Weird and creepy and scary as heck. And yes, I loved it! A good old fashioned horror story about strange happenings in a small town. Disappearing kids, animals acting wacko, shadowy figures lurking in the dark...it’s all there. Don’t expect it to all make sense and wrap up nice and neat at the end, but do expect to be spooked!

I don't think this is a bad book by any means, it just was not for me. I only got about half way through when had to put it down. I could not find anything to connect with it.

Creepy book that makes you question everything in the end. It started out reminding me of Stranger Things but then it got way scarier. Makes you question what you would do for your family and friends and what secrets your community may be keeping.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.

The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn is one of those novels that tend to lose its way in the telling. What began as sort of a coming of age horror story morphs into a slow read of offbeat tension and suspense. The tale is told in two parts that come to a finale merging the two tales. While this is often a strong way to tell the story, it will break the suspense that is already created and unless the second part of the tale can hold the reader, we will lose our way.

Jude Brighton is a young boy in Deer Valley, Oregon and though he is often in trouble, it does set off alarms when he goes missing. When days pass, the locals begin to say that he has just run away, because they really don't want to think of what may have happened. Stevie Clark is Jude's younger cousin and he knows that Jude did not just runaway. Stevie knows that there is something in the woods just beyond town where he and Jules play. He knows that the old road that leads to the abandoned house is dark and scary. And Stevie knows that the house is not really abandoned at all.

There is also the story of the young boy Max Larsen who disappeared so long ago and all the pets that have gone missing. In fact, there are almost no pets in Deer Valley, unless you consider the host of feral cats that roam the alleys and woods.

All this is like something out of one of those crime shows that Stevie watches all the time. He knows that something horrible has happened to Jude, but no one will listen to Stevie. Because there is something off about Stevie. His mind is not right, and then there are those episodes he seems to have and the whispers about him from the town people. No, there is something really wrong with Stevie.

Then Jude comes home. Scared and quiet he is home. But Stevie knows that something is still not right. Stevie knows, that somehow, this is not really Jude.

The Devil Crept in is a novel that is required to suspend belief for it to be entertaining and it too often misses on that mark. Is it about child abandonment, a monster in the woods, the supernatural of the evil darkness that is humanity. This indecision in what type of novel this is causes The Devil Crept In to drag along. Another weakness are the characters themselves.

Stevie, who is the main narrator for most of the tale has a stutter that makes him sad and after a point, just laughable. His inability to articulate leaves the tale itself enormously frustrating. He comes to conclusions and certainties that no one else in the book sees and in so doing, makes him the only beacon of sanity in this blind and ignorant town. Only as said before, there is something off about Stevie and you can't trust what he sees.

Small town where children die or go missing, monster on the outskirts of town, only a child can see the evil and this child cannot communicate his knowledge because of a stutter....the parallels to Stephen King's book "IT" are unmistakable but unfortunately The Devil Crept In is way out of IT's league.

It took me awhile to finish this book and when I did I am left questioning why I gave it so much time. Horror writing is hard, I know, it is an underappreciated art form. Which is why it is so obvious when it totally misses.

Very creepy and intriguing story line! This book was very hard to put down. Your mind tries to guess what is happening but there's so many twists. Sometimes I felt like the characters didn't quite match what they should have been, like Stevie's mom. She seemed too confident to be a beaten and abused women. But overall, a great book!

he Devil Crept In is the second novel I've read by Ania Ahlborn. After having enjoyed Brother I was anxious to see if Ahlborn would thrill me with another read. The Devil Crept In did not disappoint but is definitely not for the faint of heart. If you're not into horror, blood, guts and things that go bump in the night stay far far away.

Ania Ahlborn introduces us to a Stevie Clark who is called into action when his best friend, and cousin Jude, goes missing. Stevie's world is turned upside down with this disappearance because Jude is his only friend. Stevie is an outcast due to an accident that left him a few fingers short and his struggle with echolalia. To add insult to injury he frequently has nightmares and often doesn't trust his own mind. Piling on all that sits his mother's abusive boyfriend. To say life is not easy for Stevie is the understatement of the century.

Although Jude isn't always nice to him, he's the one person he loves with an almost obsessive devotion. The death of Jude's father is to blame for a lot of Jude's rebellion. What happens to Jude after having been kidnapped is a whole nother thing...

On the other side of town, beyond the forest, sits a home that harbors a horror no one in this small town could ever imagine. A horror that could possibly be the reason there are no pets in town, or the reason for a child Jude's age disappeared years earlier. Something's going bump in the night and we get to find out what.

