The Pale Hunger

The Pale Hunger 

When four friends enter the forest to uncover what happened to Owen and Elenor Holloway, they expect grief—maybe even death. But the woods greet them with silence… and something worse.

Symbols carved into bark. Bones arranged like rituals. Creatures that watch but do not speak. Each step draws them deeper into a fracture in reality, where memory fails, and the soul begins to erode.

Something ancient is stalking the trees.

It remembers the cold.

It remembers the taste of flesh.

Set within the expanding Mortal Coil Universe, The Pale Hunger is a descent into madness, grief, and a monstrous appetite that waits in the spaces between worlds.

Robin’s Review

Triggers: Grief, death, psychological horror, unreality, loss of identity

What Did I Just Walk Into?

A casual walk in the woods? Absolutely not. This is grief-drenched nightmare fuel in the shape of a forest hike. Four friends head out to solve a tragic mystery and promptly step into what if trauma had teeth. The woods are too quiet. The bones are too arranged. And the air smells like something older than memory is hungry again.

The forest doesn’t just watch—you feel it breathing behind your eyes. And when reality starts to fold in on itself like a cursed origami, the real question isn’t what happened to Owen and Eleanor Holloway, it’s what is now happening to you.

Here’s What Slapped:

The atmosphere. It’s not just eerie—it’s hostile. Sánchez builds dread like he’s laying down barbed wire. You can feel the cold in your bones and the isolation sinking into your skin. The group dynamic between the friends starts off familiar… and fractures spectacularly as the forest starts eating away at their sense of self.

And the horror? It’s not jump-scare, it’s slow bleed. This is cosmic rot with a side of memory erosion. The pacing had me in a full “just one more chapter” spiral until I looked up and realized it was 3 a.m. and I was scared of my houseplants.

Also, that ending? Brutal. Beautiful. Unrelenting. Like watching someone you love disappear in the mist, waving goodbye with a hand you’re not sure was ever really theirs.

What Could’ve Been Better:

Look, if you’re hoping for clean answers and neat resolutions, this book yeets that hope into the void and feeds it to the forest. The ambiguity is intentional—but damn if I didn’t wish for a cryptic glossary or at least a forest map labeled “Here Be Existential Horror.”

Perfect for Readers Who Love:

🌲 Liminal-space horror

🌲 Found-footage energy but make it literary

🌲 Trauma as a doorway to another world

🌲 Stories where the forest isn’t just alive—it’s aware

🌲 Grief that grows teeth and howls at the moon

Book Series:

The Real Monster (The Mortal Coil Universe)

Part of: The Mortal Coil Universe

The Pale Hunger (The Mortal Coil Universe)

Part of: The Mortal Coil Universe

Reviewed by Robin for Robin’s Review

Walk With Me Into the Dark