2024 Bram Stoker Award®️ Nominee for Superior Achievement in a First Novel “ A hallucinatory
nightmare of a novel that blends adventure horror and historical fiction and isn’t shy about
violence or strangeness. ” — New York Times “If you love wilderness horror This Wretched
Valley is a must-read.”—Alma Katsu author of The Hunger and The Fervor Take only pictures.
Leave only bones. This trip is going to be Dylan’s big break. Her geologist friend Clay has
discovered an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness and she is going to be the first
person to climb it. Together with Clay his research assistant Sylvia and Dylan’s boyfriend
Luke Dylan is going to document her achievement on Instagram and finally cement her place as
the next rising star in rock climbing. Seven months later three bodies are discovered in the
trees just off the highway. All are in various states of decay: one a stark white skeleton
the second emptied of its organs and the third a mutilated corpse with the tongue eyes ears
and fingers removed. But Dylan is still missing—and no trace of her dead or alive has been
discovered. Were the climbers murdered? Did they succumb to cannibalism? Or are their
impossible bodies the work of an even more sinister force? This dread-inducing debut builds
to a bloodcurdling climax and will leave you shocked by the final twist.
