Hekla children‘Hekla’s Children’ isn’t James Brogden’s first novel but it might be the first that falls more into the realm of Horror instead of Urban Fantasy. It mixes horror, alternate history, a modern suspense, and a bit of a time slip situation and weaves all of these themes together into a fast-paced and brilliantly written novel. The cause of all of our woes in the novel is an ancient evil which has once again reared its ugly head though no one believes that is what is going on.

I mean, realistically, would you?

In the novel, we follow Nathan Brookes who is a teacher that ten years prior had four students disappear while on a trip to Sutton Park in England. The day after they went missing one of the students named Olivia came back though the other three are lost to this day. Now, a body has been found, and it is suspected to be the remains of one of the children.

Next, we follow Tara Doumani who has to determine if the body is one of the missing kids and discovers that a limb is though the rest of the body is from completely different people. The body itself is protecting our world from the Land of Un, and that is where things start to get strange.

The use of an alternate world right next to our own is used in many fantasy situations from ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ to the ‘Harry Potter’ series and yet most of these examples lack the sinister nature you can find here.

Brogden delivers a solid set of character development and fleshes out not just the primary characters but the supporting ones as well. This properly done fleshing out is a good thing too with how much the narrative changes as the book progress.

It is a joy to reach the rich worlds which have been created here and is a tale masterfully told through different viewpoints. Highly suggested for an interesting take on horror which has an ending with an impact though I’m not sure I agreed with the direction it took. Still, well worth reading through!

atoms_4.5

Hekla’s Children
By: James Brogden
Titan Books
March 7th, 2017

horizontal line

Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!