I liked The Twisted Ones quite a bit, but I think the version of this book I liked the most was the one where I had absolutely no idea what was waiting in the woods.

That uncertainty is where T. Kingfisher is at her best.

A strange journal. Unsettling figures standing among the trees. A house overflowing with decades of someone else’s junk. A dog who may or may not be noticing something that you aren’t. And that constant feeling that the woods surrounding the house contain something that has been there a very long time.

For a good portion of The Twisted Ones, Kingfisher lets that feeling breathe.

And it works.

This isn’t necessarily the kind of horror novel that is going to have you sleeping with the lights on. I found it much more eerie, uncanny and disturbing than outright terrifying. There are images and ideas in here that get under your skin rather than jump out at you.

Eventually, though, Kingfisher starts pulling back the curtain.

That worked a little less for me.

The more I understood about what was happening, what the creatures were and how this strange world operated, the less frightening it became. Sometimes the thing standing just outside the edge of the flashlight beam is considerably scarier than the thing you can finally see clearly.

Still, there is a lot here that I really enjoyed.

And if you like strange woods, folk horror, old journals, creature stories and something that feels like The Blair Witch Project wandering into rural North Carolina, The Twisted Ones is absolutely worth a look.

What’s It About?

Mouse travels to rural North Carolina after her father asks her to clean out her late grandmother’s house.

She quickly discovers that “cleaning out the house” is going to be considerably more complicated than expected.

Her grandmother was a hoarder.

The house is packed with junk, old possessions and years of accumulated clutter, leaving Mouse with a massive job ahead of her. Thankfully, she isn’t completely alone. Her dog, Bongo, has come along for the trip.

Then Mouse finds her late step-grandfather Cotgrave’s journal.

At first, much of what he wrote sounds like nonsense — the confused thoughts of an old man writing about strange things, unusual places and something lurking beyond the ordinary world.

Then Mouse starts seeing things herself.

There are strange figures in the woods.

There are things that don’t seem quite right.

And suddenly Cotgrave’s ramblings become much harder to dismiss.

The publisher describes the novel as a horror story set in rural North Carolina and directly identifies Arthur Machen’s The White People as its inspiration.

And that connection is where The Twisted Ones becomes considerably more interesting.

The Arthur Machen Connection

You can absolutely read The Twisted Ones without ever having heard of Arthur Machen.

But I do think the book becomes richer once you understand what Kingfisher is doing.

Machen’s The White People, published in 1904 after being written during the late 1890s, is one of the foundational works of weird fiction. The story itself revolves around a discussion between characters named Ambrose and Cotgrave and eventually introduces a mysterious manuscript known as the Green Book.

Kingfisher takes those ideas and pulls them forward more than a century.

Cotgrave is no longer simply a character in an old British horror story. Here, he becomes Mouse’s step-grandfather, and the notebooks he leaves behind create a bridge between Machen’s strange Welsh countryside and the equally unsettling woods of rural North Carolina.

There are names, phrases, ideas and pieces of mythology that echo Machen throughout the novel.

You certainly don’t need to stop and read The White People before picking this one up.

But if you do know the original story, there is another layer waiting underneath Kingfisher’s novel.

That connection also makes it difficult for me to give The Twisted Ones full marks for originality. Kingfisher absolutely creates her own story, characters and setting, but she is intentionally building on something that already existed.

And I actually appreciate that more knowing what she was trying to do.

This isn’t Kingfisher simply borrowing an old horror concept.

It feels more like she is taking a piece of weird-fiction history and asking what it might look like if those same impossible ideas somehow found their way into the woods of North Carolina.

What Worked

The Atmosphere

This is probably the strongest part of the book.

Kingfisher creates a wonderfully claustrophobic combination of the house and the woods surrounding it.

Inside, Mouse is dealing with the physical remains of her grandmother’s hoarding — rooms packed with stuff, years of clutter and the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped inside someone else’s life.

Outside is almost worse.

Thick woods.

Isolation.

Strange shapes.

Things that may or may not be moving.

And the sense that Mouse has wandered into something she doesn’t understand.

Kingfisher does a particularly good job during the early stages of the story when almost nothing has been explained.

