County Road 951, aka The Devil’s Driveway, has been closed for five years. The once-scenic bypass was replaced by a larger highway, and eventually was shut down due to lack of traffic and funding for repairs. Over the years, a rumor began to form that the 15-mile stretch of road was haunted by all who had died on it - and the number of people who died on it is not insignificant…

When Livia finds out that her husband has been cheating on her, it becomes the perfect time for a girls trip to talk things out and decide what her next steps should be. Her best friends since youth, Ash, Becka and Morgan, decide to take her to a rustic resort for some bonding time, but on the drive there, they hit some traffic. That’s when their GPS tells them about a shortcut that they decide to take…right down County Road 951.

Not long before the girls began their trek, a group of people looking to make a viral video also decided to go down the road. The difference is that they knew the rumors and went anyway, by themselves, at night. Let’s just say that there were consequences. Eventually, the link between the two groups comes together, but the majority of this story is about the four friends - “The Scoundrels” as they used to be known.

Once the women turn into the road, they quickly lose satellite access to their GPS, and of course there is no cell service. Still, it’s only 15 miles and the GPS told them to turn there - what could happen? Let’s just start with hallucinations (or were they?) taking them back to their pasts. They’re hearing things that aren’t there, seeing people who aren’t there, and why is it taking so long to go 15 miles?! The haunted turn up soon after, and unfortunately, they aren’t friendly ghosts.

The beginning of this started slow, but as the story continued down the road (haha), the suspense started to ratchet up and this became quite creepy. I think some things could have been shortened, and I wish the two groups had spent a good amount of time together, but overall, I thought this was a spine-chilling and uniquely original story. The tone in the beginning is miles away from the tone at the end, and you’ll be there for the whole thing! 3.5 stars, rounded up.

(Thank you to Tor Nighfire, K.C. Jones and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on March 18, 2025.)

K.C. Jones' White Line Fever is a novel that takes a well-worn horror trope—“Hey, let’s take the shortcut through the obviously haunted road!”—and attempts to inject it with existential dread, past trauma, and a hefty dose of bad decision-making. It’s an interesting premise: four lifelong friends on a road trip to escape real-life troubles stumble onto the infamous County Road 951, a.k.a. The Devil’s Driveway, a stretch of highway with a body count higher than a slasher film’s third act. Unfortunately, while White Line Fever has the bones of a solid horror story, it often feels like it's driving in circles, flashing its headlights at tension but never quite pulling up to the horror house.

Jones, who previously penned Black Tide, has a knack for atmospheric horror and a deep love for genre elements. With White Line Fever, he attempts a more psychological approach—blurring reality with hallucinations, forcing characters to confront their childhood demons, and making every wrong turn feel like a descent into madness. It’s an ambitious effort, though the execution wobbles between gripping and frustratingly sluggish.

Livia and her childhood best friends—Mo, Ash, and Becka—are on their way to a girls’ weekend at a resort, a much-needed reprieve from their personal disasters. Livia, in particular, is reeling from discovering her husband’s infidelity, so what better way to clear her mind than by speeding down a haunted highway? When they encounter road rage with an ominous tow truck (seriously, did no one learn from Duel?), they opt for a shortcut, guided by a GPS that must have been programmed by Satan himself.

Predictably, County Road 951 isn’t just some backroad inconvenience—it’s a supernatural meat grinder. Time warps, eerie hallucinations, and creeping dread ensue, with each woman being forced to relive past traumas in surreal, nightmarish ways. There’s a parallel timeline that takes us back to their youth, where they called themselves The Scoundrels, adding a coming-of-age flavor to the horror. But the big question lingers: will they make it out alive, or will they just become another set of names whispered in ghost-hunter YouTube videos?

Jones weaves heavy themes into the horror framework—particularly trauma, memory, and how our pasts shape our fears. The road itself acts as a metaphor for unresolved pain, serving up psychological torment.

