The Hungry Dark

I’ve been a big fan of mysteries and thrillers since I was young, though I haven’t read nearly as many in the last few years. Thrillers still catch my eye, especially when they weave in some supernatural or horror elements, and this is what drew me to The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams. Combining a hunt for a serial killer with an ability to see supernatural beings and a centuries-old curse, this book ticks a lot of my boxes when it comes to thrills and chills!

Special thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Summary

Ashley Whitelam, along with her older brother and her dad, has made a career as a psychic, using psychology and social media research to prey on grieving people. However, Ashley was able to see supernatural beings she called the “Heedful Ones” when she was a kid… and when she accompanies the local police to help find a missing child, she starts seeing them again for the first time in nearly 20 years. Ashley locates the body of the missing kid—the latest victim of the Gingerbread House Murderer—plunging her into suspicion from the police and increased interest from media outlets. While her dad wants to capitalize on this turn of events, Ashley is reluctant to speak to anyone, largely because the truth is so impossible to believe. But when she teams up with a true crime podcaster to try to solve the Gingerbread House murders, it leads her closer to her own past trauma and a curse that has cast its shadow over the local community for centuries.

Review

Going into The Hungry Dark, I was excited to see how it would balance out the thriller elements with the horror aspects. On the one hand, Ashley Whitelam is making a living off of being a psychic, but it’s all a sham. She agrees to help the local police find a missing kid, the latest victim in the Gingerbread House murders, all as a ploy to get more business for herself. But on the other hand, there are legitimate supernatural beings—the “Heedful Ones”—that Ashley can see, even if no one else believes her. This is how she was able to find the missing child, and indeed, how she got into the unsavory business of being a fake psychic. Eighteen years ago, she survived a horrific event that left her traumatized, and she hadn’t seen a Heedful One since… until now, that is. How much of The Hungry Dark would be a realistic thriller about bloodthirsty killers? How much would be about the supernatural and the curse over the local community?

This novel is mainly divided into two narratives: The present-day story in 2022, in which Ashley is helping a true crime podcaster solve the Gingerbread House murders. In between, we get a look into what happened back in 2004, when Ashely survived a tragic event that she was somehow able to predict but not prevent. In addition to these chapters, we also get excerpts of the Murder on My Mind podcast hosted by Freddie Miller, whom Ashley is helping during his series on the Gingerbread House murders.

The Hungry Dark weaves in a lot of elements to great effect. There’s the fake psychic business Ashley has with her dad and brother, her secret ability to see Heedful Ones, the case of the Gingerbread House murders, Ashley’s traumatic past in 2004, her troubled relationship with her family, her tentative romance with the true crime podcaster, and an old curse that may have some bearing on it all. While that may seem like too much to juggle, I thought it all came together well here. It kept the story engaging throughout, even with a slightly slower pace through most of the book.

Audiobook

Emma Fenney is a great narrator in The Hungry Dark, with a tone that lends itself well to the spooky, harsh atmosphere of the novel and main character. She doesn’t put on drastically different voices for the characters, so they’re not always as easily distinguished by timbre or accent, but that doesn’t detract from the story at all. I listened to the audiobook at 1.5x speed and found that to be a good pace; otherwise it felt a bit too slow.

Final Thoughts

The Hungry Dark is an eerie and engrossing novel that merges thriller and horror equally. With its stunning yet severe backdrop, characters who aren’t always likable, and a tale that gets more complex as it unfolds, this is a book that would appeal to a wide variety of readers and could work really well as a film or series adaptation. It’s my first time reading Jen Williams, but I’m definitely curious to read more from her soon.

Get the Book

You can buy The Hungry Dark here – it’s available as a hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.

The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams
Audiobook Narrator	Emma Fenney
Audience	Adult
Genre	Horror; Thriller
Setting	England
Book Length	11 hours
Format I Read	Audiobook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	April 9, 2024
Publisher	Crooked Lane Books

Official Summary

Macabre murders plague a rural town as a scam-artist psychic races to find the answers in this haunting thriller from award-winning author Jen Williams, perfect for fans of Camilla Sten and Alex North.

As a child, Ashley Whitelam could often see odd things nobody else could: quiet, watchful figures she called the Heedful Ones kept a strange vigil wherever she went. As an adult, she keeps these visions to herself, but she’s turned her taste of the beyond into a career as a “psychic”­ – parting people from their money with a combination of psychology and internet research. When the Lake District is gripped by a series of grisly child murders, Ashley offers her services to the police for the free publicity. But as Ashley leads the police on a fruitless search around the small town of Green Beck, she catches a glimpse of those old ghosts of her childhood and, following them into the woods, she finds something she never expected: the corpse of the latest missing child.

The press fly into a frenzy and the police grow suspicious: either Ashley’s psychic abilities are real, or she is guilty of murder. Hounded by interviews and interrogations, Ashley teams up with Freddie Miller, a podcaster covering the crimes. As they investigate, Ashley realises that there’s no way to distance herself from these murders: whoever or whatever it is that’s haunting the Lakes is haunting her, too.

Master of unsettling suspense Jen Williams is back with another chilling, dark read that will draw readers into a gruesome and atmospheric nightmare.