Road of Bones

August 1, 2021

In this latest from New York Times best-selling and Bram Stoker award-winning Golden, a film crew is investigating a ghost story more haunting than most. The setting is the Kolyma Highway, which runs through Russia's Far East, and the bodies of the thousands of gulag prisoners who died building it are interred beneath its gravelly surface. With a 60,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from October 25, 2021
Bestseller Golden’s eerie, inventive latest (after Red Hands) takes readers on a hair-raising adventure through frozen Siberia. After working on a ghost-hunting TV show, documentarian Felix Teigland is eager for a more substantial project. His new goal is to record daily life along the Kolyma Highway, a road hewn through the Siberian wilderness by prisoners in Stalinist Russia that passes through Akhurst, the coldest inhabited place in the world. But when Teigland and his cameraman, Prentiss, reach Akhurst, they find the settlement abandoned save for a catatonic young girl, and it becomes clear that something is gravely wrong. Desperate to uncover the mystery of Akhurst’s abandonment, Teigland and Prentiss are thrown headlong into a tense game of cat and mouse with a mysterious shaman lurking on the edges of the settlement. They have something the shaman wants, and he will stop at nothing to get it. Golden’s prose is taut and undeniably unsettling, exploring the dark recesses of the Siberian landscape. Indeed, the unforgiving environment is just as grave a threat as the shadowy shaman. Golden is writing at the top of his game. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary.

December 1, 2021
An American producer eager to score a big hit like Duck Dynasty travels to Siberia to shoot a reality series along the desolate Kolyma Highway and gets more thrills than he bargained for. At first, the only obstacle for Felix Teigland and Prentiss, his British cameraman, friend, and investor, is the 40-below temperature. A young guide's introduction to the legendary Road of Bones, beneath which hundreds of thousands of gulag prisoners are buried, gives Teig a great subject as well as a great title for his series. But no sooner have they arrived than the filmmakers are threatened--and worse--by shadowy wolf creatures and a screaming humanoid spirit who has something to do with the sudden abandonment of a town by everyone except a strangely possessed 9-year-old girl Teig becomes determined to save. He is still tormented by the abduction and murder of his younger sister when they were little. Meanwhile, Ludmilla, a frail but determined old woman, travels the frigid Kolyma Highway to bless the buried--a self-appointed task that has cost her several fingers and toes. The ability of the "murderous air" to immobilize people comes and goes, the cuddlier forest animals seem on loan from a Disney cartoon, and Ludmilla's devotion to Bruce Springsteen is a bit much. But Golden is great at atmosphere. The desolate surroundings are indeed "a stark reminder of how small a thing it was to be a human being." And how can you resist the charms of a 50-foot-tall reindeer woman? A chilling, if sometimes silly, supernatural thriller best read by the fireplace.

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Starred review from October 15, 2021
Golden's (Red Hands, 2020) latest is a horror-thriller hybrid that will chill even the most jaded readers. Documentary producer Tieg is travelling the Kolyma Highway through Siberia to scout a village for his next project. The cold is so intense, people can only survive for minutes outside. When Tieg and his best friend/cameraman get to what they thought was their final destination, they find that every villager has fled into the uninhabitable forest, all except one traumatized girl. At the edge of the forest appears a parnee, which is a shaman, and his animal spirit army, and they are not happy. Opening with a high anxiety sequence and relentlessly building on the ceaseless terror and unrelenting cold, Golden places the fear front and center. The story is told from multiple points of view, allowing the reader to see that the real threat may be human hubris, which adds a depth and beauty to a story that could have been centered around carnage. Give to fans of emotional, thought-provoking, nature inspired horror like The Only Good Indians (2020) by Stephen Graham Jones or Wonderland (2020) by Zoje Stage.

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Starred review from September 24, 2021

The protagonist of Golden's (Red Hands) latest is Felix Teigland, a documentary filmmaker chasing a project he hopes will salvage his career: documenting life in Siberia, along the Kolyma Highway (known as the "Road of Bones") and in Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. With camera operator Prentiss and Yakut guide Kaskil in tow, Teig is determined to dig up an unforgettable story. Something unexpected finds them at Oymyakon, something ancient and powerful that's equally determined. In a split second, Teig's hunt for a story becomes a fevered race for survival. From its first paragraph, Golden's novel is a heart-stopping thrill ride. The writing is lean, muscular. Readers will feel the cold (and the terror) in their bones. But there's also an abundance of heart--in the tender friendship story between Teig and Prentiss, in the beautifully observed moments of quiet and grace between scares, and in the gorgeous last stretch where the story's protagonists come face to face with the terrifying majesty of nature. VERDICT An essential read for horror and supernatural thriller fans.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.