The alternating timelines attempt to deepen the story, showing how childhood fears manifest in adulthood, but this structural choice is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, it builds character depth; on the other, it frequently saps momentum from the present-day horror. White Line Fever tries to straddle psychological horror and supernatural spookiness, but it often lands in that middle ground where nothing feels fully realized. It’s scary, but not terrifying; introspective, but not deeply profound.

Jones is undeniably talented when it comes to creating an eerie atmosphere. The road itself is a brilliant setting—isolated, ever-changing, filled with whispered legends. The descriptive language is immersive, making you feel the claustrophobia of an unending, cursed highway. However, the pacing has all the grace of a drunk driver.

Many passages build up what feels like imminent horror, only for the tension to dissolve into nothing. It’s like being on a roller coaster that never quite drops. The dialogue, at times, feels genuine and lived-in, capturing the camaraderie of old friends, but there are moments where it dips into horror-movie cliché territory—characters making decisions so mind-numbingly bad you half-expect the Ghost of Common Sense to slap them upside the head.

Strengths
While the book suffers from pacing issues, there are undeniably strong elements:
- The Setting: A haunted stretch of road is always a fantastic horror backdrop, and Jones makes good use of its lore and creeping dread.
- The Psychological Angles: The way the road plays with perception and memory is genuinely unsettling at times.
- Character Development: While not always likable, the four leads have distinct personalities and realistic dynamics, which add emotional weight to their struggles.

Critiques
= Pacing Issues: The dual timelines, while interesting, often slow down the main narrative. The book builds tension repeatedly, only to let it fizzle out like a firework that didn’t quite ignite.
- Not Enough Scares: For a horror novel, White Line Fever is surprisingly light on true terror. It leans more into psychological horror, but even that could use more bite.
- The Ending: The conclusion is underwhelming—an abrupt finale that doesn’t quite match the buildup.

White Line Fever is a mixed bag. It has moments of brilliance, some haunting imagery, and well-crafted psychological horror, but it never fully capitalizes on its terrifying premise. Now that I think of it, it has some problems that parallel last year's This Wretched Valley but with far superior character development. It’s a novel that creeps around the edges of greatness but never quite steps into the headlights.

If you’re a fan of slow-burn horror that leans more into atmosphere than outright scares, this might be your jam. But if you’re looking for a book that will make you sleep with the lights on, you might want to take the next exit.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the free e-book in exchange for my honest review.

County Road 951 is a 15 mile stretch of roadway that is filled with ghosts and horror stories from accidents past. Its known as the Devil's Driveway. A group of girls make the mistake of taking County Road 951 as a detour around traffic and aggressive drivers when bizarrely strange things begin to happen. Will they make it out alive?

The setting is very atmospheric and the creep factor is high. But the pacing to me was slower than I like. I found myself skimming to get through the middle which dragged on for me. The characters are likable but there just was not much happening aside from the supernatural events.
While the book did not hit my psychological suspense buttons, I think fans of the supernatural/horror genre should definitely read it.

I loved the narrator here, and that's the only reason I made it as far as I did. It just felt so boring and a bit disjointed. I wanted way less of a slow burn and a lot more of what came in the prologue.

This story was horrifying, action packed, and suspenseful. The imagery was very visceral while also containing an emotional core. Jones expertly delves into the psyches of her characters which made me care about their predicament. The twists were inventive and exciting! This book holds the reader in its icy grip and doesn't let go.

White Line Fever: highway hypnosis, a trance-like, altered mental state induced by driving great distances or long periods of time.

This was one weird story, and not in a good kind of weird. It kind of reminded me (just a little) of those trips I took to visit my parents in OR (after they retired) driving from LA to Coos Bay, late at night, drinking coffee to stay awake and getting startled when the car tires wandered onto the gravel shoulder and getting weirded out at some of the strange things I would see out on the side of the roads. Yeah, I don’t drive like that anymore.

So, the book summary introduces the MC’s, four BFF’s since childhood (they’re in their 30’s now), Livia, Ash and Mo (sisters), and Becka (married to Ash) are driving to an OR resort for a girls weekend. Along the way, they decide to take a shortcut in an effort to get there faster. VERY BAD DECISION!!! It’s not long before a bunch of freaky things start happening that has all of them questioning their sanity, definitely regretting taking that shortcut, and praying that they make it back home alive.

