A.M. Shine

An Irish horror adventure set in the unknown forests of Galway, where humans are kept under observation by screaming creatures, from debut author A. M. Shine.

A gripping debut horror novel for 2021

The Watchers

A. M. Shine

You can't see them. But they can see you. This forest isn't charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina's is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams. Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn't reach the bunker in time. Afraid and trapped among strangers, Mina is desperate for answers. Who are the Watchers and why are these creatures keeping them imprisoned, keen to watch their every move?

I enjoyed this book for the most part. It was interesting. The plot twist was somewhat predictable. The epilogue also kinda ruined a nice, complete ending but whatever. I will just pretend it didn’t happen. 

Jillian Roberts

Jasper

Great if you’re looking for a supernatural thriller in an unknown setting.

Rabia Sitabi

Suspenseful with some great twists.

Great if you’re looking for a supernatural thriller in an unknown setting.

Definitely better than the movie.

tori 👻

4.5⭐️
I found out because of the last page that this is the first book in a series lmao

Raven Mason-Uyeda

This has become one of my favourite books, it was gripping from the start til the end. A.M. Shine created such a dynamic scene, describing everything so well, I felt so immersed in the world and like I was along side the characters.

It was creepy and it took a turn I didn't see coming until near the end.

Sarah Chauvidon

grace richards

this book was hardly a horror and could’ve done with being 100 pages shorter.

Amani Zaha

The Watchers is built around an intriguing idea of dark, creepy faeries. There's folklore, an incredibly claustrophobic setting, eerie ambiance and interesting plot twists; all solid ingredients for an impressive horror story.

These elements, however, are lost within writing that is more purple prose than anything else, making the book's reasonable 250-pages feel much longer. I agree with several other reviewers in that a shorter format may have been more effective — at the very least, it would have made for a tighter story, focused on its core ideas.

Just read this sentence from a scene where the main character is pondering how easily the Watchers might kill her:
Her bones – so brittle, so sore and light – would break like the breadsticks in her favourite Italian restaurant where they always poured generously from the bottle, and where the windows carried no scratches.
(And if I fell out the window of a tall building, I would drop like my beloved orange stuffed cat that I tossed from the balcony when I was six years old, hoping it would fly.) While not all of the writing is like this, there is enough that it kept distracting me from the story and its world, undermining the horror it tried to convey.

Apart from flowery writing style, the narration meanders, dragging in between the more exciting and creepy parts of the plot. Shine makes somewhat of an effort to humanise the characters, but it didn't help make me care for them and merely slowed down the story. Ultimately, this is a book that I think I'd prefer as a movie.

Madhuri Sridhara

A great book! I was hooked from page one and loved it till the very end. 

These are characters to root for and a story that never loses its pacing. There were moments that I literally wanted jump because it was that tense. Definitely one of the better horror books I've read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Aria Fiction for the advance readers copy.

4.5/5

Danielle Mellett

Many thanks to the author, publisher & Net Galley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t typically read that many horror books, but I was supper intrigued by the description of this book and thought it would be a fitting addition to my October TBR.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and would rate it 3.75/5. A lot of other readers found it quite slow paced, but I actually felt like the pacing was perfect for the plot and provided some required tension. I found the overall arc of the story strong and definitely creepily disturbing, even if not outright scary.

I did predict the twist towards the end of the book, but still thought it was a great addition. I found the character depth a bit lacking, and feel like the multiple POV was unnecessary.

The Watchers A gripping debut horror novel for 2021

Reviews