Across The Dunes: A Folk Horror Fairy Tale Set in the Present Day by Dan Soule

Silver Thistle Press, 2025

ISBN: ‎ 9781917794008

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Amazon.com

An eclectic mix of fairy/folk tale, horror splat, and modern times, this will certainly appeal to readers who were taken with Stephen King’s Fairy Tale and Joseph Sale’s Carcosa series. Across the Dunes is not set in a separate realm, unlike the above, but it retains many of the same elements. Most importantly, like those books, this tale is one you will want to read right through to the finish.

The story takes a measured pace through the first 88 pages, as protagonist Michael Lorimer returns to the English seaside town where he grew up to sell the family beach house nestled by the dunes of the ocean. He has his 16 year old son with him, who he has just learned about. It’s a good use of a lead-in to the main plot, as you learn a bit of the town history and associated legends, and get the idea that there is something forbidding about the sand dunes around the house and town. It’s given in snippets: there’s no predictable, lengthy, exposition. On page 89, the gears of weirdness start really whirling and firing, with a graveyard of dolls and an abandoned bus starting the next phase of the story. From there on, it runs in high gear right to the finish.

This book gets high marks especially for its unpredictability and creative settings. Just when you think it will throw you a fastball down the middle, you get a curve instead, and it happens throughout the story. What happens in the sand dunes with the old equipment found there is a good example, but you’ll have to read it, as I don’t want to give too much away. Creative settings, like the doll graveyard (and other oddities found there) keep the story interesting.

The author does an excellent job turning the sand dunes into a living, breathing entity that exudes menace; not the easiest job in the world, considering the normal state of sand, but it is great fun here, as the sand slithers and worms its way after the heroes, always finding a way in. This is turning the inanimate into an animated object, without resorting to overblown gimmicks like screaming faces and appendages appearing in the sand. It’s a fresh take on folk horror, brought into the modern day with some pretty messy sections, especially when one of the locals starts going wild with a meat cleaver. This book truly is a blend of a lot of different things, and the parts certainly add up to an entertaining whole.

It’s hard to categorize this book overall, and that’s probably a good thing, it doesn’t slip neatly into any category, other than the “you don’t want to miss this” category. It’s certainly worth the read, and recommendation.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson