Black River Orchard

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A small town is transformed by dark magic when strange apple trees begin bearing fruit in this new masterpiece of horror from the bestselling author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.

It's autumn in Harrow, but something is changing in the town besides the season.

Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard grows a new sort of apple: strange and beautiful, with skin so red it's nearly black.

Take a bite of one of these apples and you will you will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But soon your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing - and become darker.

This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what's the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?

But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. And a stranger has come to town, a stranger who knows Harrow's secrets. Because it's harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

©2023 Chuck Wendig (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Chuck Wendig is one of my very favorite storytellers. His stories are so rich and vivid and layered they seem to live and breathe, they have teeth and they might bite. Black River Orchard is a deep, dark, luscious tale that creeps up on you and doesn't let go. Sharp and crisp and juicy like the most obvious of fruit metaphors. This is folklore for the modern age, visceral and familiar in ways that make it all the more terrifying.
Erin Morgenstern, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Starless Sea
Wendig's ensemble cast and rich atmosphere of collective decay bring to life a book that makes your skin crawl. Creepy and insidious to the core, Black River Orchard whets your appetite and then turns you inside-out.
Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
There's a soul-unraveling blight leeching across the pages of Chuck Wendig's Black River Orchard, an irresistible kind of charming decay that traps the reader in this eerie orchard and renders them completely spellbound. This will undoubtedly be heralded as one of the finest horror novels of the 21st century.
Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
A gripping story of love and legacies gone rotten, deeply rooted in the landscape and as twisty and gnarled as an ancient apple tree. Be careful what you wish for: I devoured it down to the core.
T. Kingfisher, USA Today bestselling author of What Moves the Dead
Myth and magic, history and folklore, trauma, and temptation, it's all tangled together here and watered deeply with blood. Wendig has pulled off a fresh and unexpected horror feat, expertly drawing from the ancient, endless wells of our greatest fears.
Premee Mohamed, Nebula Award-winning author of Beneath the Rising
An epic saga that is at once propulsive horror novel and parable, thriller and cautionary tale, Black River Orchard is the immensely talented Chuck Wendig at his finest. Like the dark, red apples at the heart of this beautifully told, character rich, and utterly engrossing story, you'll take one bite and won't be able to stop yourself from devouring the rest.
Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
The horror of Black River Orchard is the existence of an insidious, dormant catalyst for evil that exists inside of us. All that has to happen is for humankind to discover that one thing that will universally divide us all. Wendig's wheelhouse is knowing exactly how to pluck heartstrings and prey on fears at the same time; high stakes horror meets peak emotional investment means Total. Reader. Devastation.
Sadie Hartmann, author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered
Enchanting, exquisite and dark, Chuck Wendig masterfully weaves a new horrifying fairy tale in Black River Orchard.
Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award winner of Crime Scene.
An essential for horror readers-and buy it for new horror readers-it will convert them instantly. A well-written, compelling read.
V. Castro, author of The Haunting of Alejandra.

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