Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review. This book absolutely terrified me. I have not been this scared by a book as far back as I can remember, so skip this one if you are easily scared. I also could not believe how unlikable these characters were, and I still could not put the book down. This is an impressive debut and I will definitely pick up whatever Gunn writes next.

I was not a fan of this book. I have determined I am not a fan of Appalachian folklore in general. I thought the author did a good job with the underlying story of a woman struggling with her identity and continuing on with her life after losing a child. There were some parts that seemed over the top, but definitely could be construed as a side effect of immense grief. I would classify this book as a horror/mystery story. There were some really creepy parts, especially with the Charlie thing- specifically from younger daughter Lucy's perspective. It was a story that kept me reading and had good pacing, just not a fan of the subject matter. If you do enjoy Appalachian folklore, i think you would really enjoy this one. It was well written especially considering this is a debut!

Thanks Atria and NetGalley for my ARC of this story which publishes 3/25.

Well reading this while recovering from surgery will keep you up all night. I would go back and re-read parts thinking is this really happening .
I will say that I really didn’t care for any of the main characters at the beginning of the story. It definitely took me until I got to the creepy horror part where I became invested in the story.
This book has a lot of trigger warnings so be sure and check those before you read.
Overall a creepy good time.
I received an ARC of this title, all opinions are my own.

Set in a small town, Rachel, the chief of the local detachment is called out to investigate a disturbance with what is assumed just a typical episode between the local meth dealers. Arriving on scene, things take a turn for the worst when she discovers a body pinned to a tree out in the middle of the woods with his face skinned off. From here we are looped into a disturbing psychological terror, as children begin to go missing and eventually, town folk start to unalive themselves in brutal ways.

It is like I can hear the children singing to me. I am so disturbed by this book that I have no idea how to process what I just read. What a creepy little novel. I want nothing more then to go home and hide under a blanket ( toes not peeking out like I hated when I was a kid) so the monsters cant get me.

From what I understood, this was based in a small very religious town with a dark history. The townsfolk did not like outsiders, especially those that went against the ideals of the folk. I loved the dark twists and how this book would play with your mind but I was also so lost in what was happening.

I feel like there was just so much to unpack in this book that it could have been a little longer in order to gain clarity on events such as there should have been more of an explanation on why Rachel had to give up being with women. I understood the town did not agree with those ideals but I did not understand why Rachel and Finn moved out to that town if they weren't accepted and welcome.

Overall though, loved the scary undertones and how this was full of twists and turns. It is exactly what I expected of Nowhere. I will definitely be recommending Nowhere to my book loving friends that enjoy a good thriller.

DNF 20%

I'm really, really sad to be throwing in the towel on this book. When I first saw this cover several months ago, I fell in love and have been looking forward to reading and reviewing it. However, I am finding that all of the characters in this book are unpleasant, and not very much has happened with regards to the mystery that is advertised as being central to the plot.

I have seen several other reviewers give this a strong rating, so it may just be that I am the wrong reader for this book.

The start of this book was promising and grabbed my attention and it lost me the more I got to know the characters. The main characters were off-putting and one-dimensional stereotypes. I did like the eerie folklore elements and unsettling ambiance, but they weren’t enough to keep me invested in the story. Overall, Nowhere was intriguing at times but ultimately fell short.

This is a creepy read. Most of it takes place in or around the woods and it has paranormal elements that I didn't quite understand, but I guess you just have to go with it. Overall, a fun read.

This book was spooky. I was engaged in this story till the very end, and this certainly is not a story where you will have any sort of happy ending. This is sometimes hard for me because I always like happy endings. Slow to start, but once the scene was set and the character's backgrounds were told, things started getting really creepy and I couldn't stop reading.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley.

