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The Ritual

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

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About this listen

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

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
I bought this audio book as it was on special offer for Halloween along with a couple of other titles. I took a punt on this one after reading some glowing reviews on Amazon and was in no way disappointed.



I stupidly started to listen to this at night, on Halloween and after an hour and a half of the story I was ridged with fear in my bed, doing everything in my power to pluck up the courage to get up and use the toilet! I eventually did and vowed not to listen to the rest of it in the dark but I had to know what happened. Over the next 48 hours devoured the rest and low and behold found myself in bed ridged with fear AGAIN unable to switch the damd Ipod off for the last hour and a half!



A perfect choice, Peter Thorpe is fast becoming one of my favourite narrators, he brings every story he reads to life brilliantly and is the perfect choice for this relentless scare fest.



This is some wonderfully creepy and intense stuff that I’d highly recommend this if you enjoy a good scare.

This had me scared of the dark....

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From it's comencement you may think, just another story about four lads of on a jolly, get lost and bitten, or eaten or abducted.

No just a terifing story. I found myself re-tracing the story, how a bad situation can only get EVEN WORSE! No camping with the kids this summer.Or forestry walks . Poor boys etc. No more Abba or A-Ah for me

Oh My. No stroll or camp will be the same.

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The narration was very good and the story was in parts unnerving but it would have benefited from some ruthless editing. A lot of the story involves an internal dialogue of the main character. His trials and tribulations are so dreadful that you end up just wanting it to be over. A writer of thrillers wants to create this feeling but it's a fine line between relentless fear and dislocation from the story. Having said this the characters are well drawn and the story is compelling but it could have been better in a shorter version

a bit too long

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I loved the first half. I got through it pretty quickly. But the second half seemed to drag on for me, which spoiled it overall.

Great first half. Got tiring durin the second.

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Would you try another book written by Adam Nevill or narrated by David Thorpe?

The narration was good, the accents were smooth enough that they didn't distract from the story so would certainly listen to David again. As for Adam Nevill, I would have to give it a few years for him to mature I think.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

Initially when they first come across the house I felt the scene was genuinely atmospheric and creepy.

If this book were a film would you go see it?

No

Any additional comments?

The book starts off well, the characters are reasonably well defined and the scene descriptions are good. However, the story completely changes half way through and you are left with a cross between monsters and sociopaths and frankly after all the trouble the sociopaths cause I was devasted when their fates were quick! It was almost like Neville started the book and then thought that he couldnt do a monster story justice and would take a page out of Lionel Striver's "We need to talk about Kevin". Was quite disappointed with this really.

Started off well

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