I’ve been having fun with Ania Ahlborn’s suspenseful, horror novels for just a few years now so I used to be very comfortable after I was given the chance to overview The Unseen. Grief, discomfort, and creepy youngsters kind a middle of the novel’s horror. When a grieving lady named Isla Hansen is greeted by a younger boy in her yard, she is inclined to deliver him into her household.
Hailed as a author of “a few of the most promising horror I’ve encountered in years” (Seanan McGuire, creator of the Ghost Roads collection), Ania Ahlborn delivers a novel that pushes the boundaries of horror into a brand new realm.
Isla Hansen, a mom reeling from a devastating loss, is beside herself when a mysteriously orphaned youngster seems on the outskirts of the Hansens’ secluded Colorado property. Though unusual and unexplainable, the kid’s presence breathes new life into Isla. However because the youngster settles in, Isla’s husband, Luke, and their 5 kids discover peculiarities that trace at one thing far past the strange—anomalies that problem the very material of actuality itself. The stress inside the Hansen family grows, and with it, the sense that there’s something very incorrect with the brand new child in the home.
The Unseen is a haunting story that walks the road between the acquainted and the unknown, drawing us right into a chilling narrative the place actuality itself feels simply out of attain.
Isla is grieving as a result of one in every of her kids handed away. On one hand, her inclination to “change” that deceased youngster with the feral youngster who appeared in her yard is comprehensible. On the opposite, Isla and Luke nonetheless have a big household of 5 kids. The boy can’t talk and isn’t very far-removed kind being a wild animal. His wild nature makes her husband uncomfortable, her 5 kids uncomfortable, and unsettles the household canines. However Isla is pushed and decided to “save” this boy. She ignores all proof that may in any other case deter her…the aforementioned canines who’re usually docile are aggressive in direction of the feral youngster. Her 5 kids are unsettled by the younger boy and really feel pushed apart and forgotten in favor of the feral youngster.
One in all Ahlborn’s earlier novels, The Satan Crept In, leaned closely (and really successfully) on the “creepy youngster” trope. If something, that trope was much more efficient in The Unseen and I feel a part of that’s the utter blind willingness of Isla to disregard all of the blatant, apparent indicators that this child must be nowhere close to her household.
Hardly ever have I had such anger and disdain for a protagonist/principal character in a novel. I completely hated Isla for almost all of the novel, how she ignored the residing kids she had. Ahlborn did such job within the scenes from Isla’s kids’s factors of view that I had that rather more contempt for Isla. Solely in direction of the tip of The Unseen did I begin to discover a sliver of sympathy for Isla and her plight. I felt uncomfortable with a lot anger for a personality struggling a lot grief, however I additionally couldn’t forgive the implications of how she reacted to that grief.
There additionally occurs to be a historical past of lacking kids within the area the place the novel takes place. It’s an moreover unsettling distinction to the feral boy showing simply when Isla is most weak and in a psychological state the place she will be able to solely invite the kid into her household. The characters we’re following (Isla’s household) assume the lacking kids an odd background factor, however like all the pieces Ahlborn does in her writing, there’s one thing very deliberate happening right here. Each aspect of the story serves some goal and most frequently, a part of that goal is to creep out and unsettle the reader.
Horror novels and tales typically require a suspension of disbelief and there’s a stage of disbelief required to purchase into how a lot Isla’s grief over the lack of one youngster blinds her to the “substitute” youngster she will be able to save. Should you alter issues a bit and swap Isla’s obsession with this feral youngster to substance habit blinding her to her husband, kids, and canines’s warning indicators, her obsession with the kid turns into extra plausible. That doesn’t make Isla any extra likeable, however possibly just a little extra empathetic. It’s a testomony to Ahlborn’s highly effective storytelling abilities that I used to be magnetically compelled to proceed studying regardless of how a lot I disliked Isla.
Grief is commonly on the core of horror tales and Ahlborn makes use of that as a basis for all the pieces that occurs to Isla and her household. Grief and despair can blind individuals to very harmful levels and while you throw in some not so pure components, the stakes can grow to be greater.
The Unseen is a novel the place each interplay is stuffed with dread, the place the youngsters consider their mom with unease and discomfort. It’s a highly effective, gripping novel that saved my consideration rapt all through. I’m nonetheless making an attempt to type out what I feel occurred on the finish and I how I really feel about it, however that’s one other signal of a well-crafted novel.
Ania Ahlborn continues her streak of wonderful novels.
Advisable
© 2025 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | August 2025 | 384 Pages
https://www.aniaahlborn.com/
Evaluation copy courtesy of the writer, Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
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