CW: blood, gore, violence by choking, death, drowning, child death, mentions of drug use, supernatural attempted suicide, influenced death/suicide by fire, suicide by gun

Rachel is the Police Chief of Dahlmouth, a small town in the middle of nowhere Virginia. She is the mother of three kids, one who had previously passed away from a car accident. The car accident was caused by her husband who was too drunk to be driving, especially with two children in the back seat. He swerved to miss a “deer” and that lead to the death of their son and the demise of his and Rachel’s marriage.

One day, Rachel is called to an accident that would change the town as a whole. After the investigation of that accident, strange happenings started happening around the town of Dahlmouth. Children started missing. Children started acting strange. People would often hear singing at the edge of the woods. Rachel struggles against her beliefs and what is really happening to try and save the children.

To start off, I would LOVE to see this book as a movie. It would be something different and refreshing in the land of horror/thrillers. That being said, I also loved this book. It was fun picking out the bits of folklore weaved into this story. I’m sure there were more, but the ones I could pick out were “Croatoa(n)” and changelings.

The main characters and their family live on Croatoa drive. This story takes place in fictional Dahlmouth which is not too far outside of Roanoke, VA. This might be a little spoiler so don’t read this if you don’t want to know. What happens to the kids is almost like changeling folklore. Okay, end of spoiler. The ending was perfect and leaves you saying “what the fuck?”

Lastly, this book is listed as a queer book. I want to give recognition to the author for saying this is a queer book and even though the MC was in a MF relationship, there is a history as to why she is in that MF relationship and not a FF relationship. A lot of authors say their book is queer and they have one random side character that is queer. So, thank you to the author saying this is a queer book and actually giving a queer MC with a complicated past.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Rachel and her husband Finn are still grieving from the loss of their son when Rachel gets called out to a crime scene in the woods. There is a very mysterious death and children start to go missing. As tensions rise, there is a lot of strangeness surrounding the disappearances.

This is a well written horror mystery with a high creep factor. I am not a huge horror fan and this fact made this one a little hard to finish but I was so invested that I could not put it down. Yes, the characters are extremely unlikable but that adds to the suspense and tension. Also, I loved the real life drama within this story.

If you love dark, mysterious, scary reads, check this one out!

Thank you so much to @netgalley and @atriabooks for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Welp. This was creepy AF.

I’m a thriller & horror girl at heart but this one gave me the creeps more than once. There were even times where I was reading in the dark and the imagery just overwhelmed my imagination and I was a tad spooked reading it at night. I mean, creepy woods, creepy kids, that combo is asking for nightmares. Taking place in a small town in Appalachia is the perfect setting for a story full of lore, legend, and overall spookiness. Spot on atmosphere for the story.

The plot had a good flow throughout. Chapters flipped between the 2 main characters, Rachel and Finn for the most part but was told in third person so you got a wider scope of the horrors happening. The desolate setting and religious undertones definitely add to the storyline and add to the creepiness while also adding a slight satirical feel to the climax of the story. I also can’t believe this is a debut, well done Allison Gunn. Bravo!

The end was a little muddy for me but that could’ve been because of the vivid scenes that take place and the fact that there is so much happening at once. With that being said, the ending fits the story and you won’t be disappointed.

I love a good horror tale & this nailed it. If you’re new to the genre, maybe read this one with the lights on.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

Thank you so much @simon.audio & @atriabooks for the e & Alc!

This is a story about the forests that answer.

This was a spectacular, alarming, frightening rollercoaster. It was an excellent exploration of grief and the ways it shapes and changes us (don’t get me started on the horror genre as the one that best explores grief ingeneral), and it left me feeling incredibly unsettled. I can’t wait to recommend this to everyone come spooky season- I’m shocked it was a debut novel.

Appalachian horror? Say less.
This story was bone chilling. The children mysteriously disappearing from a town had the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. This was the kind of story where I thought it was going to go one direction, and went the opposite repeatedly, which I loved. It bugs me when I can predict a story and that ending, as obscure as it was, was top tier. I honestly cannot believe this is a debut. This is a must read!

This book started out eerie and that “ick” feel just carried throughout the remaining pages, making me want to look over my shoulder at times. This was definitely something I wouldn’t typically read but was pleasantly surprised at how it hooked me.

