Monasteries rising and falling. Heretics and stakes and fire. There were rebellions and revolution and tales of abundance and happiness and new beginnings. Within the book there were also lies and omissions and fallacies all designed to gloss over a dark past many had long forgotten. Many but not all. The vacation of a lifetime.
Season’s bleatings, my festive tribe! I’m so bloody excited for Christmas, I love it more than anything. Except maybe books. And speaking of, here’s a proper little treat, this novella called Les Vacances from Phil Sloman. I can’t believe this didn’t cross my path sooner because it’s everything I want in a shorter read.
Our couple is in France, enjoying a little getaway together, but it immediately starts going south. Wifey is creeped out and seeing scary things, and her intuition is screaming at her to get the heckity heck out of there. Hubby, on the other hand, thinks she’s imagining things and being irrational, and keeps dismissing her worries to draw out the intended vacation, to get his money’s worth. There’s tension between them, and tension coming out of the plot.
I was frustrated – SO FRUSTRATED. I don’t mean to “as a woman” this review, but as a woman, I’ve lost count of the number of times a man has completely disregarded a concern I’ve had and accused me of being overemotional and/or paranoid. And guess what? Almost every time, I wasn’t being paranoid or hyper, I was right about whatever it was that was stressing me out. The thing I claimed was happening was happening. The author captured this frustration so well that the book was making me angry, but it was also very relatable because of it, and made it really easy to believe and back the wife.
I’m on a folk horror binge at the moment, and this novella is absolutely PERFECT if you’re looking for something with those elements. Brilliant use of character archetypes (the hag and the whore!), and excellent, realistic, and understandable issues between our married couple, with both of them being sympathetic characters.
Also…the final act, the grand finale…holy crap, you guys. Gold star. It’s….evil, it’s heinous, it’s…EXCELLENT.
I confidently, wholeheartedly recommend this story to horror fans. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you.
Bleeeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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