There are probably easier ways to cure writer’s block than moving your family to a remote New Hampshire town where mutilated bodies have begun turning up in the woods.
That, however, is the situation facing Russell Tolliver in Jared Grace’s horror novel Isolation.
An acclaimed author who has found himself unable to write, Russell leaves Boston with his family in search of peace and quiet. Their destination is a secluded community with the rather ominous name of Isolation, New Hampshire.
At first, the move appears to have worked. There are forests, distance from the city and presumably enough silence for Russell to rediscover whatever part of himself once put words on the page.
Then people start dying.
Rumours begin circulating about a strange creature lurking in the surrounding forest. Those rumours become considerably harder to dismiss once mutilated bodies begin appearing.
Russell joins forces with his neighbours Tom and Mitchell, along with Bryce, a reclusive local historian, to investigate what is happening. What they uncover suggests that the killings may be connected to something buried in the town’s past.
That setup gives Isolation an appealing mixture of small-town mystery, creature horror and psychological thriller. The monster in the woods may provide the immediate danger, but Grace also appears interested in what happens to people once isolation and fear begin stripping away their sense of security.
As Grace puts it, “Isolation changes people.” The author says the novel explores what happens when someone is pushed beyond their limits and discovers there is nowhere left to hide.
There is also something appropriately personal about Grace using rural New Hampshire as the setting for the story. Born outside Boston, Grace now lives in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, where hiking, local history and paranormal research are among the interests that feed his fiction.
He studied both English and history at Southern New Hampshire University—two influences that make the combination of regional history and supernatural horror in Isolation feel like natural territory for him.
Grace has continued exploring similar themes in Beyond the Autumn Leaves, another story built around the wilderness, the supernatural and a protagonist confronting something considerably stranger than expected.
That novel follows Matt Burke as he attempts the Alpine Staircase to the summit of Mount Whitehorse, retracing the trail on which his father died. What begins as a personal pilgrimage gradually becomes something far stranger as Matt encounters distorted perceptions of time and reality, a mysterious child in the forest and an unknown presence stalking him through the mountains.
Taken together, Grace’s work seems particularly interested in the idea that the wilderness is never truly empty. Mountains and forests may offer an escape from civilisation, but they also provide plenty of places for history, grief—and perhaps a monster or two—to hide.
For Isolation, that means Russell Tolliver may eventually discover that escaping Boston was the easy part.
Getting out of Isolation could prove considerably harder.
Isolation by Jared Grace is available now.
You can learn more about Jared Grace by finding him on Facebook and Instagram.
I once read a book called Psychoville as a teenager (I forget the author’s name) about two abused teenagers who take revenge on their bullies as adults (although that’s psychological horror not supernatural horror). It was also set in a small town.