Book Review: CHURN THE SOIL by Steve Stred

CHURN THE SOIL by Steve Stred (Black Void Publishing, February 1, 2023) Paperback, 294 pages. ISBN # 9781990260247 

Synopsis on the Goodreads website . . . . .

Two hundred miles north of the town of Basco sits The Border. It’s a quiet, off-the-grid settlement, where the residents have developed a tentative agreement with those that live on the other side of the clearing.

But things are about to change forever. 

As night falls, a teenage girl is brutally murdered as she flees across the clearing. 

Now, it’s up to Basco PD officers Brown and Reynolds to find her killer. 

But the truth is far worse than they could possibly imagine, and the more the officers uncover, the bolder the things beyond the clearing grow. 

‘Under an icy snowfall…’

‘Under a clear, blue moon…’

North of The Border lies a land unseen by man. A land where things are ready and waiting… to feed.

Splatterpunk-Nominated author Steve Stred, who brought you ‘Mastodon’ and ‘Incarnate,’ delivers a pulse-pounding, high-stakes story where if the cold doesn’t kill you, the Forest Guards will.

My Four-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

     Steve Stred's story straddles several genres (folk horror, creature feature, mystery-thriller, police procedural) and manages to satisfy and sometimes exceed the expectations that come when reading each of those genres.

     CHURN THE SOIL gets high marks for building a sense of dread beginning with a short nightmarish prologue and maintaining it throughout the novel while increasing the anxiety level through an elevated threat and a rapidly increasing body count. I would have preferred more detail about the isolated community at the Border and the origins of the curious relationship with the frightening inhabitants of the forest on the other side - - but this does get some later explanation albeit at a minimal level. Same goes for the identity of the culprit behind the betrayal, which many readers may deduce before the main characters do. 

     There is good character development here. One of the things I appreciated as a different approach is the characterization of chief of police Graham Brown, a flawed character who makes poor decisions throughout. However, this wouldn't be the book that it is without those bad choices. Decisions have consequences, and many of those do not turn out well for a good percentage of the players involved.

     The ending was satisfying, although some explanations and reveals were generalized and left to readers to decipher the specifics. Steve Stred shows a lot of promise as a horror writer, and I believe his knock-out novel is somewhere in the future. 

This earns 3.5 stars but I haven't figured out how to rate in fractions on Goodreads. Thanks to Horror Afficanados for selecting CHURN THE SOIL as a March group read with the author, who provided some interesting insights and reveals to participants.