronger, and something more than you are. What can possibly go wrong?... everything.
This was my first read by Chuck wendig and it will most definitely not be my last. I was hooked from being to end. I loved it.... even if I won't be eating apples for awhile.

With a satisfying crunch, Chuck Wendig makes this story his own. A twisted Johnny Appleseed with shades of Joe Hill and a whiff of Ray Bradbury. Impending doom and the fate of the world rests in the hands of the aptly named John Compass, who leads the ragtag band of characters to the frightening climax.

This is a wild ride that gets weirder as you go. The build-up is delicious and the reveal is thoroughly revolting. But so much fun.

I'm still creeped out, weeks after finishing the book. The kind of creepy that sticks to you. Makes you wanna put on a sweater and take a shower.

Who woulda thought apples could cause so much trouble? Oh wait - Adam and Eve.

Clear a big bite of your life. Give yourself to the story. Let its juices run down your chin. Get covered in its gooey sweet rot. You'll feel so much better.

Apples will never be the same again.

Thanks Chuck.

10 Stars for creepiness! Vibes of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Harvest Home" visiting "Little Shop of Horrors" - claustrophobic and horrifying. I just couldn't stop - had to read just one more page - until the end. Hard to find scary horror these days - but this is it - really - a horror masterpiece. Start it early, and keep the lights on.

Chuck Wendig held the place in the heart last year for my favorite read with his release of Tje Book of Accidents. I was so excited to dig into Black River Orchard, and it did not disappoint. It was for sure another 5-star read, and all 500+ pages just flew by.

Chuck Wendig is a must-read author for me, so when I was offered the opportunity to read Black River Orchard as an ARC, I let out an audible squeal. This book DID NOT disappoint. Wow. There are so many layers to this story and so MUCH character development, I was hooked from the very beginning. It's very gothic horror-y in that the conflict starts out almost insignificant, just below the surface, but then it builds, and it builds, and I'm not sure I'm ever going to have the ability to look at apples the same way again. Black River Orchard will be available Sept 26, 2023 and I highly recommend reading this one if you enjoy beautiful prose mixed with a terrifying tale!!

5 stars on Goodreads. And as soon as I am able I will be sharing my review on Amazon as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sabrina Shen at Del Rey/Random House for the invitation to read this ARC!! This story will be living rent-free in my head for quite some time!!

Well, another great book by Chuck Wendig!
And this was one is very creepy! Thanks to NetGalley for a chance to read an ARC.
The story revolves around a man and his teenaged daughter. They are not well off but seem relatively happy. The father, Dan, has his heart set on starting an apple orchard with a very special apple. The apple is something special alright and soon the people who eat the apple are not their normal selves. Those in town who don’t eat the apple definitely see a difference in the people who do.
The story has an interesting cast of characters. There are those characters who I was rooting for , those I most definitely was not rooting for, and a small group that were a mixture of good and bad. Pretty realistic there , I guess.
I really enjoyed the story. Mysterious, fun and creepy, too. If the synopsis sounds like it might be in your wheelhouse, give it a try! I’m glad I did. Happy reading!

Blurb, due by June 15th, already emailed to publicists. Full review to come soon.

"The horror of Black River Orchard is the existence of an insidious, dormant catalyst for evil that exists inside of us. All that has to happen is for humankind to discover that one thing that will universally divide us all. Wendig’s wheelhouse is knowing exactly how to pluck heartstrings and prey on fears at the same time; high stakes horror meets peak emotional investment means Total. Reader. Devastation.”
-Sadie Hartmann, author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered

A masterpiece of horror and social commentary from one of the best in the business. You could have slapped Stephen King’s name on this and I would never have doubted for one second that he wrote it. Chuck Wendig is on that level. With “Wanderers” and “Book of Accidents” and now “Black River Orchard” he is reminiscent of King at his peak. This tale of an apple that causes people in a town to change and lose themselves to a cult like mentality was terrifying and powerful in the age of MAGA. It will rock you to your core. I’m going to have so many of these horrifying images locked in my brain forever. Compelling characters, an awesome and well crafted mythology, and psychological and body horrors that will make your head spin all add up to the one of the best books of the year! Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC.

