Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event created by Breaking the Spine in which we highlight a title we’re looking forward to reading. You can find their website here.
The Sacrifice Box by Martin Stewart
Published: 11 January 2018
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Category: Fiction
Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley: five friends thrown together one hot, sultry summer. When they discover an ancient stone box hidden in the forest, they decide to each make a sacrifice: something special to them, committed to the box for ever. And they make a pact: they will never return to the box at night; they’ll never visit it alone; and they’ll never take back their offerings.
Four years later, the gang have drifted apart. Then a series of strange and terrifying events take place, and Sep and his friends understand that one of them has broken the pact.
As their sacrifices haunt them with increased violence and hunger, they realise that they are not the first children to have found the box in their town’s history. And ultimately, the box may want the greatest sacrifice of all: one of them.
The title caught my eye because, right off the bat, it sounds like the title to a horror movie. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I love horror movies, especially the ones that can still scare me after having seen dozens of them and being able to anticipate the scares after all these years.
Reading the description further piqued my interest because it definitely sounds like the premise for, if not a horror film, at the very least a spooky as heck psychological thriller. This group of friends made a pact to give up something, a long time ago, and now things are going wrong because someone broke the pact. This brings up a lot of questions, chief among them: what did you make this promise on that it’s trying to kill you off because a promise got broken? What did you leave in that box? Who are you people that this sounded like a good idea in the first place? I always wonder that about people making stupid decisions in horror movies and it looks like that isn’t about to change in a book.
Luckily this is a January book baby so there won’t be long to wait. It doesn’t look like it’s on Amazon or Barnes & Noble yet, so keeps your eyes peeled for it in the wild in case it pops up like that red book in The Number 23. 🙂
