The Book of Accidents: A Novel

Chuck Wendig

Jul 2021 · Sold by Del Rey

About this ebook

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A family returns to their hometown—and to the dark past that haunts them still—in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • “The dread, the scope, the pacing, the turns—I haven’t felt all this so intensely since The Shining.”—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Public Library, Library Journal

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.
 
And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

Ratings and reviews

What a wild ride. Will be reading more by this author. I loved the writing style, the twists and turns, the creativity. I appreciated the way generational trauma was a big but yet almost hidden message in the story.

Whoa! What the heck did I just read? This was one twisted, wild, mind bending story. I literally could not stop reading it once I started. The characters here are of every variety, each of them exhibiting the good and the bad in so many ways. I was totally caught up in the drama of their lives and the changes they were each facing as they adjusted to them. There was just a touch of something not normal going on and then a trickle of it as my anxiety grew before...boom! And then things got really weird. I LOVED it! This book tossed me from one emotion to the next and kept me on the edge of my seat one minute and recoiling the next. I have never read anything like this before. I was enthralled each step of the way with each new revelation and every bend in the journey. I kept thinking, “How the heck does someone come up with something like this?!” I never once looked away. Good thing I started this early in the morning. After loving everything about this story, I was concerned when I got close to the end. I was thrilled with the last few pages. It was absolutely perfect on every level. This book crosses all types of genre and trope lines. At least for me, it does. I can’t even begin to label it in order to recommend it. It was one of the most unusual books I’ve ever read and it pulled me in completely and refused to let me go.

Zaw Htwe

About the author

Chuck Wendig is the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers, Star Wars: Aftermath, the Miriam Black thrillers, the Atlanta Burns books, and Zer0es and Invasive, alongside other works across comics, games, film, and more. He was a finalist for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer and an alum of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, and he served as the co-writer of the Emmy-nominated digital narrative Collapsus. He is also known for his popular blog, terribleminds, and books about writing such as Damn Fine Story. He lives in Pennsylvania with his family.