Briardark

by S a Harian

Overview

For Dr. Siena Dupont and her ambitious team, the Alpenglow glacier expedition is a career-defining opportunity. But thirty miles into the desolate Deadswitch Wilderness, they discover a missing hiker dangling from a tree, and their satellite phone fails to call out.

Then the body vanishes without a trace.

The disappearance isn't the only chilling anomaly. Siena's map no longer aligns with the trail. The glacier they were supposed to study has inexplicably melted. Strange foliage overruns the mountainside, and a tunnel within a tree hollow lures Siena to a hidden cabin, and a stranger with a sinister message...

Holden Sharpe's IT job offers little distraction from his wasted potential until he stumbles upon a decommissioned hard drive and an old audio file. Trapped on a mountain, Dr. Siena Dupont recounts an expedition in chaos and the bloody death of a colleague.

Entranced by the mystery, Holden searches for answers to Siena's fate. But he is unprepared for the truth that will draw him to the outskirts of Deadswitch Wilderness-a place teeming with unfathomable nightmares and impossibilities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781959500018
Publisher:	Compass and Fern LLC
Publication date:	01/16/2023
Series:	Briardark , #1
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

S.A. Harian grew up near Yosemite and now lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner and dog. She's been writing since she was eight, around the time she became obsessed with Nancy Drew. Now she writes stories that are much scarier. While she loves reading, most of her inspiration comes from video games. You can find her survival and horror gameplays on YouTube.Sometimes, she even hikes, which in her opinion is very, very brave.

Editorial Reviews

2022-12-01
A scientific excursion into California woods turns into a twisty nightmare in this debut horror novel and prospective series launch.

CalTech geomorphologist and backpacker Dr. Siena Dupont takes a six-week trip into Deadswitch Wilderness, with a fellow scientist and two researchers, to view a rapidly melting glacier. The group immediately finds a dead body, which soon mysteriously vanishes. The expedition turns even more bizarre; research team members get lost and hallucinate, envisioning a mountain. Siena and the others realize their predicament involves an enigmatic place called The Briardark, and they might never return home. In a concurrent plot, Holden Sharpe, an IT guy at Oregon State University, discovers one of Siena’s audio recordings on an old OSU hard drive. It piques his interest, but his colleagues keep mum about Deadswitch, where five hikers went missing years before Siena’s group got lost there. Harian deftly couples odd, unexplained forest sights with horror tropes, from a cabin in the woods to shifting shadows. Despite a pileup of mysteries, the author grounds the narrative with crisp prose and well-crafted scenes even as the plot toggles between the research team and Holden at OSU. The cast is exceptional, and the novel’s illuminating latter half ultimately ties the labyrinthine forest with the parallel OSU plotline. While some readers will predict this turn, it doesn’t diminish pages of unwavering, spooky suspense. Moreover, Harian, with a sequel planned, drops surprises into the novel all the way until the end.

A new robust literary voice delivers an eerie, intense story.

Kirkus Reviews

"A new robust literary voice delivers an eerie, intense story." -Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher