This book has stayed with me well beyond the well defined characters, including eels. It raises questions about sense of self, adaptability and survival. Highly recommended

The cover image was what drew me into this novel. Carl Nixon’s The Tally Stick is a hard book to read and an even harder book to review. The plot centers around a family of 6 who as a whole vanish from the face of the earth in New Zealand. The absence of the Chamberlains is by itself discovered 3 weeks after they have gone missing coz of various reasons. It is not however the missing that forms the central plot, but the fact that the remains of eldest child Maurice are discovered and found to have lived for 4 years after the family vanished.

The questions come soon enough, what happened to the other children, how is it that Maurice lived for 4 years, what is going on? Carl Nixon’s writing takes the reader to the harsh and the rugged West Coast in New Zealand and the circumstances endured by the surviving three children. Mixing up the timelines, going forth, back, and sometimes the middle, the author successfully keeps the reader worried to the death about the outcome of the painful saga. The trauma becomes more pronounced for the reader when the children’s aunt Suzanne begins her own search traveling to New Zealand every year searching for one clue that would give a measure of peace or closure.

Fair warning to readers, the subject matter is dark, subjugation, manipulation, animal cruelty, abuse, all these subjects are potential triggers in this novel. The Tally Stick needs a good frame of mind to read thru as the disturbing and intense story ends with hopelessness that rips our soul to pieces so much that I lost sleep thinking about it.

A compelling story that causes turmoil but makes it hard to put down, Carl Nixon’s The Tally Stick needs a strong stomach and an indifferent attitude to digest its emotional content.

Many thanks to Net Galley, World Editions, and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.

This review is published in my blog https://rainnbooks.com/, Goodreads, Amazon India, Medium.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

Beautifully, angrily, and comfortably composed, The Tally Stick has more to say about blood and chosen family, living within your parameters versus trying to escape, living in the now as opposed to the past, and the many forms love can take — all within a thrilling mystery surrounding a missing family on vacation in New Zealand.

Recommended, but with notes of some repetition and occasional verisimilitude issues.

The Chamberlains car leaves the road in a remote area and due to the weather, all evidence of the accident disappears with them. Three of the children survive and then the story revolves on their lives after being found by people living in the bush. Each of the children adapts differently to their surroundings and situation - from acceptance of their lives to fighting against it. It's easy to feel compassion for each and sympathize with their plight. This is a well written, intense and quick read.

Okay...this book was incredible. It has been sitting in my inbox for months and picked it up to read and finished it in one sitting. The flow of the writing was so perfect. It got me right away with the accident and then the craziness that would ensue if there was a car crash and only the children survived. I loved the twists this took and how dark it got at times. I was surprised and shocked and disappointed all at the same time. I literally would pick up any book from this author. It was so well written and creepy. I love the way the times mingled and twisted from the past to the present. Kudos!!!

Part mystery, part character study and totally haunting, The Tally Stick is a heartbreaking novel about family, loyalty and survival.

1978 Remote New Zealand: The opening chapter vividly describes an accident. You are in the car with the father as he realizes his mistake which will turn fatal in minutes.You see him reach for his wife’s hand just as she wakes up and reaches for her baby. Then nothing. Three children are survivors: Maurice, Katherine and Teddy. Maurice and Teddy are injured. At age 12, Katherine is now in charge.

2010 London: After her sister and family disappeared, Suzanne traveled to New Zealand four times to search. Now years later, she is shocked to learn bones identified by DNA as Maurice have been found with a few possessions, including the mysterious tally stick, notched to count debts. However, Maurice lived for three or four years after the accident. How? And who else survived? Where are they?

The answers are in The Tally Stick, a dark, sad literary novel. The descriptions of the wild forest of New Zealand are both vivid and terrifying. The children endure much but their strengths and love for each other shine. This is a must read! 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, World Editions and the talented Carl Nixon for this ARC.

"Lost in the wilderness: subjugation, survival, and the meaning of family.

Up on the highway, the only evidence that the Chamberlains had ever been there was two smeared tire tracks in the mud leading into an almost undamaged screen of bushes and trees. No other cars passed that way until after dawn. By that time the tracks had been washed away by the heavy rain. After being in New Zealand for only five days, the English Chamberlain family had vanished into thin air. The date was 4 April 1978. In 2010 the remains of the eldest child are discovered in a remote part of the West Coast, showing he lived for four years after the family disappeared. Found alongside him are his father's watch and what turns out to be a tally stick, a piece of scored wood marking items of debt. How had he survived and then died in such a way? Where is the rest of the family? And what is the meaning of the tally stick?"

