Six sea kayakers paddle down a tidal estuary into a privately-owned valley in Devon, where they intend to camp for the night. Making their way along the narrowing estuary they reach marshy wetland, with bleached trees standing in an expanse of mudflats… and from the branches of these dead trees hang the bones of animals. Though they’re a little spooked by this sight, the group pushes on, traversing a creek worming its way through a marsh filled with brown reeds. After heading down a widening river overhung with trees, they reach a flat meadow, which they decide will be the place to pitch camp. But, after something ghastly happens to one of their group when she wanders into the trees clinging to the sloping side of the valley, the kayakers are plunged into an ever-worsening, nightmarish situation from which there is no escape until the next high tide… 

MONUMENTAL is the latest novel from Adam Nevill, and it is a real page-turner! With the estuary’s tidal cycle enforcing a ticking clock element on the story, the reader knows that everything happening in the plot will be dictated by this tight timeline, plus the enclosed valley environment itself ensures this yarn becomes a nerve-shredding contained survival-horror experience that piles extra pressure onto the protagonists who find themselves with very restricted routes of escape.
I don’t want to go into too much detail with regard to the plot, as only the limited edition hardback copies of MONUMENTAL have been published so far, but I will say that as soon as the novel begins Nevill immediately and effectively sketches-in the character dynamics between all the kayakers – and the way in which he introduces the Wyrm Valley really places you there in the landscape with the unsuspecting group. It will come as no surprise that MONUMENTAL deals with ancient pagan terror, with the particular horrors depicted here sticking in your mind long after you’ve closed the book. What’s really cool is the way Nevill has continued expanding upon his pantheon of fearful entities lurking in the same region of the UK that has also been featured in his books THE REDDENING, CUNNING FOLK and THE VESSEL. Though each of these novels are standalone stories, there is definitely the suggestion that South West England is the focal point of an accumulation of primordial evil.

The unspeakably loathsome central thing in MONUMENTAL (which I REALLY want to describe to you but I am using all of my willpower to restrain myself from doing so!) is a repulsively outstanding horror that H.P. Lovecraft would’ve been proud of! And talking of classic writers of yesteryear, the action beats later in the story, with lead character Marcus taking on swarms of pallid terrors, have the exciting vitality of Robert E. Howard’s propulsive prose. Honestly, this is a book that’s simultaneously horrific and extraordinarily exciting! 

Nevill’s novels THE RITUAL and NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE have both been turned into movies, and MONUMENTAL is screaming to be adapted for the big screen too. Come on Hollywood, somebody make this into a movie now!

Adam Nevill explains how he oversees his horrifically cool imprint, Ritual Limited, in Imaginator Magazine’s Folk Horror Special Edition Volume 2.