Darker Days: A Novel

""No one builds agonizing tension like Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Darker Days is his best yet."" — Catriona Ward, award-winning author of The Last House on Needless Street and Looking Glass Sound

From the author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Hex comes a modern horror story with echoes of Paul Tremblay, Joe Hill, and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” about a gilded street in a small Pacific Northwest town where the charmed residents have made a frightening bargain . . . with devastating consequences.

Sometimes you think you can see things behind the fence. Bad things. So it’s better not to look . . .

In Lock Haven, a quiet little town in Washington State, Bird Street is a very special place. The residents of this pretty cul-de-sac are all successful, wealthy, healthy, and happy. Their children are high achievers, well-mannered and smart.

But when November arrives the “Darker Days” descend, bringing accidents, bad luck, familial conflict, and illness. It is in November when a stranger appears to collect on a longstanding debt. A price must be paid for the good fortune the residents of Bird Street enjoy the other eleven months of the year. The devil is due. A sacrifice must be made.

So it has been for over a hundred years. To assuage their guilt, the denizens of Bird Street choose carefully who will be sent into the woods. Usually, it is an elderly or terminally ill individual who wishes to die with dignity and is content to be helped on their way.

Until one year, things don’t go to plan and events take a terrifying turn . . .

Darker Days is a propulsive, haunting novel that begs the question. ""how far will we go for our own happiness and what sacrifices we are willing to make?""

© 2025 HarperAudio (Lydbog): 9780063472532

Release date

Lydbog: 28. oktober 2025