Review: Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own. This book was originally published in October 2006, however the audiobook was released in January 2022.  It might seem weird to read a book set on Halloween during the January, but I loved it anyway.  It would be totally appropriate to wait and read this closer to Halloween.  I know alot of readers save their spookier reads for the fall, but I read creepy stuff all year long.  I absolutely loved this!

This is narrated by Vikas Adam, and he does a wonderful job narrating this!  I'm not sure if he used his natural voice or if he was "acting" for the narration, but his voice acting in this gave the audiobook an ominous feel and added to the general creepy vibe of the story.  It was such a great fit for the story.  This is a novella so the audiobook is around 4.5 hours long.  

This takes place all in one night, and you could likely read this in one sitting.  Every year on Halloween, the Halloween Boy rises from a field and terrorizes the town while the teenage boys try to take him down.  The boy who takes out the Halloween Boy wins a prize, gets to leave town and change the course of their life.  There are lots of secrets in this town, which we never really get to understand.  I think that was my biggest issue, we never really find out why this whole October Boys business has to keep happening and what the consequences are when and if it stops.  I felt like that part needed a little more explanation.  

This follows several different characters over the course of the night.  It also switches perspective a couple of times.  I didn't really mind or notice while listening to the book, but I do know that can be irritating to some readers.   There isn't much character development here, but this is a novella about a killer pumpkin boy so I can give that a pass because there is decent action and description of what is happening to move the plot along.  

Overall, I thought this was a really entertaining, creepy audiobook.  It isn't overly gorey or graphic from a horror perspective, however there is some gore and violence.  If you need a quick listen in the horror genre or around the Halloween timeframe, check this one out.

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