Horror set in Rocky Mountains – Map Monday

Submitted: 16th February 2026

Horror set in Rocky Mountains

Where does this book take us?

Yup – a place called Nowhere, in the middle of erm, Nowhere. Now, who could set a book here if not Catriona Ward? It’s set somewhere in the Rocky Mountains so you can imagine the landscape even f before you go there. Of course, Catriona Ward might not always guide you along the safest path. Mwah ha haaaaaaa.

Location map of Nowhere Burning

boarding pass new

The setting:

Oh this is gooooooooooooooooooooooood.
Those woods….
That cabin…..

Location map of Nowhere Burning

Review

“I’m never afraid. But this place scares me.”

Now THIS is how you write a horror novel! What in the Peter Pan who has gone to the dark side is happening here?

Words to describe how I felt being in the woods, o my way to a remote cabin in the mountains, knowing that Ms Ward was walking behind me ever step of the way………haunting! Scary! Nerve wracking!

There are so many layers to this novel. Its sparse and paired back imagery really gets you from the off. Well it did me! The storyline is at first straight forward, but the more you make your way along that mountain track…

nowhere burning catriona ward

Location map of Nowhere Burning

There’s more than the gothic horror to this story and I felt I would even look down at my tired bloody feet at one point and see a skull with something crawling out of it. There’s a crocodile called Tinkerball – I mean the symbolism of childhood innocence gone seriously wrong could not be clearer. And keep an eye out for other similar images straight out of a warped children’s film – and one where children live in an abandoned place removed from the world as they feel the world has abandoned them…Spot the signs of a twisted children’s story as you read.

Apt then that there’s a filmmaker at the heart of the story – he who lives deep in the mountain and it’s not just his films with a dark background. Oh this is horrifically delicious on another level! Death, scarring, lingering horror and innocent children’s imagery making it even darker.

There’s a few threads in the story but each one is as delicious as the next. There’s an overall sense of refuge, abandonment, abuse and more. The Foreboding-ometer is off the scale. I was traumatised reading it – my mind conjuring up images with Catriona standing in the corner rubbing her hands in glee – and it was a stunner of a reading experience.

By the end I was a shaking mess. But I also felt a sense of something else – something fitting and something which grew from the darkness of what had gone before. I can’t and don’t want to spoil it – but let’s just say that I wasn’t sure whether I could relax yet. And I’m still not.