Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig is a one-of-a-kind horror that involves possessed apples and the people who eat them. The story is a happy medium of both weird and scary. It takes a great storyteller to make a horror about possessed apples work, but man does Chuck Wendig make it work. The story takes every trope about apples and applies it, the bad apple, the forbidden fruit, the golden apple, the bad seed, and the poisoned apples. The horror is greedy, cultish, cannibalistic, gory, and body modification. Wendig taps into descriptions of apple eating that will turn your stomach, and he’s just getting started. I don’t know how this novel has not given me bad dreams but all so I’m okay with it. I think of creepy movie scenes with trees that must have been tapped into like the tree that is possessed and attacks in both Poltergeist and The Evil Dead, the horrible apple trees from The Wizard of Oz, and Wishmaster when someone becomes a tree, which are all aspects which are brought together to cause true horror. The beginning of the novel is all set up it is a little slow but I was fascinated by the history of apples and orchards in America, as well as the characters being set up. The story has a mystery aspect that takes us through the middle which is interesting and a little surprising and leads to the finale. The finale is pure chaos and super tense, you feel that no character is safe and that anything can happen. The pace is consistent throughout and I found myself very entertained. Chuck Wendig has slowly become one of my favorite writers of horror. This is my third book by him and I have not been disappointed yet and rated them all 5 stars. Black River Orchard is my second favorite novel under Wanders which I feel is Chuck Wendig’s Epic novel and put it on the same pedestal as Stephen King’s The Stand. Black River Orchard will be on my top ten novels of the year list. Fortunately, I received an early copy of the book from Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Del Rey in exchange for a review. Black River Orchard was published on September 26, 2023.

Plot Summary: Dan has been working on a product for years, the perfect apple. His daughter Calla wants to be an influencer. She has quite a TikTok following named her father’s apple the Ruby Slipper, because of its blood-red coloring and the easy tagline “There’s no place like home”. Calla dates Marco a high schooler that Dan likes and helps him with the orchard, in exchange for his delicious apples. Calla is not a fan of apples but supports her dad, but there’s been something off with him for some time she’s haunted by a dream where he came home with apple twigs and bloodied severed fingers. Emily a city girl has just moved to the country with her wife Meg who lives next to the water. Emily is deathly afraid of drowning but wants to get over the fear in a kayak down the river gone wrong she is stopped by the skull of a dead man Walt, an apple hunter. John Compass an apple hunter who looks for long-forgotten apples and a former friend of Walt, who went missing years ago, owes it to his friend to find out what killed him. John finds from Walt that he is onto something big and attempting to reach out. John meets with Emily to show him where she found the body and they form a friendship and help him look for clues about Walt’s death. The apple-eating turns into a cult Calla’s boyfriend wants to spend all his time with her dad and the only time they talk is about trying the apple. Calla does try it in secret while she finds it delicious at first she starts tasting rot and spits it out to find apple seeds that start moving and turning into flies. The town starts to want and need these apples and will do whatever it takes to get a new harvest even if it means killing.

What I Liked: The descriptions of the gluttonous eating of apples. Every crisp juicy bit is felt and will give you goosebumps as you learn more. The horror scenes are some of my favorites and if I close my eyes can still picture the horror. The body modification reminded me of the movie The Fly ( 1986) and how the change sent shivers down my spine. I love the character of John Compass the sniper now pacifist Quaker. He felt straight out of a myth. I liked the history of apples and apple hunters. I found the information about the real Johnny Appleseed fascinating. I liked how compelling such a weird story was. The masks were well-described and very creepy.

What I Disliked: I really enjoyed this story but it could have been shorter. The story is 640 pages which was a reason I put the novel off for a month, so I knew I would have time to read it. There’s a Calla at-school scene that was kind of long and not needed. I could have seen Black River Orchard easily dropping 40 pages and becoming a near-perfect read. I read an early release copy of this book so it could have been changed a little here and there. The cover could have been a lot more sinister, this is one of my biggest complaints Wanders is just a water tower, and that book is so vivid.

Recommendations: Black River Orchard is a weird, gory, and horrific story that I loved so much. I recommend this book to my readers and all the Chuck Wendig books I have read as well as Wanders and The Book of Accidents. Black River Orchard will not be for everyone but if you like horror books written really well then this is a great book to add to your collection for this Halloween.

Rating: I rated Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig 5 out of 5 stars.

Ranking: This is my ranking of the 3 Chuck Wendig books I have read so far in order from best to worst (I have rated all the books 5 stars, and are all great): Wanders, Black River Orchard, and The Book of Accidents.