Just imagine if Snow White's evil stepmother had an orchard full of poison apples. Except...what if the apples aren't really "poisonous", but instead make you feel better, stronger, the full "you"? What price would you be willing to pay, with your soul?

This book was super-creepy from the get go. Loved that it was set in a fictionalized version of Bucks County along the Delaware River, because I live on the other side of the river (but who really wants to admit that they live in Jersey, right?). I also loved that despite being super-creepy, it was also a sort of history lesson in apples: the wide varieties, textures and tastes, and how they came to the colonies. Creepy but Educational!

If you read and liked Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig, then you'll also love Black River Orchard. If you haven't read it, then what are you waiting for?

Bottom line: go read this book!

A super fun, fast-paced, eminently readable horror novel! I always like Wendig's work; his premises are fun, and his writing goes down smooth. This book, like THE BOOK OF ACCIDENTS, also feels very much grounded in place; I'm from Philadelphia myself, and I love all the Bucks County details. The horror bits were genuinely spooky and squidgy, especially some of the apple-related body horror (what a phrase) later in the book. I also liked the characters, especially Emily, a lesbian who's been dragged from the city and out to Bucks by her wife; John, an Army vet turned Quaker; and Marco, a secondary character who rather to my surprise stole my heart. I'd recommend this book for anyone who's looking for a fun read, who likes Philly-based novels, or who likes a strong dash of body horror mixed in with their suspense.

I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Much like the eaters of the apple in this book should have done, I'm spitting this review out rather than letting it sit and digest. Black River Orchard is so good that I'm struggling with where to start. Packed full of riveting info about the history of apples and the shoddy offerings we apparently have at the grocery (I really have to find a local orchard), suffused with compelling dread and a sense of impending catastrophe, I raced through this book, "rooting" for the heroes to overcome a population gone all spooky-magic apple culty. The characters were nuanced and flawed, a not so simple fruit bringing out the best and worst in all of them. Wendig didn't skimp on the horror with this one either. In particular, I have a thing about teeth, and this book pushed all my ick buttons. Absolutely fantastic story!

WOW! Another runaway hit from Chuck Wendig. This was a great character building, world building novel.

It was so good. I loved the way that the author incorporated the forgotten apple varieties, the evil man in white, the collision of the characters.

It took a bit to get into, I would say the first 50 pages or so, then I could not put it down.

This book is a wonderful exploration of wants, desires, and doing whatever it takes to get ahead in life. It was brutal, gross, and I could not put it down.

overall a definitive read for any horror fan.

640 pages

4 stars

Creepy, gory, surprising, and disturbing are all adjectives that can be applied to this book.

Dan Paxson is an apple farmer living in Harrow. He has grafted seven apple trees. While he waited for them to bear fruit, he and his daughter, Calla, a senior in high school, scraped by with odd jobs.

When they finally bear fruit, the apple is like nothing anyone ever tasted. Indeed, it turns out that apple-eaters cannot resist them. The eaters become obsessive about the apples.

Then the problems begin.

This book has a wide cast of characters. Calla says she is allergic to apples and won’t eat them. She names the apple the Ruby Red Slipper. Calla’s boyfriend Marco loves the apples. Emily and Meg are a married couple who are having problems in their relationship. Meg eats the apples, but Emily doesn’t like them. Emily meets an apple historian called John Compass. They become friends. Joanie is a former girlfriend of Dan’s who is now married to a man she is head over heels about. Joanie doesn’t eat apples. These are the major characters in this novel. Most of the action happens to these people.

There are many minor characters as well.

It has been years since I read a Chuck Wendig book. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his writing. His characters are colorful and well fleshed out. I was in Dan’s little orchard witnessing all the carnage first hand. I truly enjoyed this novel and it made me go to Amazon to look at all of his books that I have missed.

(The book also made me miss my favorite apple. I grew up in Washington State. Perfect place for an apple lover. The best apple in the world to me is the Jonathan. Unfortunately, we can’t get them here in the Pang=handle of Nebraska. Waaah.)

I want to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine/Del Rey for forwarding to me a copy of this very good book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.