New Zealand disappearance? I am here for this!

The tally stick is a engaging yet strange novel, it has the feel of a true story yet isn’t and it grabs you from the very first chapter but whilst reading it I felt it was missing something and the ending was a bit anticlimactic , but the writing is good & very descriptive. It would probably make an interesting tv series or film.

A mystery, for one of the characters; a story of survival for the others, this was an enthralling, extremely difficult read. In 1978, the Chamberlains, a family of six, travels from London to New Zealand for the father's job. While sightseeing their way from Christchurch to their new home, the family disappears into thin air. Years later, the skeletal remains of the oldest child are found along the coast, but it's evident that he had lived for four or five years after the family had gone missing.


The story weaves back and forth in time, and between the family members who survived, and Mrs. Chamberlain's sister, who travels back and forth to New Zealand to try to find what happened to her family. This story is raw and real and haunting.

As the novel opens, three children are waking up to the catastrophic accident that will shapet the rest of their lives. Their parents, who just moved to New Zealand, had been touring the country when their car careened off a cliff in a remote part of the country, killing them both, along with their infant daughter. The resourceful Katherine helps her two injured brothers climb out of the wrecked car to find shelter and wait for the authorities to come find them. They never do.

But a man does appear, who takes them to a broken-down farm where he lives with a woman who makes healing potions. Maurice's injured leg begins to heal, but poor Tommy has suffered a brain injury that never will. Katherine and Maurice are required to work around the farm to pay for their care, room, and board. They are effectively captives.

Meanwhile we learn about the dead mother's sister and her efforts to find the family. Maurice's remains are found after four years, older than when the car crashed - what happened to him in all that time? We seesaw back and forth between her quest and the lives of the children at the farm.

This is ultimately a story about survival and about what makes a family. It's uncomfortable at times (and I dislike captivity narratives on the whole) but is quite engaging. And the landscape really comes to life.

I received a digital advance copy of The Tally Stick by Carl Nixon via NetGalley. The Tally Stick is scheduled for release on January 18, 2022.

The Tally Stick starts with a car crash in 1978. An English family (Dad, Mom, and four children) had just moved to New Zealand and were taking some time to explore their new home. During a storm, the car slides off the road, crashing into a river. Not everyone survives. No one finds the crash. Thirty years later, the bones of the oldest child are found, with evidence that he lived at least four years after the family disappeared. He is found with his father’s watch and a tally stick.

From this point, the novel follows several of the children as they move from the car into the wilds of New Zealand. We also spend time with their aunt in England, both as she searches for her lost family, and years later as she receives closure on one nephew. Throughout, the focus is on the characters react to the crash and the aftermath, with no two characters having a similar experience.

The strength of this novel was the balance of what we learned and the questions that remained. With the finding of one child’s remains early in the story, we know the fate of several of the characters (including those who died in the actual crash). What pulls us through the novel is the question of how he that child managed to survive past the crash and how they ultimately died. We also want to know what happened with the others that survived the crash. By the end, we know what happened to some characters, but the fates of others are a bit less clear. For me, the balance of what was revealed and what remained uncertain was perfect.

Overall, The Tally Stick was a quick and intense exploration of the disappearance of a family in New Zealand. While we are left with many unanswered questions, the novel delivers enough for readers to speculate to fill in the blanks.

This is a really quick and intense read about a family going missing in the west of New Zealand. Beautiful descriptions of a stunning landscape, good characterisation and a brilliant storyline. What an emotional rollercoaster of a ride it was. My only complaint is the abrupt ending but I would recommend the read. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

This book had in interesting premise but I feel as if some opportunities were missed to make more of an impact.

The Chamberlain family moved to New Zealand from London in 1978. The father, John had gotten a job with an oil company and the family was spending a couple of weeks exploring New Zealand before settling down. Not used to the narrow roads, John loses control on a corner in a remote coastal area and the car plunges down a cliff, into a river. John and wife Julia along with baby Emma die in the crash but the three older children - Maurice, Katherine and Tommy survive with varying degrees of injury.

