Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward is a 2025 book, released just last month from Tor Nightfire, and the fourth of her books I’ve read. Little Eve is on my shelf and up next.
This was a perfect book for the season and I was hooked from page one. While Catriona Ward is an author whose work I instantly buy and have loved every book she has written, this one flew under my radar entirely. Maybe the Canadian markets are overlooked for promotion? I was so happy to see this up for preorder the day before release and I snapped it up.
The story has some twists that I think I’d have foreseen had I not been totally spellbound! It is still winter here so the lush wilderness setting and rottagecore-adjacent notes struck perfectly. The lyrical techniques and poetic prose are always welcome when addressing such dark subjects of abuse, manipulation, coercive control, and children in danger.
Riley and her brother Oliver set off in the pitch-black night, fleeing their troubled home. They are heading for Nowhere—an abandoned ranch, once the playground of its former eccentric movie-star owner, now a haven for runaways.
What awaits could be the freedom they crave.
But this mysterious clan guards dark secrets, and the scorched grounds hold the ghosts of the past. Riley quickly realizes that while she and Oliver may have escaped the devil they knew, something darker lurks in the burnt shell of Nowhere.
Something which asks a terrible price for sanctuary…
Nowhere Burning is a good example of horror done well without explicit shock value; true terror and horror rooted in its core, channelled underground, and floating in the air.
This is an author that is not only instant buy for me, but instant immersion. It helps that I love outdoors horror, and this takes place at an abandoned woodland sanctuary. Nowhere was a compound of sorts, where a very rich man did strange and dangerous things.
This was another through-line for me; runaway kids. Specifically, kids running away to an abandoned place in the wilderness.
When I was in high-school, a group of young teens – a dozen – all disappeared around the same time. One mother reported her girl missing, a family of a guy did the same, and police realized quickly that they had all skipped school together and disappeared. That was a measure of relief, as I am sure any parent could agree. Wherever they were at least they were together. It did not take long for the teen grapevine to kick in and within a few days; they were all back.
I heard gossip here and there about where they had gone; an abandoned girl guide camp. Was there drinking, drugs and sex involved? According to the rumour mill, of course, but I doubt that was what it was all about. From some of the more trusted rumours, they wanted a quiet place to party and it just turned into an extended, albeit communistic, experiment. No one told parents where they were going if late at night for a few underage beers. That was normal. The abnormal part was that they all agreed to stay there. If no police tracked them down I always wondered; how long would the fantasy have persisted?
Nowhere Burning starts out in the first few chapters with a similar premise. A young girl and her brother are escaping their own personal hell and flee into the apparent safety of the woods. Woods populated by other runaways. A Neverland-ish sanctuary that townsfolk whisper about.
Not dissimilar to the odd stories told by my classmates. Interestingly, I can’t quite remember who all went. Out of a dozen kids in a small town school, I know I knew them all but I can’t quite recall who. My closest friend can’t either, but she lives close to the spot they went, and remembers it happening. My sister, who had overlapping friend groups from two grades below, can’t recall at all. The newspaper reports I have scoured for are elusive. It made the paper, I just can’t find it anymore.
So, the book had hooks in me, to say the least. Once finished I will say the end was quite satisfying.
Throughout the story, the character of Riley surprised me with her coldness, and I’d say that by the end of the book we see this edge, the trauma, and the coldness pay off but not in the traditional way. We see her past shape her into something that fits at Nowhere – a place she entered as an eternal outsider and I like that. It is a wretched position to be in, as we learn more of Nowhere it becomes more like Fox Hollow Farm than Neverland.
Whence they came, their cousin’s house, was a particular hell you may recognize shades of from THe House on Needless Street. There is something sinister about the strict cloistered house, the threadbare existence, the fear and piety that is described – however scant. I find the rough sketch of the cousin to be infinitely more terrifying than he would have been if we had a more fleshed out character. For all we know of Leaf Winham, he is a rough sketch as well. I picture the toothy man from the Trivago commercials most of the time, and the other time I picture a vampire.
A good example of horror done well without explicit shock value; true terror and horror rooted in its core, channelled underground, and floating in the air. Catriona Ward is not only instant buy for me, but instant immersion and Nowhere Burning was exactly that. Some of her work hits and misses for people, but I find every story a totally immersive shadow play. Even better, if you can recommend similar writers, let me know!
Pick up a copy here: https://amzn.to/3PHdrHD
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