(testing) —From the March 2025 edition of The Midwest Book Review—

To Those Willing to Drown is a Torch Lake Souls literary horror novel that is highly recommended for readers of deep horror that revolves around physical and psychological quandaries rooted in pain. Sensitive readers usually don't pursue the horror genre for just these reasons—but avoidance would translate to missing out big time, because Mark Matthews creates a powerfully thought-provoking, multifaceted story that proves nearly impossible to put down.

Matthews remains wickedly adept at grabbing readers, hurting readers, and practically daring them to continue—rewarding those who do.

There's a playful choreography to this grim story. Truly unique. Like the lake itself, the storytelling here feels alive. Matthews unassumingly dances readers along that precariously thin line separating humanity's best and worst. Even with a pretty good idea of which direction Matthews will shove you eventually, you'll catch yourself smiling right before he tosses you into the next unimaginable horror.

To say anything more would spoil the dance, save this: I won't be putting myself near any wells anytime soon.

“𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒔, 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒔 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒏.”

This was an eerie and tragic, yet hauntingly beautiful folk horror steeped in supernatural and mythological elements.

Told from multiple pov’s with multiple interwoven timelines, books like this can sometimes be complicated to follow, however each character is so distinct, it made it much easier to understand as we flicked back and forth.

The themes in this book are dark, with child loss and grief holding a big place in the storyline, but it was written well and handled with care. There was a lot of potential for this to be longer - that being said I feel like the pacing was well done and for quite a short book, it didn’t feel rushed. That ending, however, has me on the edge…..

Thank you so much to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book.