The story flips back and forth between present-day and 20yrs ago, when they were tweens in some podunk town named Newberry and called themselves the Scoundrels. basically, spending their days just running around town getting into mischief and sneaking out at night doing what tween girls do when left to their own devices. There were so many passages where Jones was definitely building intensity and leading the reader (at least this reader) to some scary discovery or incident only to just……..nothing. Jones did this throughout most of the story. One disappointing passage after another.

By the halfway point, I seriously wanted to DNF the book, but I didn’t because I have an implied agreement with NetGalley to provide them with honest reviews. That and I kept hoping the story would get better and Jones would finally provide some substance to all that intensity he kept building up to but failing to ever deliver on. Anyway, the end came fast (thank goodness), in a bit of a mess, with the finale being kind of anticlimactic.

The character development of the MC’s was good, and that was probably the best part of the story. The MC’s were good characters and their relationships and life-long history were entertaining. The pacing was steady, and the storyline had potential to be something more than what it actually was – a little disappointing. The weakest link in this story was the writing. Once again, there was so much potential that just never came to fruition. This story was labeled as Horror on GR, but I would not label this story as horror, which is a good thing because I’m not a fan of the hardcore horror. On a scale of 1-5, 5 being horror-filled, this was maybe a 1-1.5. Anyway, I’m looking at an overall rating of 2.8 that I will round up to a 3star review.

I flipped back and forth between the ebook and the audiobook and I'm not sure which medium I would recommend more, probably the ebook. The audiobook narrator, Kate Handford, was very adept at building up that intensity that more times than not ended on a whimper. Whereas, in the book, the letdown didn’t seem as jarring. JMHO. I want to thank NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group and Macmillan Audio for sending me this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

#NetGalley #TorPublishingGroup #MacmillanAudio #WhiteLineFever

Where do I begin? First off, I would not really consider this a thriller, more horror/paranormal if anything. Honestly, its been a very long time since I read anything in that genre so it was definitely different. Since I was looking for a good thriller, the premise for what I wanted was there, the delivery was not. However, it was different. I guess sometimes you need to step out of your normal and try other things. I did promise to immerse myself in other genres this year so this was a start.

Imagine going on a road trip with your girls, planning to hit up a nice resort, lots of drinking and catching up. In route, you end up in a road rage situation with someone that freaks you out a little so you all take a shortcut. The shortcut is supposed to get you to your destination in 15 minutes, instead you spend hours on a road that seems to grab hold and refuse to let go. I don't want to give too much away, so lets just say this, people on this road don't always make it out and those that do, are forever changed.

I really wanted to like this one, I really did. The premise sounded so promising. Sadly it was just too slow for me.

A weekend getaway turned into horror! I was interested to see how a 15 mile stretch of road could fill the length of an entire horror novel but it worked! This stretch of road speaks for itself, as it’s literally so renowned to be evil that it’s called the devil’s driveway. Just 30 miles round trip, 15 miles there and 15 miles back. How bad could it be? The ghost stories and numbers of tragedies beg to differ.

The strongest suit of this book is that it’s super visual and easy to picture. You can picture yourself driving at night, turning towards an unmarked, unlit road…the notorious County Road 951. Reading this almost gives found footage film vibes, like watching something similar to Blair Witch or something. A group of girls makes the mistake of taking a detour through County Road 951 and strange things start to happen, like apples falling from the sky (not scary but really random?). I liked the concept of the nightmare mile, which is the most dangerous part of the road, most of it made up of a tunnel. And in true horror novel fashion, they are forced to go through the tunnel to be able to get off of County Road 951.

