You Can’t Stay

Fast paced, action packed, dark, deadly, gripping and bloody entertaining! You Can’t Stay: A Dark Thriller is a book that kept me on my toes and turning the pages! I enjoyed the mingling of genres such as horror, supernatural, fantasy, and mystery mixed with Norse mythology and Native folklore in this book. I also enjoyed the twists, turns, and shocking moments which had my pulse pounding and my fingers turning the pages! This book was like Predator meets Annihilation, meets The Blair Witch Project, meets The Hunger games, meets…. you get the picture. I found this book to be entertaining, atmospheric, and hard to put down. I won’t want to take a stroll through the woods anytime soon after reading this book!

Esther, who is just shy of becoming a veterinarian. is desperate to find her sister, Jasmine who disappeared without a trace two years ago. Esther has been desperately searching for Jasmine, but it is Esther who has been found by a woman in the military. The woman asks Esther to take her place on a mission into New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Woods that people enter and are never seen again. Desperate to find her sister, Esther agrees to take the female soldier’s place.

Ryder is a tough as nails character who has led his teams through many harrowing and dangerous situations. He is in prison at the beginning of this book, but the government needs him and his unique skills to deliver cargo into the White Mountains. He has a keen eye and strong ties to his heritage.

Esther and Ryder are in the same military group which enters the woods and things get interesting fast! Once the action starts, it never gives up. There are things that go bump in the night and then there are well…. you will need to read this book to find out!

I enjoyed the use of Norse mythology and Native lure. (At the end of the book the author gives further detail into what is shown in this book.) This book is oozing with atmosphere and vivid descriptions. Have you ever gotten turned around or lost in the woods? Then you know the feeling that the characters begin to feel in this book. I loved the chilling and eerie vibe that permeated the pages. I also loved the growing tension, the sense of dread, and the mounting danger which leapt from the pages! Like the characters in the book, I never knew what was going to happen next and that is one of the things that I enjoyed most about the book. It’s unsettling and adds to the unease felt by the characters. Do things get OTT? Sure, but that just adds to the drama, the danger, the threat, and the unrelenting sinister feel of the woods. Whew!

Entertaining, fast paced, eerie, dark, dangerous, and hard to put down.

***The author made a few changes to the book that many of the previous reviewers may not have had the opportunity to read. In addition to tweaking some parts of the book, the author also including a Foreword and Afterword. Per the author the book has been updated on NetGalley, so if you downloaded this book and didn’t get to it yet, you can re-download this book and get the updates! 

Thank you to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.