The Devil Crept In is a quick read, fast paced, and yet very well written. Ahlborn is descriptive and paints a vivid picture for readers. This attention to detail proves her brilliance in a genre that can often rely solely on blood and gore instead of character depth. Ahlborn delivers both.

Yes! It's no secret that I enjoyed Ahlborn's latest thrill fest but I did have my issues. Much of The Devil Crept In, or at least after the introduction of the monster, had me scratching my head because there was an odd connection between the trapper and the trapped that just seemed to easy to dismiss as a case of sacrificial offering. I hope that didn't give too much away, but these instances felt like a stretch.

I guess the scratching didn't do enough to keep me from charging ahead. The hope that this would be explained was what kept me going... along with my interest in the story (of course). So... I made it through and all my questions were answered yet I still feel a little duped.

So why give it a 4-star rating still? Because she had me there. Ania Ahlborn fed me a story that I could not get enough of. Some would be a little disappointed and rightfully so. I almost felt the Epilogue needed and Epilogue... but seriously. I enjoyed every page of this book. Even though the ending was a little infuriating, I admit. When I wasn't reading this novel, I was thinking about it.

That's gotta count for something, right? Yes. In my mind it does. I can't wait to read more by Ania Ahlborn. The Devil Crept In firmly placed this author on my favorites list.

Copy provided by Simon & Schuster via Netgalley

I am a huge fan of Ania Ahlborn. I just want to say that right from the start. I have read several of her books and they have floored me with their fresh concepts and wonderful sick and twisted endings! This book however, disappointed me a little bit, as I wasn't as taken with the characters or the ending of this book. In fact, the ending sort of made me angry. Almost to the point where I am not so sure I understood what happened. The story takes place in a small town, a town that seems a wee bit different/stranger than your average every day small town. You kinda knew that something wasn't quite right almost from the start. Jude goes missing. Jude isn't the most loveable child (teen ager actually) but he is Stevie Clark's cousin and only friend. Stevie is very upset by his friends disappearance. He is desperate to find him. Suddenly Jude returns and according to Stevie, Jude is not the same person he was when he left. Saying more might spoil the fun, so I will leave it at that.
I just felt that something about this story was lacking. I'm not quite sure what it was but I didn't enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed "Brother" and "Within These Walls"

Ahlborn is excellent at crafting page-turning stories in the B-movie horror tradition. This is the third I've read by her, and while I haven't felt that any of them were 'great literature,' they certainly drag me along through their nasty mysteries.

'The Devil Crept In' is the story of Stevie, an emotionally disturbed child with an abusive stepdad and a mom who's great at denial, and who has never gotten around to taking him to a doctor. His only friend is his older cousin, Jude. So when Jude goes missing in the woods around their poor, rural community, Stevie is devastated. Little does he know that the only thing worse than Jude going missing and being presumed dead will be... for Jude to come back. Something awful lurks in those woods, and the Jude who comes out of the woods isn't quite the same as the Jude who walked in. But no one seems to acknowledge the strangeness except Stevie - and Stevie knows he can't always depend on his own perceptions.

It's really hard to write adult fiction from the perspective of a child - and even harder to effectively speak from the point of view of someone with a mental disorder. Ahlborn, here, has set herself the task of doing both, simultaneously - and it really works quite well. I was impressed by that.

Many thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opions are unaffected by the source of the book.

Stevie is an absolutely awesome character - his dogged search in the Oregon woods was compelling and really drew me in to see if I could second-guess what was going to happen next. Stevie's addiction to the cop shows means he knows exactly how this could turn out and that just makes him more determined to solve the case and find Jude. I loved the narrative style - it felt almost like true crime at times, it was so realistic. I think that having Stevie as a main character really set it apart from other books of this genre and made me much more involved in how this would turn out. I always try to avoid spoilers in my reviews - I'll just leave with the urge that you should definitely read this book. It's totally unforgettable. I'm now off to search out her back catalogue!

This story starts out a little slow but it’s of the slow burn variety that builds into something terrible and terrifying so I didn’t mind too much.

Stevie's best and only friend, Jude, wandered out into the woods near their home one day and never came home. No one besides Jude's mother and Stevie seem terribly upset about it. Jude was an unlikable sort, sure, but the lack of interest in finding him is a little bothersome so Stevie decides to investigate on his own. He and Jude had spent endless hours in the forest doing what boys do in the woods and came upon a creepy old house. Stevie is certain that house has something to do with Jude’s disappearance.

