The Campfire Cult

by J. Strange

It was the last summer night at Amble Park for the Campfire Club--an outcast group of pre-teens fueled by s'mores and ghost stories--when Marcy discovered the perfectly intact skull of a whitetail buck. It was the same night that she saw Him, a formidable, antlered form that watched her from the windows of an abandoned building in the trees. Since that night, Marcy has been running from that unknowable darkness, traumatized by night terrors, panic attacks, and gruesome hallucinations.

Now, in the care of St. Peter's Center for Mental Health, she's been out of its reach for years, but she's no closer to knowing what that horror was or why it chose her.

When her childhood friend Josh comes to visit, he shows her letters and drawings from their mutual friend Kevin that suggest Marcy's hallucinations aren't hers alone. Kevin appears to be meddling with the occult, and his wife is nowhere to be found. Now Josh wants to bring the Campfire Club back together for Kevin's sake, but with every grim discovery, the seams of their reality begin to come undone.

Marcy must once again confront her fears to end the nightmare whose roots run deeper and wider than they could have ever known.

274 pages, Paperback

Published February 2, 2019

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I loved most, was the descriptive writing. I am a visual reader, and the author's writing hit all the right notes in creating beauty in horror and such a creepy, uncomfortable ambiance. There were a couple of issues with the book, but my biggest complaint was the pacing. Or more so, the rising action of the story. I did not get a sense of it until the last quarter of the book. I was experiencing the story, but there wasn't a ticking bomb or ramp-up to a conclusion. There should be that anxiety of something terrible getting closer and closer that keeps me turning the pages. I wish the author had more books because her writing style is something that I feel gets abandoned by more mainstream books as being too descriptive, but it isn't, it's beautiful.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A haunting and chilling exploration into the psyche of a woman who feels separated from reality thanks to the demons and monsters that lurk inside her. A beautifully grotesque painting of what it feels like to come back to the town you grew up in, only to find both of you have changed so much, that it warps the fabric of reality itself and the past that you held so dear.

[Gerwant zRovii · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of mixed feelings here. I don't feel great giving a bad rating to such a niche novel, on the other hand... it's been a while since I've seen characters written so badly. The rest of the book is really good, the atmosphere, the tone, the poetic descriptions - I loved them, there's a lot of grotesque and beautiful imagery of animals, shadows, nature and dead things that aren't really out of this world. I loved the overall idea, the terrible entity manipulating people through the dreams and visions, the eerie forest god, impossible to fully understand, walking the line between the reality and madness.
There was so much potential here.
But the characters just ruin it. I know it sounds harsh, but they are the weakest part of the book, so bad I can't give it more than two stars. Most of them are incredibly flat, I'd struggle to say anything about them, apart from their connection to the main character. But that's less of a problem than the inconsistency of their behavour. That is what killed this book for me and left me frustrated and exasperated after so many paragraphs.
What they say, think and do doesn't align at all. Not in the slightest. Things just happen, things are said, but there is no connection. Imagine a character thinking "this situation is incredibly suspicious, I have a bad feeling about it, I need to get out of here, something is off with this person", but saying "hey, do you like lasagna?" and then taking a nap on the sofa. It's awkward. I tried to figure out whether it was because the main character was so indifferent towards her own life, but apparently no, she just has a half of a brain cell and struggles make any connections or to imagine where things may lead. In the beginning her trust makes sense, but very soon it becomes completely out of place. Her agenda is unclear, in one moment she is ready to run for her life, in another she decides to take really strong sleeping pills and call it a day. Her anxiety is supposed to be through the roof, strong enough that she's spent years in the mental ward, but most of the time she's just meekly following the same people she wanted to run away from, because they are dangerous.
After a while I couldn't even care what happens to her, all that remainded was a mild curiosity about how the entire story would end, with her in it or not.

Also, the portrayal of the mental institution she's been in and its patients gives me enough material for another rant, but I'll just leave it be.

[Kimberly Spookybookwurm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like the writing style made this one more unsettling for me.
I really appreciated how descriptive the surroundings were, I loved how much plant life was talked about. It made it feel more immersive.
The imagery the author gives you makes the story even more creepy. I felt anxious reading this one. I liked how it kept guessing what was real and what wasn't. I had a nightmare with this one. The writing was very beautiful, everything flowed very well.
I liked Marcy, Kev, and the animals chosen.

[Cyaira Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly wasn't bad, kept my attention. There were a few times I would have to reread something to figure out what was happening, but that could just be because I'm stupid and not because the book was bad.