Dark Harvest

By: Norman Partridge

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

"This is contemporary American writing at its finest." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Winner of the Stoker Award and named one of the 100 Best Novels of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, Dark Harvest is a powerhouse thrill-ride with all the resonance of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery".

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol' Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death.

Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town. He's willing to risk everything, including his life, to be a winner for once. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror - and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy....

©2007 Norman Partridge (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

2007 World Fantasy Award-Finalist

2007 Short-listed Bram Stoker Awards-Winner

“Probably the most exciting and original voice in horror literature to have appeared in the last decade.” (Peter Straub)

“A major new talent.” (Stephen King)

“This is contemporary American writing at its finest.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Good Bones

Read it before watching the movie. It is a solid story. I'm interested to see how it is adapted. I hope they make it better not worse, and fill the gaping hole.

Good Story.

This was a good story overall, I liked how it was written and performed, just wish it was longer. More backstory to the town and its people and what made the entire ritual start, and definitely more about what happen to them after.

Fantastic Halloween Story!

Absolutely enjoyed this book from the story to the performance! If you want a quick listen for Halloween I couldn’t recommend this enough

Meh boys horror story

It’s like all the things boys like in stories about growing up. It was boring I started & stopping it multiple times cause it was just annoying not the narrator fault per se but the author over florid language was too much for me.

Excellent, like a good Stephen King book.

Great original story with intriguing characters. It never drags like a lot of King's stories do and keeps you hanging on.

good story, overdone narration

the narrators constant strangely forced deep tone tried to give a sense of ominous portent and suspense, but it just distracted me from the story constantly and made it hard to actually feel any sort of suspense or tension.

story was well written, but unfortunately it was overshadowed by the "I'm trying to be dark and sinister" droning narration

If you need a little bit of spooky this is it!

If you're hesitanting to get this one, just do it, you won't be disappointed!

Really Enjoyable

The only reason I didn’t give it five stars was because I wanted to know the CAUSE of the Dark Harvest. Definitely recommend. Tor is such an outstanding publisher.

Interesting idea

I loved how it took everything you thought it would be and turned it in its head. The narrator did a great job.

it's OK

The narration gets a bit much and the story goes on for a bit too long.