Three days later, when they despair of ever being found, a man called only Peters comes across them and takes them to a remote clearing with a ramshackle house. It is the home of a none too young woman called Martha. She takes the children in, Peters lives a bit further away. Their joy at being rescued is short lived as they realise they are virtual prisoners and little more than slaves.

Of course the family was missed. Julia’s sister visited New Zealand many times to search for clues. But nothing was ever found….until 32 years later Maurice’s bones are found. But the strange thing is, they showed that he had lived for around another 4 years after the family disappeared. Where had he been? And what of the other children - Katherine and Tommy? Might they still be alive?

The books recounts their lives with Peters and Martha. It certainly wasn’t a gentle life but neither was it overly cruel, apart from not informing the authorities about the children being alive! The book ended somewhat abruptly and seemed quite short. When it ended I thought - is that it? It seemed ambiguous and a little unfinished to me. I also thought it was rather sparse and could have been infused with a bit more drama. Many thanks to Netgalley and World Editions for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

An English family drives off a cliff in New Zealand, not to be seen or heard from until decades later when the remains of one of the children is found, aged years after the disappearance. The Tally Stick is disturbing in the best way and has the reader trying to piece together such an interesting mystery. This book is fast paced and hard to out down. The only disappointment is that we do not receive answers to all of the mysteries by the end of the book; it feels like a large portion of Katherine's life is left out of the story.

This was a very tense read from start to finish. A family of two parents and four children disappear into thin air....nearly literally. The search for them does not begin until the father fails to show up for his first day at his new job two weeks later. Then it is discovered that the family never moved into their new home. The mother, Julia's sister, Suzanne refuses to give up the search for years. Until she finally has to come to the conclusion that she has done all she could do by herself. Then years later, the remains of her one of her missing nephews are found and he died when he was obviously several years older than he was when he first disappeared. This story is very well crafted, switching back to various times as we follow the surviving children on their bizarre journey. To say anymore would spoil the surprises for anyone before they begin to read this for themselves.

Thank you to Netgalley and World Editions for the e-ARC of this suspenseful mystery.

This mystery opens in New Zealand on April 4, 1978 when the Chamberlain Family vanished on a rainy night. In 2010, the remains of one of the children are found and they show he lived for four years after the family's disappearance. One of the items they find with his remains is a tally stick - a piece of wood used to mark debts. This discovery leads to a list of questions - How had he survived and then died? Where is the rest of the family? And what type of debt is marked on the tally stick?

TW/CW: child death, parental death, animal death, child abuse, traumatic brain injury (discussed further below**)

I'll be honest, going into this book I was hoping to like it, but I wasn't sure what to expect from a 212 page book with such a vague synopsis. And I think that really is the best way to go into it. This story took so many turns and I was completely engaged through the entire reading experience. I read it all in one sitting and I was really surprised at how much I liked it. This came across to me, initially, as looking like it might be a bit underwhelming but now that I've finished it, I think the synopsis gives just the right amount of set up. I was expecting this to be pretty strictly a wilderness survival story and while it is that for a while, it turns into something so much more. So I'd say that if the premise intrigues you at all, then you should pick this up. The book is on the shorter side of my preferred reading length but I was surprised at how much plot and character development Nixon was able to weave into the story in that short page count. This was one of those reads where if you go back to look at the more technical writing craft elements, you can see just how tight the story was. There was really no extra fluff or unnecessary moments - all the fat had been trimmed and the story that was left was lean but made for an impactful reading experience.

The characters were really well developed and since the story does take place over the span of many years, we get a good amount of character growth and development. In fact, I really enjoyed how the characters seemed to go through multiple different development cycles as they adjusted to each new situation they encountered. It was also interesting to see how different characters adjusted differently when put in similar situations. Each character we see on the page - the Chamberlain family as well as other characters, I felt were described and developed in a very straightforward way that I was really able to latch onto.

**I did want to touch briefly on one character who suffers a traumatic brain injury in the opening incident. The injury results in the character's loss of speech, behavior changes, and trouble with attention. The character is not able to really clean or care for themselves but they do have other characters who care for them. However, there are some characters that make potentially triggering or upsetting remarks along the lines as "if Character A can't control when they urinate then they shouldn't wear pants and so they can pee anywhere" or "if Character A were an animal, I'd shoot them to put them out of their misery".

