Book Review: This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer

Being lost is a near-universal fear, and author Jenny Kiefer fully capitalizes on it in her debut novel, This Wretched Valley. Born of an idea she had in a climbing gym, she takes us on a harrowing journey into the wilds of her native Kentucky, where a group of 4 young people meet a tragic fate at the hands of unimaginable forces.

Geology student Clay has devised a method of using Lidar to locate hitherto unexplored climbing trails from a plane and intends to submit a paper about the technique as his thesis. When he discovers a promising peak, he and his research assistant Sylvia make plans to hike out and explore it in person. They will need someone to actually climb it however, and so he reaches out to his old friend Dylan, a rising star in the rock-climbing world with a sizable Instagram following and a brand-new sponsorship deal. She is eager to have such a rare feat under her belt and so quickly agrees to join the duo along with her boyfriend Luke.

The quartet has little difficulty locating the cliff. Though Sylvia finds the vast array of toxic plant life in the area unusual, they set up camp and being documenting and exploring their find. Strange accidents begin to befall the group however, leading up to Luke becoming critically injured after a fall. When they attempt to return to the car and get him to a hospital, they find themselves unable to exit the forest, consistently winding up back where they started. That is only the beginning of their nightmare though, as the woods harbor dark secrets and seemingly the very Earth itself wants them dead.

A sense of dread pervades the book from the very first word, keeping readers uneasy throughout. The characters aren’t especially well drawn, which can make it hard to feel much concern for their well-being, as does the unlikability of some of them, but the overall eeriness and grisly violence allow the novel to overcome that flaw and maintain a great deal of suspense. Kiefer does not pull any punches, so squeamish readers should probably stay away, but those who brave This Wretched Valley will be quickly hooked by the mystery of what exactly is happening within it. We never really get 100% of the answer. We do learn what fates befall our leads, but the author smartly avoids overexplaining the malevolence at work here. This is a case were less is definitely more and leaving us to wonder over the nature of the evil makes it far scarier. ★★★★