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The Ritual

An Unsettling, Spine-Chilling Thriller, Now a Major Film

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The Ritual

By: Adam Nevill
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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About this listen

From Britain's 'master of horror', Adam Nevill, comes The Ritual, winner of the August Derleth Award and perfect for fans of Stephen King.

Now a major film with Rafe Spall.

Four old university friends reunite for a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. No longer young men, they have little left in common and tensions rise as they struggle to connect. Frustrated and tired they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives.

Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. A place of dark ritual and home to a bestial presence that is still present in the ancient forest, and now they’re the prey.

As the four friends struggle toward salvation they discover that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees . . .

 Genre Fiction Ghosts Horror Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Scary

Critic Reviews

This novel grabs from the very first page, refuses to be laid aside, and carries the hapless reader, exhausted and wrung out, to the very last sentence.
Often horror loses its power when the evil is given a face; in this case it only gets more disturbing.
With The Ritual Nevill has crafted some of the tensest scariest horror this reviewer has read for years.
The Ritual by Adam Nevill is a mind-twisting journey into the dark backwoods of terror. Deeply disturbing and absolutely riveting. (Jonathan Maberry, New York Times Bestselling author of Dead of Night and The King of Plagues)
Nevill makes the natural world deeply menacing, using the power of suggestion rather than explicit images to create a growing claustrophobic feeling as the difficult journey to return to some semblance of civilization embeds the quartet only further in the grasp of primal evil.
If you want something to make you scared of going into the deep, dark woods then I would highly recommend you pick up The Ritual. The Gruffalo it ain’t!
It has been over a week now since I finished this book and it has really stayed with me and I find myself thinking about it on numerous occasions, and this is another very good sign.
The Ritual didn’t just stop at sending a shiver down my spine, carrying on past that to leave me feeling all unsettled and resolved to stay away from large unexplored woods. A horror novel that leaves you feeling melancholy and thoughtful (as well as just plain scared); Neville is rapidly cementing his position as an author worth watching.
The Ritual, is now one of my all time favourite books, for me personally this is a powerful book that ticks every box in horror writing.
All stars
Most relevant
One of the most atmospheric books you will read, literally made me want to go camping in the woods in the rain, until the end, it seemed to come from no where with those random characters that rip you out of the horror but its still great, i like to think that the books entirety mixed with the movies version of the ending, (blasphemous i know), is the best version of the story

What a story, until...

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The audiobook is the best way to absorb this story! The story was quick to get into the creepy atmosphere. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes descriptive, atmospheric, thrillers

I was totally invested!

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Gripping story start to finish voice actor did amazing job with the accents of characters very easy to tell them apart

Voice actor with accents is very well done

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This is a fun story. Very well narrated. I came for the monster and stayed for Venom; Dark Throne; Burzum; Bathory; Satyricon; Mayhem; et al

Myths and Monsters and Black Metal, oh my!

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Lost in a world of the unforgiving, it is interesting how we set standards of what should be. Basic instincts and how important it is just to breathe. What adventure do you need to take to find yourself and your worth!? Battle the dark side and find out..

Lost in the living

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