The strange effigies are creepy because we don’t know what they are.

Cotgrave’s journal is disturbing because we don’t completely understand what he was describing.

And the repetitive language surrounding the Twisted Ones starts to take on the feeling of something you almost wish you hadn’t read.

That slow accumulation of weirdness is where the book shines.

Mouse and Bongo

Bongo may secretly be one of the smartest things Kingfisher does with the entire story.

Mouse herself is practical and grounded enough that her reactions usually make sense. She knows things are getting strange. She understands that leaving is probably the intelligent thing to do.

But then there’s Bongo the dog.

Suddenly Mouse isn’t only responsible for herself.

Kingfisher uses the dog to create genuine emotional stakes and, just as importantly, to give Mouse believable reasons to make decisions that keep her involved in the story.

And if you are a dog person, you already understand the problem.

Once Bongo is potentially in danger, everything changes.

He also works as a great counterweight to everything happening around Mouse. Bongo is wonderfully oblivious at times, which makes the moments when he does react to something feel even more unsettling.

The Supporting Characters

Effie and Foxy bring some much-needed personality and local flavor to the story.

They aren’t necessarily developed to the same level as Mouse, and several supporting characters function primarily as sources of information or backup once things start getting stranger.

But they help keep the book grounded.

That matters because The Twisted Ones can get very weird.

Having people around Mouse who still feel recognizably human keeps the story from floating completely away into cosmic horror.

The Weirdness

And there is plenty of weirdness.

The strange figures.

The journal.

The woods.

The creatures.

The imagery.

The feeling that the geography itself might somehow be wrong.

It creates the kind of horror I tend to enjoy — not necessarily blood and gore, but the creeping suspicion that something fundamentally unnatural exists just beyond what we normally see.

What Didn’t Work

Explaining the Monsters

This was probably my biggest issue with the book.

The unknown is scary.

Once you start creating rules for the unknown, it becomes considerably less scary.

As the story moves into its final act, Kingfisher begins explaining more about the creatures, where they come from and how everything fits together. Which …honestly… I do like sometimes, but I just prefer it didn’t in this case. If that makes sense.

The story also shifts.

What begins as something closer to cosmic or psychological folk horror gradually becomes more of an action-survival creature story.

It isn’t bad.

In fact, the final section moves pretty quickly.

But some of the dread disappears.

The figures standing silently in the woods were scarier to me when I had no idea what they wanted.

The Humor

Kingfisher likes humor.

That is clearly part of her voice.

Mouse uses sarcasm, gallows humor and a fairly modern conversational internal monologue as a way of dealing with increasingly ridiculous circumstances.

A lot of readers are going to love that.

I tend to like a little less humor in my horror.

There were moments where Mouse would make a joke or sarcastic observation right as the story was building genuine tension, and for me that occasionally let some of the air out of the scene.

It never ruined the book.

But there were definitely times when I wanted Kingfisher to let the darkness stay dark a little longer.

The Pacing

Apparently T. Kingfisher and I are going to continue having conversations about pacing.

I had the same issue — considerably more strongly — with Wolf Worm.

Kingfisher likes a slow burn.

And apparently I occasionally want someone to throw another log on the fire.

The first two-thirds of The Twisted Ones take their time building the mystery through Cotgrave’s writing, strange encounters and small pieces of information.

Most of that works.

There were still moments where I found myself thinking, all right, we can move this along now.

But I thought the pacing was noticeably better here than it was in Wolf Worm.

Once the story reaches its final act, things accelerate considerably.

So maybe I’m learning patience.

Probably not.

Southern Reads Scorecard

Story — 3.5/5

The central idea is strong, and Kingfisher does a good job transforming Machen’s old weird-fiction concepts into a completely different modern horror story. I’m holding the score back slightly because so much of the foundation intentionally comes from The White People.

Characters — 4/5

Mouse is practical, likable and generally believable, while Bongo gives the story much of its heart. Effie and Foxy add personality and local flavor even if some of the supporting cast exists mainly to move the plot forward.

