In the foggy depths of Bitternest, Louisiana sinister creatures are lurking. A town with a bad mystical history, Bitternest's secrets are about to be revealed in seven creeping tales of mystery and terror. Preternatural denizens, citizens with good hearts and investigative skills, ghostly girls reaching through the barrios of death, attempting to help the living find answers to a crime ring decades in the making, a vampire on an errand teaming with an orphan looking for answers, and a beneficent gargoyle sent to watch over the ill-fated town are only a few examples of the chilling offerings inside this collection of five short stories and two novellas.
Author Alan Draven returns readers to the unique setting of Bitternest, the only town in Louisiana to be perennially covered in chilling fog. The setting was first crafted in the novel, Bitternest, describing a vampiric infestation in the town tied to avian influenza and other mystical events. The Bitternest Chronicles returns familiar readers to a beloved setting and introduces new readers to an enticing world. Although I have heard about the first novel and am familiar with many of its occurrences, I am a new visitor to this realm and as such, was able to follow the story and immerse myself in the setting without experiencing any confusion. The collection works well in capturing the atmosphere of the town. The town, its people, its history already feels founded and revisited, even to new readers, creating an instantly accessible aura that proves both surrealistic and encapsulating.
While each story is different, The Bitternest Chronicles showcases a well-tied together structure, implementing several of the same landmarks, legends, and one returning nemesis, to emphasize a collection that orbits around the same central focus: the dark town itself. Each story effortlessly transitions into the macabre setting of the next. The language throughout also keeps the collection tied together, independent yet interrelating based on aura and style. The style is simple and concise, enabling a lot of actions to take place in a short amount of pages, making the tension of each tale amplified. At the same time, the narrative structure implements a great deal of description - not too much, but enough to keep the atmosphere chilling and suitably grim without detracting from the fast paced action and the creeping tension of the circumstances.
Each story focuses around a character, usually a protagonist, with the exception of Breaking and Entering where a villain pens the tale. The protagonists attempt to take on the supernatural forces of Bitternest with varying results. While the tales all tie together based on atmosphere and storytelling, each story stands on its own and is unpredictable. Sometimes our heroes succeed and sometimes they die, keeping the collection unpredictable and setting aside each work as an independent entertainment package not to be based on proceeding tales. Each central character proves intriguing complimented by a strong, spunky sense that enables him or her to confront the monsters under his or her bed or hidden in a fog-shrouded night. Each story is told from a first person perspective even better enabling us to transition into the mood of this place and the mind of a new character at the beginning of each story.
The Bitternest Chronicles is an exceptional collection and a good introduction into the works of Alan Draven and his gothic creation of Bitternest. Each story interrelates based on a cohesive atmosphere that dominates the small town and a tight writing style that keeps the stories flowing from one to another. The tales create a new world, combining hints of the supernatural and surreal with preternatural investigative methods and spunky characters that are willing to confront the dark forces of their hometown for answers and salvation. Highly recommended.
- Ravenova
