Rating:

“If you speak long enough into the void, someone is bound to start listening.”

Author: Felix Blackwell

Faye and Felix are a happy couple, ready to celebrate their engagement in a secluded cabin on Pale Peak. The idyllic scenery soon takes on an ominous tinge, however, as the snow roles in and an unseen man starts screaming in the woods. Isolated, paranoid, and helpless, the couple soon realize that the voices that call to them outside are anything but human.

Stolen Tongues starts with a chilling encounter with the supernatural that sets the precedent of the paranormal in Felix’s and Faye’s relationship. The memory of that incident haunts Felix as he watches Faye sink into dreams where she mumbles answers – seemingly talking to the entity that stalks the night, lurking closer to the house, tapping its malformed claws on the windows, and peering into the cabin, talking in the voices of long dead relatives and terrified children.  As Faye’s waking nightmare sends her deeper into insanity, Felix begins to realize that the entity is looking for something, biding its time, holding off on killing the couple because they know something or have something that it wants. The question is – what? And when the entity finally gets its answer – what next?

Stolen Tongues was a runaway success, a book that emerged from a writing contest and has steadily stalked those in the horror community ever since. I’d seen its cover many times, but it didn’t sound exceptionally special to me. That changed when my Goodreads book club chose it for the February horror read (and yes, I’m super behind on posting). Within the first chapter, I knew that I had found something special. Stolen Tongues isn’t perfect (and I’ll get to that), but the atmosphere is irresistibly macabre. It’s got just the right amount of creep factor blended with action blended with mystery blended with revelation.

The entity is based off legend, and author Felix Blackwell (yes, the author named the main character after himself) leverages Native American mythology. The approach is especially well done, because the Native characters are realistic. Due to a devastating history, many Indians around Pale Peak had been forced off their land, loosing their land-based beliefs and details of their history along the way. When Felix and Faye reach out to them for help, they know just enough to deepen the mystery and make the hapless couple more afraid. They are no magic workers with monotone accents, spiritual expertise, and all the answers. This deepens the mystery and the danger . . . but it also sets up the ending for some difficulties.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

And now . . . to that point. The story paces itself well, growing steadily creepier. This is definitely a “keep all the lights on, do not investigate the noise downstairs” kind of read. The entity itself becomes more and more menacing and more and more powerful. The characters who do have an inkling of what the entity is and how it works only have bits and pieces of information and no real solution. Things are escalating. People are starting to die. The stakes are mounting.

And then – we get the revelation. We find out what the entity wants . . . and honestly, it’s pretty lame. This is the big mystery? I’m not buying it. And I’d been willing to buy a shape-shifting ageless monster just fine. But this . . . eh, a bit anticlimactic.

And then . . . then there is the final showdown. By this point, the monster is unstoppable, so we’re going to need some pretty major cleverness on our characters’ parts to escape a fate worse than death. But we don’t get that. We get a feel-good, simple solution showdown – the literary equivalent to a child screaming “go away” to the monster under the bed and said monster saying “well darn, if you say so then I must.” It doesn’t fit with the rest of the narrative. It falls flat. Also – the Native characters who knew better and had some sense die horribly, but our dumb suburbanites defeat the monster through good old American grit and will? No. No. So disappointed.

But you know what, Stolen Tongues is still one of my favorite recent horrors reads because everything that comes before the mystery revelation and ending is pure gold. It is scary. I couldn’t put the book down. When I was at work I’d fire up the Audiobook every time I walked to the bathroom, just to get two more minutes of the narrative in. I became obsessed. I was on Pale Peak, in that cozy cabin turned nightmare fuel, and for that, I still love this book, warts and all.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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