Horror Book of the Week: Maggie's Grave by David Sodergren

 

Who doesn’t like a small town folk horror story?

This week’s Horror Book Pick is MAGGIE’S GRAVE written by David Sodergren.

Published in October 2020, the novel is still on the bestsellers list for Occult Fiction and Occult Horror. The book has been highly praised for being compelling, immersive, and for its set up of an atmospheric eerie Scottish town that is enmeshed with a dark history.

 Readers too found this book to be an interesting book with well-etched complex characters, an eerie setting, and action-packed. However, some found the book to be too raunchy and gory. They found it hard to get through the graphic scenes and some deemed it to be almost laughable.

Quick Book Review of Maggie’s Grave

 In a small Scottish Town of Auchenmullan, only forty-seven residents remain. There’s nothing to do in this town and nothing remarkable about it except for a grave near the top of the mountain. The grave belongs to an accused witch, Maggie Wall.

 The first chapter introduces us to Maggie. The year is 1657. She lives alone, isolated from the other people in the town. She knows they talk about her and wonder why she is by herself and why she never married.

Her troubles begin when she admonishes a child who was stealing her chicken. He spreads a rumor that Maggie is a witch and so the whole town comes on a witch hunt.

It is at night when Maggie sees them approach, and she has her chicken soup cooking over a fire. She laments that she will never get to taste her dinner because of what is going to happen next.

Maggie tries her best to fend herself from the townsfolk, but they have made up their mind about her and torture her before killing her. But Maggie was with a child, and that is cut off from her belly before she dies. The scene is perhaps too gory but you may find yourself filled with sympathy for a woman who is subjected to so much hate because of a rumor.

The year is now 2019.

We are introduced to Beth who is meeting up with her friends at a bowling alley. She is with her boyfriend Grady and her friends Alice and Steve.

There’s nothing much to do in town and the four are probably friends because many have moved out of this town.

Beth seems bored and tired of living in this town. For some reason, Maggie Wall’s name keeps coming to her mind. On the other hand, Alice is struggling to maintain her friendship after her baby is born and the father of her child has run away.

None of her friends seem interested in asking about her baby except for Steve who she had probably hooked up with once.

Beth and Grady are on the road after meeting their friends and Grady seems intent on arguing with her. He assumes she doesn’t want to leave the town but wants to leave him.

The sample ends with Beth feeling like someone is following her only to find nothing behind her.

The sample chapters definitely incite interest and curiosity. The characters and their thoughts are realistic. They are all flawed but they also are trying to be more than what they are at the moment.

Maggie’s presence is clearly hard to shake from this small town and it is palpable throughout. She is gone but clearly not forgotten. How she manages to avenge her wrongful death will be interesting to read.

To Read or Not to Read?

Maggie’s Grave is clearly a must-read for all horror fans. It definitely has all the right elements for it. There is a small town, a branded witch, and the promise of gory revenge scenes.

Which characters will survive? That remains to be seen.

I would definitely want to continue this tale of revenge and ghostly revenge.

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