This is a great read and i would recommend you read this! This was a really fun read which I read so so quickly. I was kindly gifted an e-book in return a honest review.

Callie gains custody of her niece and to escape the tragedy they encountered in London, they move to a small country town. Hyam is a weird place with weird people, which they soon learn that there are very dark secrets that are being hidden.

First off, I love horror and romance stories. I’m someone who always loves the mixture of these two genres, I know not everyone loves a romance heavy plot, but I typically do enjoy it mixed in with my horror.
However, this book was mostly romance. I couldn’t even find the horror half the time. The scenes or atmospheric moments just fell flat and had no tension. The majority of the story is focused on the relationship between two of the characters.
I was happy to see that the romance was sapphic, which I did enjoy seeing diversity and representation in this story.
The writing is extremely clunky and at times I felt like I was reading more of a YA, than a adult horror novel. The writing is very simple and just doesn’t have a lot of depth to it.
The story is very one note and not a lot happens until the last 10% of the story. I wish that the story had had more climactic moments or had at least some creepy moments.
The plot is very predictable and easy to see what’s going to happen next. I wish that it had brought something new to the table, the author definitely tried to, but the story still felt lackluster.
The ending wasn’t bad, but again, just felt predictable for what type of story I was reading.
Overall, I wasn’t too impressed with this story, but I definitely think this will be for some people.

2 Star. Not what I was expecting. I thought it would be more haunting and creepy. Over all it ended up being just a little boring and flat.

Quiet Village by Eden Darry courtesy of NetGalley. At first I thought I was going to hate it because the beginning is so repetitious and while introducing some of the mystery focused more on the budding romance. Then at about 40% of the way through it took a turn and finally caught my interest. From that point forward it didn’t stop and it was rather creepy. It starts off with a murder that leads Collie and her niece Lana to move out of London to the safe quaint little village of Shyam. What could possibly go wrong, right? Turns out the whole village has a dark secret that goes back centuries. Unfortunately as soon as Collie and Lana stumble into the village they are in the crosshairs of the dark force who keeps the village from crumbling. Along the way Collie meets Emily who happens to be one of Lana’s teachers. Emily has come to Hyam in search of her missing brother. There’s a love story between Collie and Emily that for the first chunk of the book had me saying we get it move on but like I said at about 40% it improved. 3.5⭐️ for the slow start but the creepy monster mystery storyline saved the book for me.

‘It wanted to know them first. Stalk them first. Make them afraid. People always tasted so much better when they were afraid.’

After her sister is brutally murdered by a sadistic ex, Collie and her niece leave the tragic circumstances behind in London to settle for a peaceful life in the Suffolk countryside. They end up in a village. A quite village that is involved in a centuries old ritualistic pact. Emily, on the other hand, is drawn to the village of Hyam for significantly different reasons; her brother mysteriously vanished months prior and she takes the occupation of a teacher at a local schoolhouse to find out the true reasoning behind her brother’s disappearance. Collie and Emily’s paths eventually cross, and together they must unravel the dark secrets behind Hyam’s evildoers while fending for their own survival.

The eerie feel of this novel is constant and pervasive. The author is constantly shifting between the main characters and the beastly point of view. That works well with the premise and, once things truly get going with the festivities and village celebrations, it almost takes on an ancient Wicker Man Renaissance vibe. The buildup is there, but the shocking revelations and the sense of dread is wavered by a shaky romance that constantly disrupts the chilling effect of the story. I understood that romance would be emphasized heavily with this, and I even like reading cheesy love stories from time to time, but it remains a constant struggle. In something like this, if the two characters had made a move on each other early on, we might had a little more flexibility here.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for providing me with an ARC.

Scared me!

Collie and her niece are starting again in a little village and trying to move on, but village life is stranger than they thought, especially when they start to get the feeling something spooky is going on. Emily, an undercover reporter working as a teacher at the school and new to the village herself, is looking for answers after her brother’s disappearance and concerned that all is not as it seems in the village. When Collie confides in Emily she gets the same strange sensations, they have to work together to survive.

Scary as hell, and I am not a lover of horror, the paranormal or anything but in a way I do enjoy it and this was no exception. Eden has delivered a perfect scare with Quiet Village, and honestly I wasn’t sure I could be any more scared than I was when I read The House but Eden succeed in terrifying me to the point I couldn’t put the book down. I wanted to finish it but I loved the sensations and thrill of being scared by this story.