I still can’t decide if I loved or hated the characters. They were written so well but with such horrible personalities and the storyline ended on such a creepy note. If you enjoy thrills and horror, give this one a try.

I started this and was excited for the "Mare of East Town" vibes and I definitely think this book was partly that and I got some of a True Detective vibe there at the beginning too. I loved both of those series but I really disliked all the characters in this book and they all seemed to be overly exaggerated so much so that it didn't feel genuine. I sadly didn't want to finish this and stopped at 20%.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the chance to read this early in exchange of an honest review.

DNF at 47%

There were points in this novel that not only was I invested, but very creeped out. Like had to stop reading because my blood pressure became elevated.

These feelings didn’t last long. I appreciate the diversity in the main character, Rachel, and her relationship with her husband. However, the things that made her most interesting also lended to her feeling insufferable and dislikable. So the moment I felt bored with the story, I had no issue with DNFing.

This book explored intriguing themes! However, I had a hard time connecting with the story and that is obviously on me and not the book. I recognize that it has great potential to appeal to other mystery/thriller readers and I encourage others to try it out! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

Something is very wrong in Dahlmouth, VA. Rachel, the police chief and an unwelcome outsider in the religious community, must set aside the demons in her own past to try to figure out the connection between several disturbing happenings before it's too late for the town.

The story twists Appalachian folklore into an ever-present and all-consuming threat. This is supernatural horror, and Rachel was, until the very end, fully invested in ignoring this possibility. The author missed an opportunity to build psychological suspense by making Rachel an unreliable narrator, which would have been easy to do through her grief. While the action picked up in the last ⅓, there was a lot of running around in the woods. Rachel is constantly ignoring red flags and not listening to anybody - fully in denial of what’s happening in the town.

Aside from the plot, there were many other threads to this story that didn’t really weave together all that neatly - Rachel’s sexuality, Finn’s alcoholism and propensity for violence, the religious superiority and bigotry of the townspeople… the book felt a little bit like it was trying to make many statements and not executing fully on any of them.

The story was solidly creepy from the start, which held my interest despite the lack of sympathetic characters. Rachel was tremendously unlikable, and she’s in good company, because there was exactly no one I was rooting for in the whole book. Given what happens in the end, which turned out to be exactly what I hoped would happen, I guess that’s a good thing.

In a small Virginia town, Police Chief Rachel Kennan and her recovering alcoholic husband, Finn, grapple with the loss of their son, and their grief is further complicated by the needs of their two surviving daughters. Then a disturbing crime, and an ominous forest force, threaten the close-knit community, though the Kennan family have always been outsiders here. Now they must confront their internal demons and external threats to protect themselves and their town.

This is a tense horror novel that had me hooked! It is a short book that packs both an emotional punch as well as plenty of creepy and gory moments. I had fun trying to decipher if there was something weird about the forest, the kids, the town as a whole, or all 3 of those things! Nothing in this book felt overly surprising, but that didn't take away from the great atmosphere that was created. I was thoroughly creeped out more than once in this one! I will say that I had a really hard time connecting with, and caring about, both Finn and Rachel because they were both incredibly miserable and seemed to not take any responsibility for their actions. It could be argued that this is a response to the grief they experienced when their son died, but the flashbacks show that both of them were pretty unlikeable prior to that loss. Regardless, I definitely recommend this for horror fans!

This was definitely a 4 star read for me! It was creepy and unsettling, and I couldn’t put it down. While there was a mystery unfolding, the story also gave a look at the depths of grief and how it affected each character individually. It was atmospheric and the imagery sucked me into the world completely.

I am always looking for a good spooky read and Nowhere definitely delivered. (I made the mistake of reading before bed though and was a little afraid to look into the trees in my backyard.😅) All in all, if you are looking for a thriller to keep you on the edge of your seat and some light nightmare fuel, I highly recommend reading!