Equally an otherworldly horror adventure and a reflection on grief, Mothtown is a genre-blending lyrical journey like no other. Mothtown sinks its claws into you with its eerie mystery and refuses to let go. Hardaker’s writing deftly blends speculative and literary fiction, in the same vein as The Starless Sea and Station Eleven, albeit with far, far more bugs.

The Blurb:

David is growing up in a world where something is very badly wrong but everyone is protecting David from knowing what it is. People are going missing, bodies are showing up with wings, or bones in nests if you believe the rumours from the kids at school. David doesn’t really know because his parents turn off the news whenever he might get a handle on what is happening around him and his older sister just doesn’t seem interested in sharing.

Most importantly for David the centre of his world – his grandfather – is gone. His parents say he is dead but why is his grandfather’s backpack and jumper missing from the house? Alongside this we have a man abandoned in a hostile landscape and trying out run nature itself to get back home with some information.

Review:

Mothtown is told in alternating chapters of two timelines: Before and After. In Before, David’s life is examined, from his childhood through his young adulthood; it’s a life filled with a quiet sorrow and frequent misunderstandings. David feels overshadowed by his sister, avoided by his parents, and left behind after the death of his beloved grandfather. David is deemed odd by those around him; he sometimes speaks in clicking, bug-like noises, if he speaks at all. As people in town begin to go missing, David looks to the research of his late grandfather and believes the multiverse can solve all their problems, including his own.

In After, David traverses an otherworldly landscape as he looks for Mothtown. He travels alone and isn’t sure if he can return once he arrives. Still, David believes there is more to Mothtown. He believes his long-dead grandfather isn’t actually gone. He believes there’s more to the story of those who went missing from his childhood town. David thinks Mothtown is the key and, maybe, he is right.

I admit Mothtown left me completely, wholly confused for at least 50% of the book. Thankfully, this confusion was resolved in a satisfying way, which is high praise, indeed. To be confused by a book and then to have that “Ah-Ha!” moment is the ultimate gift a book can give, and Mothtown gave me that. That said, there is no solid conclusion to the ending of this story. This is not a hopeful or happy book. If you dislike confusion and open-ended conclusions, Mothtown is not the book for you. If you enjoy a melodic literary twist to your sf/f/h, Mothtown will knock your socks off, punch you in the gut, and then, possibly, make you cry. I have a feeling this will be a bit of a cult-favorite in the horror space this season.

I read this book through audiobook from Dreamscape Lore, which I cannot recommend enough. The production quality of the audiobook is superb and completely captures the eerie quality of Mothtown. Alan Cammish narrates the audiobook and fully encapsulates David’s deteriorating mental state. Hardaker’s writing combined with Cammish’s narration is truly what audiobook dreams are made of.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

You can find Mothtown on Goodreads today. It releases on Audible, Kobo, and Amazon tomorrow, Tuesday, November 14, 2023.

Thanks to Dreamscape Lore for an advanced copy of the audiobook for review!

Note: The above quotes were taken from the audio-arc and may be incorrect. Please refer to the published book.