The story was intricately pieced together and cleverly crafted to make me feel uncertain as the reader. I couldn’t have predicted who was involved and how it was all going to play out, all I knew was I was intrigued but frightened to learn the truth. It was almost as if I was in the story, in the character’s shoes and experiencing all of this and yet I was safe but sometimes I was on edge, so lost in the story.

Another great story from Eden Darry that cements a place as one of my favourite horror writers. I highly recommend this book, and can’t say too much without spoilers but it was an experience and an unforgettable story. You really have to experience that chill down your spine when reading, and on edge feeling for yourself. I can’t wait to see what spooky, creepy, or terrifying story Eden will bring us next!

This was not for me. I struggled with the juvenile way of writing - lots of telling and not showing, clunky language, awkward phrasing. I couldn't tell where this was headed - and not in a good way.

This was totally different to what I was expecting! I liked some aspects of it such as the romance and the background story but honestly it was just a little bit too scary for me ! I couldn’t read it at night and had to keep putting it down so it took longer to read!

Holy Snap Crackle Pop Rice Crispies, this was a good book.

Quiet Village by Eden Darry is a slow-burn thriller where the ending will have you racing to finish. Collie is granted custody of her niece after her sister dies and Emily our other main character is investigating her brother going missing. The setting of this novel is unique and haunting. And the unease that you feel as the reader continues to build and build until you finally find out what is going on.

Some of my favorite parts of this book are the other character cutaways and the perspective of the monster as it stalks the main characters. Also, there are some characters that become very easy to hate and I found that it definitely made this book fun while reading.

Do not miss out on this book!

4.5 stars

I was pleasantly surprised with this one! This is a paranormal horror/thriller with a bit of romance sprinkled in. I'm not a big fan of the romance genre but this one worked for me. The chemistry between Emily and Collie was awesome and there was enough going on otherwise that it wasn't the main focus.

You know something strange is going on in Hyam early on. Even after I figured out what it was I still found myself wanting to see if/how they would get out of it. The ending rocked. This was a solid book!

This was my first book by Eden Darry but I will definitely be looking for more by this author!

Thanks to #netgalley and Bold Strokes for this arc in exchange of an honest review!

This was a well written entertaining read. It’s scary but not in a blood up the walls way, more in a planted idea in your head way. What is the thing that watches and why does it choose who it does? (No spoilers here). Ms Darry has created a strong atmosphere with likeable and credible main characters. Teacher Emily meets Collie and her niece in a Sussex village where strange things happen and people disappear. There are some heart in mouth moments and bits where you think “why would she do that!”, but overall it is a well paced, interesting read.

Collie takes on her niece after the brutal murder of the child’s mum, Collie’s sister. They move away from the pain and the press and pitch up somewhere they can start again. But this place isn’t quite as peaceful as it first seems. The relationships are well developed and the romance is slow moving which seems appropriate in the circumstances. Collie especially is written strongly and she is the one I got most frustrated with as she fails to notice or react to things. Amusing in places, creepy and scary in others, this is an easy read and I will look up other work by this author.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Collie, a video game character designer, has brought her niece to the small village of Hyam for a fresh start away from the memories in London. Emily has stepped away from journalism and come to work in home with the goal of discovering what happened to her missing brother. The timing couldn't be worse, but there is a spark between Collie and Emily that can't be denied, even as something is very wrong in Hyam.

I was excited to read a horror/thriller published by Bold Strokes Books and this novel by Eden Darry exceeded my expectations. I was hooked from early on and the tension kept being rachetted up. I had to keep asking myself why I thought it was a good idea to read at night.

The small English village setting quickly moved from quaint to unsettling. However we had characters to root for, and I raced through to find out how it would all end.

I will be keeping my eye out for any more novels from Eden Darry, and will absolutely recommend Quiet Village.

I’m the wrong audience for this one I think. The story is good and the writing is decent, but it’s very obviously more of a romance than anything else. I’m a pretty die hard horror kind of person and found this lacked in that department.

3 stars--I liked the book.

