Preview: ‘Thistlebone Book Two: Poisoned Roots’ – The Folk Horror That Worms Its Way Under Your Skin

by Richard Bruton

Just as your nightmares have subsided… here’s volume two of the folk horror creepiness of Thistlebone.

Modern folk horror that creeps along, infecting you with the strangeness, forcing that shudder down your spine… that’s just what Thistlebone did with the first volume.

I called the first series “a stunning folk-horror series, an absolute chiller from start to finish’ and ‘an absolutely nerve-jangling, atmospheric thriller that slowly and surely amps up all the madness, all of the repressed violence, all of the horrors that have lingered and festered deep in the woods and does it superbly.”

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to find that the second collection takes all those chills and horrors and keeps them coming, quite brilliantly.

Here’s the 2000 AD PR…

“It’s been over a year since journalist Seema Chaudry accompanied cult survivor Avril Eason back to the village of Harrowvale, the site of her terrifying experiences at the hands of Jasper Hillman’s Thistlebone worshippers, a crazed occult group that believed in an ancient woodland deity. Intended as a cathartic experience, both women were changed forever by what they were confronted with.

Now, in the process of researching a book on the Thistlebone legend, Seema believes much of it centres around one man” – Malcolm Kinniburgh.

Eglington, as with the first book, tells his story slowly, quietly, letting the eeriness of it all enfold you, as it enfolds the characters, until you’re just as caught up in the darkness and horror of it all as they are.

And of course, Simon Davis’ artwork is simply perfect for this, organic, pastoral, the darkness lingering at the edges of every scene, before exploding into pure horror. No-one could do this better than Davis does it here.