Challenge Corner discussion

The Girl in the Creek by Hugo Award winner Wendy N. Wagner is an atmospheric and eerie story about a Pacific Northwest forest that seems to be devouring all who enter. A perfect read for fans of T. Kingfisher and Jeff VanderMeer’s cli-fi cosmic horror.

The Clackamas National Forest has always been a sanctuary for evil—human and alien. The shadows of looming trees and long-abandoned mines shelter poachers and serial killers alike. Then there’s the ruined hotel on the outskirts of picturesque small town Faraday, Oregon, nestled in the foothills of Mt. Hood. The one drowning in mushrooms and fungus not even the local expert can identify. Not to mention the stacks of missing persons cases. Freelance writer Erin Harper arrives in Faraday to find out what happened to her brother, whose disappearance in the forest has haunted her for years. But someone else has gone missing. And when Erin finds her in the creek, the girl vanishes again — this time from the morgue, and days later her fingerprints show up at a murder scene. Maybe it’s a serial killer, or maybe it’s the spores infecting the forest and those lost inside. Erin must find answers quickly, before anyone else goes missing. But she might be next…

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Starting after work!!! I'm so excited -- this is under 300-pages too, so should go quickly.

To Ch 2: 😥 Good grief, not crazy about the (view spoiler)[blatant animal cruelty in the first chapter. The poor male coyote. Like, I don't want to read that for nothing. There better be a reason for that. (hide spoiler)]

To Ch 3: Okay, interesting. So Erin is definitely looking for (view spoiler)[closure on her brother's disappearance, and it looks like the B&B owner's son must be missing too. And all the imagery with the mushrooms so far...creepy! (hide spoiler)] There's fungus among us...

To Ch 4: The dialogue and character interactions in that last scene were (view spoiler)[were very, very basic. Is this a debut? I feel like that could be this author's weak point, because nothing else thus far has been that glaringly simplistic... (hide spoiler)]

To Ch 5: That was odd. So that guy's perspective has to be (view spoiler)[the B&B owner's missing son, right? The mention of the art? I wonder if the dead girl is Elena. And is there some sort of hive mind going on, like if they've all been infected by the same spores or something? (hide spoiler)]

I know, rough beginning

and the (view spoiler)[ hive mind feel of the mushrooms *shivers* right?
the idea these spores are talking somehow or something. . . (hide spoiler)]

do you have the audio?

also did you notice this at the end of the synopsis

"At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied"

Have you seen that before? What is that? why wouldn't they protect the digital copies? Or why would they announce they weren't? that's unusual right? or have I missed them doing this?

Trisha wrote: "also did you notice this at the end of the synopsis

"At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied"

Have you seen that before? What..."
I have seen it before, but have no clue what it is or why they would declare that 🤔

To Ch 16: (view spoiler)[So Scott is alive, and must be connected to the strangeness, or what I am thinking of as a hive mind infection. And now the creek girl up shambling around. Shit is getting weird! (hide spoiler)]

Trisha wrote: "I know, rough beginning

and the.. .

do you have the audio?"

I know, it is so scary to actually imagine! No, I have an ecopy. Did you have the audio?

Ch 19: OMG 😲
The descriptions of like the (view spoiler)[cilia or whatever moving around in Nick's wounds. Obviously gives him super human strength. Matt's death was brutal and now Kayla is gone too. Thank goodness Scott was able to free Erin before the sinkhole opened up. (hide spoiler)]

To Ch 21: oooo, okay so that is interesting about Olivia's (view spoiler)[father finding iridium on that site. So these are alien spores...came in on a meteor 😳 (hide spoiler)]

To Ch 24: Ahhhhhh, (view spoiler)[Hari is with the creek girl! Not Hari!! (hide spoiler)]

Done. Hmmm. Ummm. This was good. Sort of middle of the road for me. I felt the writing, particularly the dialogue, could use improvement. The ideas were fun and the author did build some nice suspense through the middle, however, I was a little disappointed with how (view spoiler)[some of the aspects wrapped up, particularly with those involving Scott and the MCs brother. It was almost like the author spend so much time building everything up, by the time they got to that point, they just wanted it to be over and didn't know how to do that, so just threw something simple in there and called it a day. (hide spoiler)]

megs_bookrack ((struggling to catch up)) wrote: "I know, it is so scary to actually imagine! No, I have an ecopy. Did you have the audio?"

Yes, I had the audio! I loved it!

but I can see how there were some slow parts
I wonder if the dialogue was smoother for me because of the audio? hmmm. . .

chapter 15
(view spoiler)[ah, so we meet the mysterious scott! that conversation was very…curious🧐 i hope he’s okay, but i doubt it. (hide spoiler)]

Trisha wrote: "also did you notice this at the end of the synopsis

"At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied"

Have you seen that before? What..."

DRM-free ebooks allow for better flexibility with accessibility features and where you can read it! for example, if you bought an ebook on kindle with DRM applied, you would only be able to read on kindle, but i *believe* if it was DRM-free you could upload it to google books or something else

megs_bookrack ((struggling to catch up)) wrote: "To Ch 16: [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[ooh yes, good thinking with the hive mind infection idea! (hide spoiler)]

chapter 17

(view spoiler)[i was not ready for the word “rizz” to be in a published book😂 (hide spoiler)]

akacya ❦ wrote: "Trisha wrote: "also did you notice this at the end of the synopsis

"At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied"

Have you seen th..."

oh for sure, it makes it easier to pass around. which is why I was surprised - because it makes it so there isn't a record of who bought it so if it ends up on a site where others can download it for free, they can't track it (I think) which is a surprise! Illegal piracy of downloading books is a huge problem for publishers and authors alike. I was just surprised this one doesn't appear to be protected. . .

but maybe I'm misremembering and this is something else and not tied to that. . .

Trisha wrote: "akacya ❦ wrote: "Trisha wrote: "also did you notice this at the end of the synopsis

"At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied"
..."

DRM does make piracy easier unfortunately, but i know there were problems with DRM making it to where readers don’t actually own ebooks they’ve bought, but licenses to those ebooks that could be revoked at any time for no apparent reason (especially by amazon). i don’t know all there is to know about this subject, though, so i could be missing something.

megs_bookrack ((struggling to catch up)) wrote: "To Ch 21: oooo, okay so that is interesting about Olivia's [spoilers removed]"

that was pretty interesting!!

chapter 27

(view spoiler)[of course. they give the deputy the killer and where to find the evidence but it didn’t work out. because there’s less than 20% of the book left so that’d be too easy😂 (hide spoiler)]

done!

i was really hoping i’d like that more, but honestly, i just felt bored for a good bit of the book. i couldn’t get into it /: did like the horror aspect though!!

megs_bookrack ((struggling to catch up)) wrote: "Done. Hmmm. Ummm. This was good. Sort of middle of the road for me. I felt the writing, particularly the dialogue, could use improvement. The ideas were fun and the author did build some nice suspe..."

that’s so true!