My biggest qualm of this book is that it just….wasn’t scary enough. It just didn’t have the readability factor I wanted. A haunted stretch of highway is such an awesome concept that made me want to read this immediately, but it just….wasn’t scary. What I want in a horror novel is for it to be compulsively readable and this book just didn’t have that. I found myself skimming most of it because I just wasn’t getting into it; I’m not sure why but the readability factor wasn’t there. I tried but I just couldn’t bring myself to care. Maybe it was because the stakes weren’t high enough, or that it wasn’t scary enough, or it was too slow starting for my ADHD, or a combination of all of those. But it simply just…wasn’t scary or exciting for me. And the ending reveal also was underwhelming and again, just not scary. I think readers who are ok with slower horror would appreciate this one because I did find it quite slow and not the most exciting. 3/5 stars because while it wasn’t exactly a fun read for me, it was still well written.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for sending me an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

County Road 951 isn't much to look at. The long stretch of road in rural Oregon doesn't appear to be an issue, except that with a long history of dangerous accidents and tragedies befalling first responders to said accidents, the area has become known as the Devil's Driveway. When Livia and her friends find themselves on The Devil's Driveway on their way to a girl's weekend, they start to encounter problems that quickly spiral leaving them to wonder if they'll ever make it through the short stretch of road.

I was really excited about this book. I loved the cover and the description. I'm a huge fan of local legend/myth stories so it seemed like it would be right up my alley. I loved the way the book jumped in with a daredevil YouTuber intentionally traversing the road and how Livia and her friends approach the same road incidentally. I also liked the way they two were eventually tied together. The only real issue with the book is that between the dual timelines, all the female characters (who in e-read format I found kind of flat and difficult to keep straight) and the very trippy experiences on the road it often felt very disjointed. I liked the story concerning the girls' past and the junk yard, but I felt like it broke the tension too much and wish the story on the road in the present would have been told straight through it would have held the tension better. At some point I started to picture this as more of a miniseries where the first episode or to would be the backstory and then the others would be the present-day story told in a linear fashion without interruption by the past.

Overall, I really liked the concept of the story but the disjointed telling of it threw me a little bit. I also didn't get an accurate idea of just how trippy the story was from the description, the blurb made it sound like it was relatively grounded and I wish it would have hinted at, so I knew what I was walking into.

Finished Reading

Pre-Read notes

I'm already in love with "The Devil's Driveway," such a great scary setting element!

I really need a fun, scary book, so I hope this one is as great as that setting name!

Final Review

If a monster kills you in a dream, do you die in real life? p243

Review summary and recommendations

I mean this in the best way, but the best thing about this book is the opening scene. Unfortunately, the hundreds of pages that follow never get back to its potential or even a cohesive concept.

I didn't love this one, but the pace is thrilling and the story weird enough to have kept me reading until the end.

I recommend this to fans of weird horror and urban legends and myths.

Reading Notes

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. "The Devil's Driveway" is a great, terrifying location, and that name! *edit This was definitely not used to its full potential.

2. But even as plenty of natural light streamed through the windows, the room felt much darker than it should have. Watching him move through it, I again had the terrible thought that I was seeing a stranger. Or worse, somebody I’d expected never to see again. p32 This is really good suspense writing. The mode and tone in this scene are so heavy and shadowy.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. Once the fmc and her friends are on the road, the pace just dies. It's so weird, considering they are literally flying down the road.

2. This book just...doesn't have a plot. It's merely hundreds and hundreds of pages of the author churning up the dirt.

3. This was not an easy book to follow. Dual timelines only work if both timelines advance the overall plot, and that didn't happen here.

Rating: 🚘🚘.5 Devil's Driveways
Recommend? maybe for some readers
Finished: Feb 21 '25
Format: accessible digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
💀 horror stories
👻 ghost stories
🌲 scary forests
🛣 haunted roads
👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏾 friend drama

Thank you to the author K.C. Jones, publisher Tor Publishing Group for an advance digital copy of WHITE LINE FEVER. All views are mine.
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy. I had high hopes for White Line Fever and unfortunately it did not meet those expectations. White Line Fever follows a group of friends as they maker their way to a resort for a girls weekend. On their way there, they decide to take a short cut. Little did they know that that shortcut would put their lives in danger. I think I thought that this book would be a different type of book. I thought it would be a classic serial killer chasing the characters, but this was not that story. It had a supernatural twist, and I was not interested in that. I also was confused by the alternating timelines. I think that if you go in knowing that it is a haunted road, you will enjoy it more.

