On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth. The chance to put death on pause—forever, perhaps. The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary biological agent…one with no conscience yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive. The dark heart of unbridled human ambition finds its apex in an unholy experiment that now tests the limits of both creator and subject, eclipsing all bounds of morality and sanity….
THE FACTS
📙 visceral and immersive
📘 character driven
📗 creepy and tense
📕 Canadian author and setting! 🍁
THE REVIEW
I have read a few of Nick Cutter’s books and appreciate them all! I can’t say I enjoy them because reading them reminds me of when I was a kid watching a horror movie that I shouldn’t have been – peeping around the corner of a doorframe, too scared to go all the way into the room.
What’s remarkable at “The Dorians” is that Cutter has woven in a subtle yet sharp sense of impending doom. It was there before I was even aware of it and as the plot stride forward the sense of dread gripped tighter.
This type of horror is Cutter’s wheelhouse. Five people at the end of their lives are given the opportunity of a lifetime. Come with the scientists to an isolated island and participate in an experiment that may not only halt their aging but may reverse it all together. It is, of course, the price of this potential future that is the frightening part. What would you be willing to do to reverse illness, aging, or even death? Are there lines you would draw?
The experiment turns out to be a lot more …. Invasive than the volunteers expected. They are choosing a far more permanent and life-changing path than they may have thought. Each person must decide about whether to proceed… I really enjoyed the buildup during the decision-making process. My brain just spiraled with respect to all tension and foreboding.
As these characters embark upon their journeys, they find that not only are they rolling back years of their lives, but they may also be travelling back through their memories. Age isn’t, after all, just the chronological age of our bodies. It is all the tragedies we have faced, the setbacks, the flaws and the losses.
This book has all the things that I love in a horror novel: great characters that I feel a connection to, eerie environment, impending doom, gore and twisty turns.
THE LINKS
🖊 Author
I received a free ALC copy of The Dorians from Libro.fm and this is my unbiased review
Book Reviews & Art 