Books › The Hunger
The Hunger
589 pages
A dread-soaked reimagining of an American tragedy where the true horror lies both in the unforgiving wilderness and the darkness within.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like walking into a freezing, inescapable fog. It is a masterclass in slow-burn dread, taking a well-known historical tragedy and infusing it with a creeping, supernatural rot. The pacing is steady and deliberate, mirroring the agonizingly slow progress of the wagon train as optimism gives way to starvation, paranoia, and madness. The prose is atmospheric and grounded, making the biting cold and gnawing hunger feel viscerally real before the true horrors even reveal themselves. It is a bleak, claustrophobic experience that traps you with deeply flawed characters who are as haunted by their past sins as they are by the unseen entity stalking them. Perfect for readers who devour historical horror, this is a chilling exploration of survival, desperation, and the monstrous things people do when pushed to the absolute brink.
- Mood
- dread-soaked
- claustrophobic
- chilling
- paranoia-inducing
- Tone
- ominous
- bleak
- suspenseful
- somber
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- survival and desperation · darkness of human nature · inescapable pasts · isolation · supernatural corruption
- The writing
- Atmospheric and meticulously detailed, blending historical realism with creeping, macabre imagery.
- The arc
- Begins with uneasy optimism that slowly rots into suffocating paranoia, culminating in desperate, visceral terror.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love historical fiction laced with supernatural dread and psychological horror, where the environment is as deadly as the monsters.
Content notes
- cannibalism
- graphic violence
- starvation
- child death
- animal death
- gore
- suicide
About the book
"A retelling of the fate of the Donner Party, with a Walking Dead style twist"--
Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.
Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone--or something--is stalking them. Whether it was a curse from the beautiful Tamsen, the choice to follow a disastrous experimental route West, or just plain bad luck--the 90 men, women, and children of the Donner Party are at the brink of one of the deadliest and most disastrous western adventures in American history.
While the ill-fated group struggles to survive in the treacherous mountain conditions--searing heat that turns the sand into bubbling stew; snows that freeze the oxen where they stand--evil begins to grow around them, and within them. As members of the party begin to disappear, they must ask themselves "What if there is something waiting in the mountains? Something disturbing and diseased...and very hungry?"
Description from Open Library.
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