For the small amount I read, it was a wild and weird book. I may never look at apples, or eat them again for that matter. The book had something in the beginning that is just one of those hard stops for me. So take my review with a grain of salt. I wish I could have continued the book. Because again it seemed like an amazing edition to the Chuck Wendig library. Just one of those triggers that I personally can't get over.
But thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to read the book as Wanderers/Wayward are some of my favorites!!!!

Thanks to Ballantine, Del Rey and NetGalley for the chance to read and review Chuck Wendig's 'Black River Orchard.'

I loved Chuck Wendig's 'Wanderers' and its sequel 'Wayward' so was delighted to get this one to read - 'a horror yarn from his imagination should be a good one,' I thought. And it was.

Taking something so mundane and esoteric as apple growing and the history of apples in the US and turning it into this mishmash (in a good way) of folk horror, Indigenous peoples' mythology and lore, cosmic horror, social and political commentary is quite the magic trick and it worked out really well.

An apple farmer with ambitions to produce the most wonderful apple ever in order to live out his father's and his dream creates the spark for everything that happens and a wide cast of characters - from his daughter, to a lesbian couple fresh from the city and from the local bigwigs to an obscure apple hunter, they're all caught up in a supernatural maelstrom.

Definitely owes something to Stephen King in its setting, it's character types, and its multiple storylines converging but (unlike some of the apples) it's fresh enough to be different.

Trigger warning - if you're not a liberal (normal) person, you'll hate this one because he dives into every progressive type and trait you can imagine. I loved it!

This is my first Chuck Wendig book and it is hands down of the best horror books I have ever read. This follows multiple POVS over the course of the book and each of those were multifaceted and believable. Chuck did a phenomenal job building the dread of what was to come, and the pace was *chef's kiss*. I enjoyed how the chapters were shorter, it makes a book of this size more digestible to me. Chuck also does a lot more of showing instead of telling, which is great in this genre. I am looking forward to reading his backlist and anything he publishes in the future.

It was the serpent who tempted Eve with a bite of the apple and a taste of power and beauty unmatched. Keep that in mind as you cautiously wend your way through Wendig’s latest (and possibly greatest) novel, Black River Orchard. In it, he carefully sets out a tour-de-force so overwhelmingly incredible that you, like Eve, are at first tempted to take a bite of the apple. Indeed, it may be ultimately a parable for so many things that people are tempted to imbibe, particularly when peer pressure from seemingly everywhere in the town is working on you and the apple tastes like paradise on earth.

It is, first of all, a story about a man, John Compass, who is an apple hunter. Though a Gulf War veteran, now a Quaker, John is on the hunt for rare apple varieties from a time when apples were not a homogenized commodity, genetically engineered to be all alike, all identical, all brilliant in just the same way. There was once a time when Johnny Appleseed planted apple trees across the country and the varieties were endless.

Dan, though, may have found the rarest variety of all and, despite all his setbacks in life, it may be his route into the gilded life where the best of society links together in secret clubs with secret handshakes and makes backroom deals.

But read the book gently and carefully because, just as you are enveloped in the poetic prose, your eyes may start to bug out as you realize that the story has more in common with the Twilight Zone, Stephen King, or Clive Barker than Robert Frost’s meditations. There is a horror here that slowly and carefully develops as those who take the bite are more like cult followers than the people we thought we knew. This is true for parents and teenagers, for married couples, for high school romances, for neighbors. And what transpires is shocking and nightmarish in the extreme. A hint of what’s to come: “She hugged him again, and tried not to imagine his hands reaching up, forcing an apple into her mouth, and pulling her apart like warm bread.”

Utimately, it may come down to a choice, whether to choose power and darkness or whether to choose the light. Whether you will accept a parasite of the soul that crawls in through “your low places – the holes in you. Your bad thoughts. Your deepest wants.”

Hopefully, this provides a few glimmers of what to find in this book without giving it away. This novel is carefully and meticulously crafted and is definitely worth reading.

Another winner from Wendig. I just love his imagination and his great stories that he writes. This one was fantastic and I loved every second of this unique tale. Highly recommend, if you enjoyed The Book of Accidents. Top notch and such a unique premise.

I am a long time fan of Wendig and was happy to get this preview.
I really enjoyed this book! Scary, suspenseful, and gory!

I just reviewed Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig. #BlackRiverOrchard #NetGalley