Timberdark broke my heart.

It's a gay zombie Western, about love and how painful it is to love someone and to realise that they no longer love you the same way, and how hard it is to see that canyon form and fill with silence. This really hit a nerve with me, and was at times almost painful to read. The emotional resonance is just so overwhelmingly powerful.

First of all, for anyone not familiar with book one in this series, Wranglestone, yes it is a gay zombie Western. In a post-apocalyptic world, human survivors eke out an existence on the islands of a lake on a nature reserve, protected from the zombies stalking the land by the water, except when it ices over in winter. In this bleak, harsh existence, Peter and Cooper find love with each other. Cooper, with his Stetson and his faded jeans and his beloved horse is the quintessential cowboy, and I loved how making him gay did so much to subvert traditional tropes and open up new possibilities for storytelling.

Actually, if you aren't familiar with Wranglestone, you really need to read that first. Timberdark picks up where it left off, and won't make an awful lot of sense as a starting point.

For the first part of the book, the love between Peter and Cooper is pure and beautiful and an absolute joy to watch as they take comfort in each other's presence. There's no sexual content, but beautifully described kisses and hand-holding and it is just the sweetest, purest romance. The ways in which they are there for each other warms the heart.

Then they leave their settled-ish existence, moving into a new town in the hopes that humanity and civilisation might actually be rebuilding itself. This is where the problems really start. The descriptions of love falling apart, of being in love with someone but unable to reach out to them, unable to talk to them and tell them how you feel, or of knowing that you are losing them and being powerless to do anything other than wish they'd open up to you, talk to you, reach out to where you are lying in the darkness thinking about them and aching with every last piece of your heart, they elevate this book from a fantastic horror to someone altogether different and very special. It's mirrored, in a way, with Peter's friendship with Becky, where he just can't bring himself to reach out and talk to her and watches their friendship fade away in silence.

There's so much more to this book than relationship trauma though. There's a really exciting storyline once they reach the town that left me wondering what just about everybody is up to, with plots and mysteries and secrets that are thrilling and captivating. It really left me guessing about what was really going on, and once truths are revealed it's frantic with action.

The Western style is something I really loved about this too, it's just blended so well with the rest of the setup, giving it a real charm of its own.

The horror elements are absolutely on point. The herds of zombie have lost some of their threat, though there is one nail-biting sequence with them, but there's a new and totally terrifying killer in there who really chilled me!

The whole thing finishes with a powerful message about our very humanity, but spoilers!

All in all, beautifully done. Powerful, emotional, with one of the most real, most beautiful and most raw romances I've come across. The fact that it is a gay romance is just another win for diverse representation really.

Darren Charlton has done it again!! Timberdark is beautifully written and such wonderful descriptions and I can honestly see myself in the book alongside the characters.
The book follows Peter and Cooper and how they are adjusting to life and their new relationship after the events of Wranglestone. Peter and Cooper have a plan to find Returnees and offer them sanctuary at Wranglestone. This all goes to plan until they meet a Ghost Ranger and their plans are thrown in the air and they are forced to try a new life in a town. There’s something that’s just not quite right about the town though and Peter and Cooper grow apart over a single word… ‘Timberdark’.

As I’ve said, the book is beautifully written and I found myself being drawn straight back into Wranglestone like I’d never left. I’d recommend the book to ages 11+, there’s mild swearing. The book kept me on my toes and I just couldn’t stop reading.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF

This decision left me a little heartbroken, not gonna lie. But I couldn't force myself to continue any further. The setting is so interesting but the conversations sometimes pulled me out of the story because of how unrealistic they felt.

For example, there was a convo between Peter and a girl he was trying to save near the start of the book but they started bantering and the banter I guess is supposed to be funny? But all it did was made me annoyed because all of them were supposed to be in danger at that moment. How do you still have the time to leisurely argue with someone when your lives are threatened??

Curious point: (This happened in the same scene as above btw) Cooper corrected Peter by saying that “Super Bowl /is/ soccer.” See, I'm not American, but isn't the Super Bowl supposed to be about football?

Anyway, thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free digital copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much for letting me read this, it did not disappoint! It continued right where it needed to and added depth, excitement and intrigue to an already enjoyable story.