Lesbian horror alert! If this genre is your cup of tea, give this book a shot! It involves one of my favorite horror tropes (creepy English villagers doing creepy things). The writing is basic, but the lovely characters and spooky plot (the scarecrows got to me) make up for that.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

Three and a half stars.
This was... weird. I try to appreciate when these paranormal books try to use monsters that aren't your usual vampires or werewolves, but I wonder if this might have done better with something a tad more conventional, or maybe it just needed better explanation. I know, nobody likes an info dump, but it was a little concerning how quickly the characters seemed to accept the brief description of a creature they've never heard of. I hated the parts told from the monster's POV. They were repetitive and the book could have done without them. Then there's the other... entity, which swoops in at all the right times. I didn't mind its existence, but I did think it contributed way too much to the story. We want to see the protagonists rescue themselves! I also didn't quite understand the disappearances, (spoilers) because I couldn't tell if they were meant to be permanent or not. What happened to Emily's colleague confused me, and then the whole deal with namedropping Charlie in the epilogue without elaboration... that could have been done better.
I will say I did find this quite scary at times, but I'm not usually one for anything horror-related. The author does an excellent job of making the village feel sinister. There are many parts where the least plausible detail is that the characters are sticking around, trying to live normally, and doing things like splitting up. It doesn't count as U-Hauling if you're just finding strength in numbers, right?
The romance part was great. I liked both Collie and Emily, as individuals and as a couple. While romance was mostly more of the focus than the horror aspect, the end of the book wasn't really about the relationship, and I didn't mind it that way. I also liked Lana, who had a believable intelligence level for her age and was likeable, which I haven't been seeing in a lot of lesfic featuring children. I would have liked if the way she chose to interact with Collie had been explicitly ironed out, but there just didn't seem to be much room for it as the plot progressed, and I forgot about it until now.
I will continue to read Eden Darry. I regret that I couldn't get along with some of the key details in the horror parts, but this was still a decent read.

3.75 stars. Well, this was fun, if in an ominous way. I've read all of Darry's books, and thought this one was probably the most tonally consistent. It still relied on the spooky tight-knit country town, but instead of being in the US Appalachia, it was near the coast in England. I thought it did a good job of mixing that sense of isolation that one can get when dealing with a loss of a loved one, the sense of dread that something is just not right, and a bit of humor.

I enjoyed all the characters, and loved their narration, but I didn't like that we got to have some of the narration from the bad guy's perspective. Once the big reveal happens, I kind of knew what was happening, so it lost some of that wow factor for me. But, I loved the build up of the tension, and that sense of unease growing more and more prevalent as the plot moves along. I also thought that it was a great move to have all three of the lead characters (Collie and her niece and Emily) have experienced the recent loss of a loved one. They can truly empathize with each other, and that connection allows them to really listen when the others try to discuss the strange occurrences they experience in town.

I enjoy Darry, if only for her willingness to actually write horror. She's been getting more consistent with her tone. This is one of her better works, and I will always look forward to what she cooks up next.

*I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars rounded up

This was an enjoyable horror/thriller. After Sasha is killed by her abusive ex, her twin sister Collie takes custody of her 10-year-old daughter. They move to the small town of Hyam where they hope to start fresh, but the locals aren't very welcoming. I really enjoyed the set-up of this story and the plot kept moving at a strong pace. There was a good amount of paranormal horror that was well written, and the romance wasn't distracting at all. I think it isn't common to have so much romance in a horror story, but it worked here.

I enjoy stories set in small town where outsiders are met with suspicion, and there was plenty of that here. The townspeople had a huge secret and as crazy as it was, the story and ending came together nicely.

Horror & romance mixed in one? Sign me up! Really good writing from the author whose words kept me on my toes throughout the entire novel.

They say that one should never make big decisions when you’ve been under a lot of stress. When Collie’s sister is is brutally murdered by her ex Collie assumes custody of her 10 year old niece. As if that’s not stress enough, they decide to move by picking a random spot on the map....Hyam. . Quaint, charming Hyam out in the country. It turns out that Hyam is pretty to look at, but not exactly welcoming. This unfortunate duo are also unaware of the frequent disappearances and of the village’s very creepy obsession with scarecrows and the need for annual festival, which is not exactly a “ fun fest”to be perfect. The villagers are odd and stick together to the extreme. They all seem to worship the strange, big woman that serves as school principal and the queen of the village.
This was a fun book and I was rooting for our endangered newbies..
#netgalley #QuietVillage

A clever take on the “moved to a new place things aren’t great”. I liked the characters but lost interest in the never ending inner dialogue — there wasn’t much suspense.

I feel many times the author made things obvious and over the top enough to feel unnatural and stiff.

Thank you, NetGalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.