Atmosphere — 3.8/5

The hoarder house surrounded by isolated North Carolina woods is a fantastic horror setting. The early encounters, strange figures and unexplained noises create some genuinely effective dread.

Pacing — 4/5

Still a slow burn, but much more effective for me than Wolf Worm. There are stretches where I wanted things to move faster, but once the story finally breaks open, it moves.

Originality — 3.5/5

Kingfisher does plenty to make the story her own, but The Twisted Ones is intentionally built from Arthur Machen’s The White People. I can’t quite give full originality points to something that is openly engaging with an existing story.

Creep Factor — 3.8/5

More eerie than terrifying.

The effigies, the strange faces, Cotgrave’s journal and the repeated imagery surrounding the Twisted Ones create a wonderfully uncomfortable feeling.

For me, the creep factor is actually highest before the book starts providing answers.

Overall — 3.9/5

I liked The Twisted Ones.

Quite a bit, actually.

The atmosphere works. Mouse and Bongo work. The Machen connection gives the story another layer. And there are several genuinely strange images that stick with you after the book is finished.

It doesn’t quite reach the top tier for me because I think Kingfisher explains too much toward the end.

The more concrete the creatures become, the less power they have.

I also could have done without a few of the jokes when the story was trying to create real dread, and there are moments where Kingfisher’s familiar slow-burn approach tested my patience again.

But this is absolutely the kind of horror novel I enjoy discovering through Southern Reads.

Strange.

Atmospheric.

Rooted in the woods.

And just weird enough that you’re never completely comfortable.

The Twisted Ones is at its best when you’re alone in the North Carolina woods with Mouse, Bongo, and absolutely no idea what the hell is watching them from between the trees.

The Southern Blueprint Factor: 3.8/5

The Southern Blueprint Factor is separate from the normal review score.

The question here is:

How Southern is this book, really?

Not simply whether the author dropped a pin somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line.

Does the landscape shape the story?

Does the isolation matter?

Could you pick everything up, move it somewhere completely different and basically tell the same story?

With The Twisted Ones, rural North Carolina does a lot of the heavy lifting.

The thick woods, isolated roads, old house and sense that there may be things hidden beyond the tree line give the story a distinctly Southern folk-horror atmosphere. The publisher itself places the story specifically in rural North Carolina.

It feels rooted in place rather than simply set there.

I’m stopping at 3.8/5 rather than pushing it into the absolute top tier because the mythology ultimately reaches far beyond North Carolina. In fact, that connection between Machen’s Welsh landscape and Kingfisher’s North Carolina woods is part of the entire idea.

But the Southern setting absolutely strengthens the book.

Move Mouse into a suburban neighborhood somewhere and this is a completely different story.

Put her in an old house surrounded by miles of North Carolina woods?

Now we’re talking.

Who Should Read The Twisted Ones?

If you like The Blair Witch Project, folk horror, strange creatures, creepy woods, discovered journals and stories where reality begins bending around the edges, I think there is a very good chance this one will work for you.

The publisher actually uses The Blair Witch Project as part of its own description of the novel, which feels pretty appropriate.

And if you already enjoy Arthur Machen and old weird fiction, there is even more here to dig into.

Want to Read The Twisted Ones?

If The Twisted Ones sounds like your kind of book, you can pick up a copy through the Southern Reads Bookshop on Bookshop.org.

Purchases made through my Bookshop.org links help support The Southern Blueprint at no additional cost to you, while Bookshop.org also helps support independent bookstores.

So if you’re planning to grab a copy anyway, it’s an easy way to support both.

Join the Southern Reads Book Club

The Twisted Ones was also our September selection inside the Hidden Pine Lodge Book Club, which gave us a chance to read this one together and dig into all of its strange little corners.

If Southern Gothic, horror, folklore, history and books rooted in this part of the country are your thing, come join us.

Inside the Hidden Pine Lodge, we feature a new Book of the Month, talk about what worked and what didn’t, trade recommendations and occasionally get together virtually to actually talk about what we’ve been reading.

And October is already taking us straight back into Southern horror with Christopher Buehlman’s Those Across the River.

Because finding a creepy book is good.

Finding people willing to follow you into the woods with it is even better.