Briardark by S.A. Harian Series: Briardark #1
Published by Compass and Fern (1.16.23)
Genres: Adult, Horror
Format: Audiobook, 362 pages
Length: 10 hours, 46 minutes
Narrator: Brenda Scott Wlazlo
Source: I own it
For Dr. Siena Dupont and her ambitious team, the Alpenglow glacier expedition is a career-defining opportunity. But thirty miles into the desolate Deadswitch Wilderness, they discover a missing hiker dangling from a tree, and their satellite phone fails to call out.
Then the body vanishes without a trace.
The disappearance isn’t the only chilling anomaly. Siena’s map no longer aligns with the trail. The glacier they were supposed to study has inexplicably melted. Strange foliage overruns the mountainside, and a tunnel within a tree hollow lures Siena to a hidden cabin, and a stranger with a sinister message…
Holden Sharpe’s IT job offers little distraction from his wasted potential until he stumbles upon a decommissioned hard drive and an old audio file. Trapped on a mountain, Dr. Siena Dupont recounts an expedition in chaos and the bloody death of a colleague.
Entranced by the mystery, Holden searches for answers to Siena’s fate. But he is unprepared for the truth that will draw him to the outskirts of Deadswitch Wilderness—a place teeming with unfathomable nightmares and impossibilities.
My thoughts
This book was one of my most anticipated 2023 releases! I didn’t love it like I’d hoped I would, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. The narration was great! I think without listening I wouldn’t have enjoyed this very much tbh and may have considered DNFing. The narrator reminded me a lot of Pippa’s narrator in Good Girl’s Guide (one of my fave audiobooks!).
It started off kinda slow, but there was enough intrigue and suspense to keep me interested. You only get little pieces of the story at a time, giving it a driving air of mystery. The atmosphere was by far the selling point of this book. It’s creepy AF! I loved the uncanny eeriness of it.
Deadswitch and the Briardark were awesome, and I enjoyed how things kept getting weirder and more disturbing as the story progressed. View Spoiler »
The main thing that dragged this book down for me was the fact that I couldn’t connect to any of the characters. They were all extremely bland and lacking any real personality, and I didn’t care about them at all. There were also waaay too many POVs and I found it entirely unnecessary. I got them mixed up a lot and feel like it could have done with just Siena and Holden’s POVs only. I outright hated Holden’s chapters and was bored in most of those. Siena was a pretty vapid MC and I found Emmett insufferable with the overbearing, overprotective way he was toward Siena; but I did like Cam. Cam should have been the MC.
Overall Assessment
Plot: 3/5
Premise: 5/5
Writing style: 3/5
Originality: 4/5
Characters: 2/5
World-building: 4/5
Pace: 3/5
Feels: 1/5
Narration: 4/5
Cover: 4/5
Overall rating: 3.5/5
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