Margins
Where the Dead Wait book cover
Where the Dead Wait
2023
First Published
3.19
Average Rating
400
Number of Pages

An eerie, atmospheric Polar Gothic following a Victorian explorer in search of his lost shipmate and his own redemption—from the author of the “vivid, immersive” (The Guardian) horror novel All the White Spaces. William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens­­—the man who’s haunted his whole life—back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he’s done. Abandonment. Betrayal. Cannibalism. Aboard ship, Day must also contend with unwanted passengers: a reporter obsessively digging up the truth about the first expedition, as well as Stevens’s wife, a spirit-medium whose séances both fascinate and frighten. Following a trail of cryptic messages, gaunt bodies, and old bones, their search becomes more and more unnerving, as it becomes clear that the restless dead are never far behind. Something is coming through.

Avg Rating
3.19
Number of Ratings
1,686
5 STARS
13%
4 STARS
26%
3 STARS
34%
2 STARS
20%
1 STARS
7%
goodreads

Author

Ally Wilkes
Ally Wilkes
Author · 3 books

I write supernatural, cosmic, and weird horror, and I'm particularly fascinated by Polar stories and the exploration Gothic, despite suffering from seasickness and loathing the cold! My debut novel All the White Spaces, set in the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, will be out in January 2022 (UK) / March 2022 (US). My short fiction has been published in Nightmare Magazine, Three Crows Magazine, and I'm also the Book Reviews Editor for Horrified Magazine, the British horror website. I live in Greenwich, London, with an anatomical human skeleton and far too many books about Polar exploration...

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