Horror Book Preview-- Read or Skip?: Find Them by Julia Ash
A fresh start in an idyllic location may be just the thing anyone needs after a stressful or traumatic event. But when it’s haunted, do you still move in there?
This week’s Horror Book Pick is FIND THEM by Julia Ash. The book was published in July 2023 and is on the best-sellers list in the ghost and horror suspense categories.
FIND THEM Book Plot
Nora and Dex move to a new home to a new home in an idyllic location where they can work remotely and start a family.
But the land they acquire was never meant to be sold. Nora is haunted by a troubled spirit that forces her to find clues to a 70-year-old mystery. Nora must find them or risk the lives of the people she loves.
FIND THEM Book Preview and My Take
The book is told through Nora’s POV. It starts with her standing at the train station. It is May, and she is worried that her boss Cecelia, might admonish her for being late to a meeting.
She is bumped by a homeless man, whom she dismisses until her returns and pushes her down the tracks, where she hits her head.
When she comes to, her husband Dex is by her side, and while she has some facial injuries, she is fine. Dex suggests they move to a rural place, away from the city’s rising crime.
Dex suggests he has even suggested of her working remotely to Ceceilia and that they would get to have a fresh start. Ultimately, it is the promise of living closer to her sister, Madeline, that makes her agree.
Madeline is a realtor and offers a plot that she thinks Nora will like. The only issue is that there is the largest federal penitentiary, thirteen miles from the plot.
Madeline assures her sister there is nothing to worry about, but we, the readers, know that it is going to get woven into the plot somehow. There’s going to be a prisoner escaping, isn’t it?
Nora still has a touch of PTSD triggered when she hears the train whistle, but her sister assures her the train only carries grain, and so she won’t have to deal with commuters.
There is also a sinkhole in the property that may come into play later in the story. Otherwise, why mention it at all, right?
While driving through the town, Nora needs to use the restroom and enters a store where she meets the owner. No shocker here, the shopkeeper is surprised Nora purchased LOT 16, but in true horror suspense fashion, refuses to warn Nora why she must be concerned.
However, her appearance isn’t a total waste. She does tell Nora about the former owner, Virgil Williams, who had written in his will that the Lot must not be sold, and that spikes curiosity.
Madeline can offer no explanation, but she does tell her that his descendants were unable to maintain it and managed to get the necessary permissions to get it sold off.
Nora goes through some spooky events where she thinks someone is calling her name or that people are standing in the mists. This she attributes to her trauma, but it doesn’t explain the other happenings, like seeing a girl in a dress in the middle of the night, whispering ‘Them’.
And Nora can’t figure out how the girl managed to get to a distance so quickly. Then there is the news of three prison escapees. Told you it would happen!
One is caught, but two are still at large. Then there is the excavator who breaks his arm while working on the property. Madeline is slowly getting convinced that something supernatural may be occurring here.
Just before the sample ends, we learn that no buried bones were found. So that’s good news for Nora.
READ OR SKIP?
The mystery intensifies. Who is the girl who is trespassing on their property? Why did the owner never want the plot to be sold? Just who exactly is Nora supposed to find? Who is Them?
The story does rely on certain tropes like ‘fresh starts’ and misty locales, and unexplained appearances by women in dresses, but it is a charming story nevertheless.
I would definitely keep reading to find out just what is going on in Nora’s new sanctuary. It's a READ for me.
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