This story is a mishmash of many horror-ish things. It’s a coming of age tale mixed up with remnants of King’s Pet Sematary and a splattering of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but it’s totally its own story. What is eventually revealed is horrifying, disturbing and very gruesome and could give you nightmares if you think about the images too much.

I enjoyed the slow unraveling of this story and watching how the origin of a nightmare begins. Stevie was an interesting kid, struggling with a disorder that makes him a target and growing up with an assholish step-dad. He’s determined to find his friend and later he’s unafraid to stir up a little trouble to get at the truth. There’s a side story that I won’t reveal that absolutely captured me where one very unlucky woman is faced with a moral dilemma like none other I’ve ever read and I felt for her. She only wanted love but she got something else entirely!

A word of warning, if you need one, there are deaths in here and many of them happen to innocent little beasts but it’s all part of this story and felt like an awful, natural progression of one of the characters.

If you like your horror gory and creepy then this one’s for you.

Full of thrills and terror, this is a good solid choice to add to library collections with a strong demand for horror/thriller genres.

DNF: Could not get into the story at all, tried multiple times. This book just wasn't for me.

The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn is a horror novel with better writing than you might expect from the genre. It follows a ten year old boy named Stevie, living in a downtrodden small town in Oregon. His troublemaker cousin and BFF, Jude, has disappeared. This follows another disappearance, from a few years before, of young boy who was later found dead. Stevie starts to investigate, which leads him into the woods that surrounds their town and an ominous old house that may (or may not!) be abandoned. I’ll admit that I wasn’t immediately drawn into this book. I found Stevie’s modern day story a bit tedious. However, there is a subplot, which is well done and super creepy. Rosie’s story gives the reader insight into the origins of that old ominous house – and why it’s still a threat. This would be a great choice for fans of Stephen King’s 1980s stuff (think Pet Cemetery).

Published in the Napanee Guide ("What's New in Fiction?") March 2, 2017

I have to start by saying I took a chance on this book as I don't typically read horror, not since I was a teenager and read Stephen King's older horror novels. After seeing so many friends rave about it I thought I'd give it a try and overall, I was happy I did. I thought the first part was a slow burn type set up which introduced the characters Stevie and his missing friend Jude well and created a feeling of dread, as if we just knew "something" was going to happen and it probably wouldn't be good. The setting of the woods and small town worked perfectly with the story to create an atmospheric gloom and escalating fear. I thought things picked up pretty well in the second part and there were times I was thoroughly scared! While I felt for Stevie, I sometimes felt disconnected with the author's use of language that a 10 year old child probably wouldn't say and that somewhat disrupted the flow of the story for me. I'm not sure I liked the epilogue or felt that everything meshed all that well. Overall, an average horror read for me.

Because horns and tail never go out of style
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29430798-the-devil-crept-in
About the Book
n unforgettable horror novel from bestselling sensation Ania Ahlborn—hailed as a writer of “some of the most promising horror I’ve encountered in years” (New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire)—in which a small-town boy investigates the mysterious disappearance of his cousin and uncovers a terrifying secret kept hidden for years.

Young Jude Brighton has been missing for three days, and while the search for him is in full swing in the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon, the locals are starting to lose hope. They’re well aware that the first forty-eight hours are critical and after that, the odds usually point to a worst-case scenario. And despite Stevie Clark’s youth, he knows that, too; he’s seen the cop shows. He knows what each ticking moment may mean for Jude, his cousin and best friend.

That, and there was that boy, Max Larsen...the one from years ago, found dead after also disappearing under mysterious circumstances. And then there were the animals: pets gone missing out of yards. For years, the residents of Deer Valley have murmured about these unsolved crimes…and that a killer may still be lurking around their quiet town. Now, fear is reborn—and for Stevie, who is determined to find out what really happened to Jude, the awful truth may be too horrifying to imagine.


If you were looking for a superbly written both plot and character driven horror story, you GOTTA read this book NOW.

I love horror. I grew up reading and watching horror stories so there is not much that scares me. But this book wrapped his cold, skeleton fingers around my throat and scare me GOOD!
And there is just ONE supernatural element here!
But the insanely gripping plot and characters arcs, starkly precision and realism of the writing, and the perfect pacing create such a tense eerie atmosphere that, that you don’t even need that ONE and only supernatural thing!

Reading this book was like when I was little with my girl scouts friends, in a tent, at night in the woods, weird shadows casted by the flashlights under our chins, scared to death by the eerie cracks and rustlings around us hoping it’s just a squirrel or the wind but knowing it could be so many other things.

This is good classic, old school horror storytelling. A deformed, unholy tale with horns, tail and all.