The way the setting was described and used was fantastic. The story is set on New Zealand's south island in the West Coast region. It is described as a very remote area with large areas of wilderness sparsely populated. If you look at pictures of the area, it is very striking with impressive landscapes and topographical features. However, as the Chamberlain family leans, these features can become deadly even while still being beautiful. The back and forth of the setting being described in a very picturesque way but then showing the impact of the Chamberlain family's situation was very well done and really gave an overall unsettling tone to the story. I visited New Zealand a few years ago and when I was doing my research and looking at all sorts of tourist websites, so many of them consistently cautioned visitors to not underestimate the wilderness and that even activities such as hiking can be much more dangerous in the New Zealand terrain. As the story progressed, we kept getting more and more small mentions of certain aspects to the setting and surroundings that were a consistent threat to the characters on page. That threat of harm was a really fantastic undertone to the story as a whole.

The ending to this story was really interesting. This isn't the typical mystery story where a journalist or investigator of some sort is trying to unearth the truth. So by the end, the reader knows exactly what happened to every member of the Chamberlain family, but other characters in the book do not. It was a really bittersweet ending because of this and some readers might find it a bit unsatisfactory. I really liked the choice to structure the ending this way and I think it fit the overall tone of the book really well. The story is told in dual timeline so we know from the beginning that remains of one of the Chamberlain children are found so then when we follow the 1978 timeline, there's a sense of dread because the reader knows something the characters don't. What was interesting is that we were given no details from the remains as far as a cause of death or any other information so that also heightened the sense of dread while reading because it felt like almost anything could be the catalyst for the death. Plus, the rest of the Chamberlain family remains weren't found so the tension in the story is also high because I was just waiting to see what happened to the rest of the family. I think there were a lot of good payoffs with moments that initially feel 'off' only to later be shown to be sinister and threatening to our characters.

Overall, I really enjoyed this read. I went into the story with only the little information from the synopsis and I was surprised at how deep and sinister the story got. There's a lot of plot, character development, and twists packed into this shorter read and I highly recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and World Editions for the ARC

Expected publication date is January 18, 2022

(orig pub August 4, 2020)

I really enjoyed this book. It’s my first time reading a book based in NZ and maybe from a NZ author at that. I felt so bad for the siblings and their loss and struggle throughout the book and the ending was something you’ll have to experience for yourself. The book is filled with hopelessness, terror, unease, and readjustment. It’s really a unique story. It reminded me a little of The Poisonwood Bible I think just because of the remoteness and foreign aspect of it.

I'm finding it really hard to review this book; the writing is so good and paints such a vivid picture that I found the description of the aftermath of the accident and the children's suffering so distressing I couldn't continue reading!
What stars to award? 5 for the writing at the start but I don't know what happens then, so have gone for a neutral 3.
Thank you to netgalley and World editions for an advance copy of this book

This was a very bleak and sad story, but it was also a story of resilience and hope for the future. After a chaotic beginning where I wasn't quite sure what was going on, and neither was the character telling the story at that point, we find out that there has been a fatal car accident, Katherine, her brothers Maurice and Tommy, and baby Emma along with their parents had been on a driving tour along the west coast of New Zealand. Their car goes off the road, down a cliff and into a river, Katherine, Maurice and Tommy are the only survivors, though Tommy has a severe head injury that affects his cognitive ability and mobility. The kids manage to camp out along the bank of the river for a few days before they are 'rescued' by a man and his dogs. He takes them to a farm where he lives in an abandoned bus and spends most days with a woman who lives in a house on the property. The woman, Martha, is also a healer who uses natural ingredients. Katherine survived with a few cracked ribs, Maurice had a badly broken leg and Tommy had the severe head injury. Meanwhile we learn that an Aunt of the kids has spent (literally) years looking for the wreckage, it was only when the employer of the father phoned to ask where he was that they learned the family was missing, the police could not locate any trace of them. Suzanne, the aunt, is also given the remains of Maurice that had been found some 30 years after he had gone missing and it was determined he had lived for a time after the accident. The author does an excellent job with combining these two story lines to a satisfying ending, though it may not be what most readers would expect. Thank you to Netgalley and World Editions for the ARC.

This was such a fun thriller and entertaining read! If you haven’t heard of this before then I highly suggest you add it to your TBR. It was so fun and grabbed my attention from the start.

The writing style was so good as well, I definitely would read more from this author. The story overall was great and it was such a quick read as you don’t want to put it down for a second. You’ll want to know what happens and will be flipping page after page.