White Line Fever by K.C. Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
White Line Fever is the 2nd-book that I have read from K.C. Jones, and I believe we are going to have a long and beautiful friendship. This was great. I loved the themes explored and the hair-raising, disturbing and distressing journey we went on with these characters.
This story follows Livia, who after experiencing a particularly rough patch at home, gets swept away on a girls’ weekend retreat by her three best friends.
As they head to the remote cabin they’ve rented, they encounter a bit of trouble on the road, and like many characters before them, decide to take a shortcut.
County Road 951 looks unremarkable at the start, but what the women don’t know is that this road also has another name: The Devil’s Driveway.
It does not take long before the group starts noticing concerning things happening, time slips and confusion, hallucinations and worse. Their good-spirited getaway is quickly turning into a pulse-racing nightmare.
The horrors of the road seem to be linked to their past, but it’s all so hard to decipher. The women are confused and tired, but regardless of the challenges and their fears, they’ll need to work together if they have any hope of survival.
I thought White Line Fever was so interesting. It begins with a startling and gripping Prologue that is set on the stretch of road where the women ultimately end up, but it’s not necessarily related to them.
That Prologue really set the tone for the story. Then we take a quick step back and meet Livia, as well as her friends, and we learn of their motivations behind their girls’ trip.
It had the perfect Horror story set-up: four friends on a girls weekend, driving to a remote rental house, things going horribly wrong. Also it featured a great Horror story lesson, which many of us already know and practice in our own lives: don’t ever take the shortcut.
We do get a past-timeline, in addition to the present-day action, where we follow Livia and her friend group when they were just young girls.
We learn of formative (read: traumatizing) events that happened to them on Livia’s family’s property.
I did enjoy that back-and-forth. The friend group and particularly the way the events of their youth were relayed did give me heavy-It vibes; not in a copy-cat way, in a more inspirational, subtle way. I enjoyed that vibe.
While some of the events occurring in the Devil’s Driveway were a bit too fever dream for my general tastes, I did love the character work and in particular, the growth that our MC, Livia, displayed throughout the story.
You truly go on a journey with these characters. I enjoyed the feel of the road itself, how it plays the role of antagonist. I also loved the strong bonds of the friend group, as they tried to figure everything out in order to get out of there.
I would recommend this to Horror Readers of all types. I think the creativity and exceptional character work make this one worthy of picking up. I’m looking forward to more from Jones in the future.
Thank you to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review.
K.C. Jones seems to take risks with his writing, and I respect the heck out of that, and enjoy a lot of the themes and concepts he explores in his stories. The best part is, I have no clue in what direction he’ll be going next with his work, but you better believe, I’m gonna be there to read it!