And it all stars with the character arcs. They are so gritty that they are their own horror stories per se.

The tale is told from Stevie’s perspective, an unreliable narrator. He is a super sweet kid with a very unhappy life. He has no friends, an abusive stepfather, a doormat of a mother and a jerk of an older brother. He gets bullied often and when he knows something happened to his only friend and cousin. But no one believes him because of his recurring hallucinations and his inability to communicate effectively due to his speech impairment,

So he really wants to find and help his cousin Jude but no one seems to care because the small town where he lives is also bizarre and creepy.

Then there is also Jude who has some serious issue, and no one likes, and well… to whom something REALLY horrific happens

And there is THAT woman. The lives in the woods. And her story is also so heartbreaking and creepy and horrific…

I hope after you have read this book you have learned the lesson…
Don’t get a pet
Don’t let your kids out of your sight
Don’t go into the woods.
And for god sake…
NEVER NEVER NEVER GO NEAR THAT HOUSE!

Don’t you just love it whenever a horror novel lives up to its promise? No joke, I actually had to stop reading this book at night because it was getting too disturbing and creepy for me, and you know I’m not one to scare easily. If this is what I’ve been missing out on for so many years, I wish to hell I’d started reading Ania Ahlborn much sooner.

In the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon lives a ten-year-old boy named Stevie Clark. Ostracized by the other kids at school because of his speech impediment and the missing fingers on one of his hands, Stevie has no friends except for his neighbor and cousin Jude Brighton. Whether it’s watching true crime shows on TV or building a secret fort out in the woods, the two of them do everything together and have been inseparable for years.

Then one day, Jude goes missing. The entire town mobilizes to try to find the boy, but after his bloody sweatshirt is found, the whole mood of Deer Valley seems to shift. To Stevie’s frustration, no one seems to think they’ll find his cousin alive anymore. After all, the search has already been going on for three days with no luck, and the locals all know the story about Max Larsen, another boy who met a gruesome end in these woods years ago, after disappearing under similar circumstances. That story doesn’t get talked about much though, not unlike the reports going back for years about the dogs and cats that go missing from their owners’ yards. There’s a good reason why there are no veterinarians in Deer Valley.

Last year I read and was a little disappointed by the book Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay, another horror novel with “a boy goes missing in the woods” main plot. Somehow I can’t help but think The Devil Crept In is what that story should have been. Ahlborn’s take on the premise is the real deal, the way a true horror of psychological thrills and supernatural suspense should have played out. It is a creepy tale worthy of the campfire, containing all the right ingredients: a small town with a big secret, a terrifying local legend that holds more truth than meets the eye, and a young innocent boy that no one takes seriously because of his disability.

Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing from the start; like any good scary story, this one required a bit of setup. I would describe The Devil Crept In as a novel of three parts. Ahlborn uses the first to establish our main character, a boy who lives a troubled life. Stevie’s father walked out on his family when he was younger, and his mom remarried an abusive man who beats him while she looks the other way. Stevie also often feels frustration at his own speech disorder, unable to get his thoughts across without losing control of his words. He is the target of the worst bullying because of it, not only by the other kids but by his own older brother and some adults as well. So you can imagine how horrible it is for a someone like Stevie to lose his only friend, which means too that the entire first part of this book is taken up by his obsession with finding Jude, with the dogged determination you would expect from a ten-year-old. In my opinion, the introduction was a little too drawn out, with Stevie’s chapters becoming repetitive after a while.

Fortunately, that was probably the only point where I felt this book faltered. Ahlborn follows up with a second part that brings about the full-on creeps. The transition was a little jarring at first, as the narrative veers off into a completely different direction, starting over with a seemingly unrelated tale about a woman named Rosie. I’m not going to talk too much about her, as that would spoil the story; all I’ll say is that I quickly became riveted by the horrifying details of her tragic, disturbing life—like witnessing a bloody car wreck where you just can’t tear your eyes away. It might take some time for this part to make sense with the rest of the novel, but once it clicks into place, you’ll see how it all the pieces fit the big picture. The third and final part of The Devil Crept In is where all this magic happens, as elements from Jude’s disappearance and Rosie’s tale begin to gradually come together.

The results are eerily satisfying and really hit the spot. For a straight-up entertaining and chill-you-t0-your-bones good read, I really can’t recommend this one enough. Mark my words, this might be my first novel by Ania Ahlborn, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Review: THE DEVIL CREPT IN by Ania Ahlborn

Not once has an Ania Ahlborn novel disappointed me! Always fascinating, engrossing, and intriguing, her novels expand my imagination. In THE DEVIL CREPT IN, she interweaves two separate plot lines and the result is a terrifying and implacable horror, a horror which should not exist in nature, with consequences that violate physical laws (such as changes in the behavior patterns of animals). This horror is delineated so subtly, like a frog boiled in initially lukewarm water, that the reader (and the good characters) are over one before we can realize.

