Dark Roads Traveled by Tony Tremblay

 

J.R. Tolkien once wrote that the road goes ever on and on. Tony Tremblay examines the darker side of Tolkien’s quote with four novellas ranging from the soul-sucking isolation of identity loss to the horrifying specter of mass annihilation.

Orange Eyes: A taxi driver with amnesia attempts to determine who he is and why he has orange eyes. His answers come when a woman calls for a cab and relates to him a story about her sister—a woman with amnesia and orange eyes. The three of them engage in a psychedelic journey of horror to discover the answers they seek.

The Cabin on The Mountain: There is a log cabin in the mountains of Goffstown, New Hampshire, where lost souls travel—and are never seen again. The cabin has a caretaker who oversees the property, but he cannot interfere with those who seek refuge. That all changes when a young boy, a husband seeking his wife, and a wife seeking her husband descend on the cabin.

Ghosts: A middle-aged woman purchases a home, unaware that it is the site of multiple murders. After several life-threatening instances, she turns to her neighbors, the local gas station owner, and the police chief for help. She soon learns that ghosts are quite different than what she has been led to believe.

The Tempest: The end of the world begins locally with a sound that kills an older man and a young woman. As they navigate their environment in the hopes of survival, additional catastrophes batter them to the point of hopelessness. When it appears their lives are over, salvation comes in the form of a hole in the ground. Or does it?

Dark Roads Traveled contains four novellas in one fantastic book by one of my favorite authors, and I have been dying to talk about it for months!

Orange Eyes

A lonely woman brings a stranger back to her apartment and then goes missing. When she is found, she is no longer the woman she used to be. A man with amnesia and orange eyes will help to find the reasons why. This story went off in a shocking and brutal direction I was not expecting.

The Cabin On The Mountain was my favorite part of the book. In it, a guardian and his dog greet visitors who will walk up a mountain path and never return. It is not known how these visitors mysteriously find their way to this guardian. Only those who have been called may walk the path. There is a remarkable depth and pulse to these characters with themes of abuse and dementia that drive this intricately woven tale with a focus on the darker side of human nature. There is much trauma and grief among these complex characters in this well-crafted literary fiction. I would love a novel-length sequel.

Ghost
A woman moves into a house in a town where there have been several murders and strange suicides. Her friendly neighbors know more than they're telling in this twisty and surprisingly touching story. 

The Tempest is about a storm of epic proportions with hail like ice picks and winds that lift homes and people alike into a black hole, wild fires, lightning, a sound that knocks you unconscious, and then kills you. All over the world the apocalypse is upon us. Who will survive?  Here, the author has created a multiverse that even Lovecraft would be proud of.

These imaginative and well-crafted stories are presented with a rich and nuanced narrative that evoke a range of emotions. Dark Roads Traveled has landed firmly on my best horror of the year list.

My thanks to Tony Tremblay for the ARC 

Available for Pre-order