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The Ritual

An Unsettling, Spine-Chilling Thriller, Now a Major Film

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The Ritual

By: Adam Nevill
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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From Britain's 'master of horror', Adam Nevill, comes The Ritual, winner of the August Derleth Award and perfect for fans of Stephen King.

Now a major film with Rafe Spall.

Four old university friends reunite for a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. No longer young men, they have little left in common and tensions rise as they struggle to connect. Frustrated and tired they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives.

Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. A place of dark ritual and home to a bestial presence that is still present in the ancient forest, and now they’re the prey.

As the four friends struggle toward salvation they discover that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees . . .

 Genre Fiction Ghosts Horror Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Scary Fiction Paranormal Haunted Exciting
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Critic reviews

This novel grabs from the very first page, refuses to be laid aside, and carries the hapless reader, exhausted and wrung out, to the very last sentence.
Often horror loses its power when the evil is given a face; in this case it only gets more disturbing.
With The Ritual Nevill has crafted some of the tensest scariest horror this reviewer has read for years.
The Ritual by Adam Nevill is a mind-twisting journey into the dark backwoods of terror. Deeply disturbing and absolutely riveting. (Jonathan Maberry, New York Times Bestselling author of Dead of Night and The King of Plagues)
Nevill makes the natural world deeply menacing, using the power of suggestion rather than explicit images to create a growing claustrophobic feeling as the difficult journey to return to some semblance of civilization embeds the quartet only further in the grasp of primal evil.
If you want something to make you scared of going into the deep, dark woods then I would highly recommend you pick up The Ritual. The Gruffalo it ain’t!
It has been over a week now since I finished this book and it has really stayed with me and I find myself thinking about it on numerous occasions, and this is another very good sign.
The Ritual didn’t just stop at sending a shiver down my spine, carrying on past that to leave me feeling all unsettled and resolved to stay away from large unexplored woods. A horror novel that leaves you feeling melancholy and thoughtful (as well as just plain scared); Neville is rapidly cementing his position as an author worth watching.
The Ritual, is now one of my all time favourite books, for me personally this is a powerful book that ticks every box in horror writing.
All stars
Most relevant
Part 1 was quite good. Part 2 was not. The book should have ended after part 1. Average storyline. Unsatisfactory ending. I wouldn't listen to this again.

Average.

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Listened to this over ten times now and really hoping Mr Nevill considers a sequel! Brilliant. Loves it!

Brilliant!

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I wanted a scary listen at Halloween and this audiobook certainly delivered. It is a totally absorbing story, with excellent characterisation and a slowly developing creepiness that descends into total horror. Fully recommend if you fancy a bit of a fright!

Terrifying

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I really enjoyed this audio book.Its certainly light

years better than the film adaptation too ,so if you've seen the film first you may be surprised how much better the book is.

Excellent book,very good characters.

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This book had been recommended to me by a friend, who knows I like good horror novels, so I thought I'd give it a try.

What I got was a bit of a mixed bag. The book starts of as a tense, claustrophobic horror/thriller as four friends get lost in an untouched forest, while hampered by injury and tension within the group. They soon realise that they being hunted by something monstrous in the dark. The story was good, it kept me enthralled and wanting to know what happened next. And then, at around the half way mark, it lost its way more than our four intrepid hikers did.

The last five or so hours saw a change of pace, it became less scary and whilst there was still some tension, it was nowhere near as taut as in the first half. It was a fair slog to get through. There seemed to be an awful lot of filler, and the ending was not really a surprise.

The narrator did an ok job, but he was far too jaunty in parts. He managed to voice the four main characters distinctly enough to separate them well, but his non-character narration tone was far too light in places where it just didn't fit the story. Most of the chapter announcements broke the tension too as he was just too chipper.

Overall, it was just ok for me.

A book of two halves

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