I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Stevie, a 10 year old boy with some very serious mental health issues. He has episodes where he sees things that aren’t really there, resulting in manic episodes and full blown violent tantrums. One such example mentioned early on in the book was when Stevie was over at his cousin Jude’s house and thought his own fingers were snakes so he stuck them in the garbage disposal and chopped them off. But when Jude disappears, Stevie is sure he sees a monster lurking and he’s sure that the monster has taken Jude. Only problem is no one believes him. So he sets out to rescue Jude on his own. But is 10-year-old schizophrenic Stevie really any match for the danger lurking in the shadows? And when Jude suddenly reappears on his own, can Stevie believe that the danger is really passed? Or are Jude’s worsening anger issues a sign that the real danger is yet to come?
Overall I liked this book. There were some dry parts to it but I thought it was extremely scary and a great tension-filled novel. Reading this for me was very much like watching a horror-movie, where you’re screaming at the TV “Don’t go into that abandoned house!!” I liked reading from the two different characters points of view, and I loved how well the author portrayed Stevie’s mind-set. The reader begins to doubt (as Stevie does) how reliable these things are that happen to Stevie. And as the horrors unfold, what is real and what isn’t? And the reader so accurately can feel Stevie’s frustrations over not being believed, it really is a novel that will dig into your mind. There were some slow parts as I already mentioned but if you’re looking for a scary read I would give this one a try!

This is my first book by this author so I had no idea what I was getting into, and it was creepy and weird but not really all that scary.

The story is from the POV of a young boy who is a little bit on the strange side, he has some problems and everyone calls him mental. He loves watching cop shows and his only friend isn't really a friend but a cousin who isn't really all that nice to him.

One day his friend goes missing and Steve knows from all the cop shows that it's important to find him within the first couple of days or things could get bad. He wants to help find him but his mother won't let him, then one day Jude comes back but he isn't the same.

There is also another POV that it switches too and that is a woman named Rose who lives in the woods and about her strange son.

Steve sort of drove me crazy with his weird speech and repetitive talk, I was kind of like his brother Duncan, talk but don't do that repetitive speak. He was just strange so sometimes it was easy to see why nobody would believe him when he kept trying to tell them about Jude being different.

Overall, it was an interesting story and it was a bit creepy but I think I was hoping it would be a bit more creepy than it was. It's definitely worth trying if you like the author or horror books.

I was a bit skeptical when I first started this one, it was on the slow side and there wasn’t much to be afraid of. I needn’t have worried because as the book progressed, so did the creep factor. This is broken up into three parts; part one is told by Stevie a ten year old boy. His cousin and best friend Jude is missing and he’s frantic with worry. Part two is told from Rosie’s perspective, she’s a young woman living deep in the forest of Deer Valley, Oregon with her husband and she desperately wants a child. Part three is when things really start to get intense and downright horrifying as the storylines merge together.

Even though the pacing for the beginning of Jude’s story was a bit slow for me, I was very taken in by his character. This poor kid, he lives with his detached mother, his abusive stepfather and his jerky older brother. His only friend is Jude and he’s lost and frightened without him. He stutters and does this odd rhyming thing when he speaks, so as you can imagine school is a nightmare for him. On top of all of that, he’s struggling in regards to his mental health and no one seems to care very much. I wanted to take care of this sweet boy and give him the love and affection he deserves, he really got under my skin. Then there’s Rosie whose one wish is to be a mother and when she miscarried, my heart broke. I don’t want to discuss her too much as anything I would say would be a spoiler, but my heart really went out to her.

The setting of the small town of Deer Valley that’s surrounded by a dense forest was a perfect backdrop for the horrors Ahlborn created. From the trees that seemed to whisper secrets to the people who dared to venture into the forest to the animals who seemed otherworldly in a highly disturbing way, the author absolutely nailed the atmosphere of this book. This one is gory and graphic, I was chilled to the bone many times while reading. Have you ever been watching a scary movie and kind of watched with one eye open? That was me reading this. The epilogue was utter perfection, I was petrified and pleased by it, and by now you guys now how much a strong ending means to me. If you’re a mystery/thriller fan who doesn’t mind supernatural elements and graphic descriptions, give this one a chance.