I am not a horror book reader - so full disclosure on that. But I really liked the premise of this one. Creepy, abandoned roads are always a good setting for something scary. However, I did have a bit of trouble getting in to this one. The writing was great, but I just didn't gravitate to this one.

I loved this book! It is a great twist on the house that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, but this time it’s a stretch of lonely, closed road in the middle of Oregon.

There are some moments in this book that are so unnerving, especially in the tunnel sequence iykyk. What makes the scary parts hit so well is the characterizations here, and you really care for all four of these women, they are all real people. There is a lot of family trauma and reconciling past with present and future and it leads to a very satisfying ending.

What a FASCINATING novel this is. I do enjoy a well-contained, tight-timeline horror experience, and this book certainly delivers that!

This cast of characters is absolutely rock solid. I love our pov character Livia, her pack of childhood best friends, and the young ghost-hunters they gang up with.

I thought the premise here was really cool: SOMETHING along a purportedly haunted stretch of road tortures those on it with the trauma of their own pasts, feeding off their fear and dread until they inevitably die. Once I understood what was going on, I locked in and was all for it, but I struggled a bit in the beginning understanding why the flashbacks were relevant. The ramp-up to the true ‘oh no’ felt a little stilted as a result. It’s a hard line to traverse: giving your readers enough information that the reveals and scary stuff feels significant, but also not bogging down the early moments of your thriller with too much information for them to parse. In the grand scheme, easily could be a preference thing for me.

The ending felt EARNED, and such a lovely relief. I think it’s interesting that there is some ambiguity, but it isn’t ambiguity I dislike. It’s right. The characters’ inner demons are so central in this one that watching them face those is so so satisfying.

I can definitely see myself recommending this book to fans of the suspense/thriller side of the genre, as well as those that like Simone St James’ work!

A road trip straight out of Hell. A devious monster that’s able to play with past trauma and memories. And a scary section of road where this monster lives and terrorizes.

Livia is dealing with a current life emergency after she finds out her husband is cheating. She calls on her 3 best friends to get her through and they decide on a road trip. On the road trip they take a short cut they will regret. Don’t ever take the short cut! Ever!

This one was super fast paced. Two different time periods, the past when the girls were kids and Livia was terrorized by an abusive father in his junkyard and the present, where a monster can use old trauma to cause hallucinations.

Recommend for horror fans and those who like a fast paced thriller.

It was okay. It was hard to keep interested. The scary highway is just not my type of book. The story was interesting but i found it hard to follow.

Thanks to Netgalley to the ARC

Unfortunately, this book sounded like it was going to be right up my alley but sadly it just did not hold my interest. I made it to about 30% before giving up. I think that it’s just not for me but could be for someone else. I hate giving up on ARCs and always want to give “new authors to me” a decent shot but this one just didn’t do it for me.

*Huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really great horror novel! The first part reminded me of the intro to an episode of Supernatural. Jones balanced real-life and supernatural horror so well in the dual timelines, and I liked seeing how the main characters' childhoods informed their thoughts and behaviors in the present-day, on the highway. Love the idea of a haunted stretch of road and I wish I saw that more often in horror books!

County Road 951, a fifteen mile stretch of scenic curves responsible for more deaths than any other road in Oregon, has been gated off at both ends for years. But sometimes GPS suggests unsuitable detours and someone else had already cut the gate before Liva and her friends turned off the main road to get away from a threatening tow truck. I was hooked by this one, maybe because I live in the area and can picture exactly the stretch of mountain range that the road must cut across. I'm used to hearing sirens on the way to accidents. It's far too easy to imagine The Devil's Driveweay and what it would be like to be trapped there by supernatural forces. The plot alternates between Olivia's traumatic childhood and what's happening on the road and it does start to bog down at a few points, but for the most part I aboslutely loved it.