Bunny, S.E. Tolsen

BUNNY is written by S.E. Tolsen, a husband and wife writing team, who won Best Horror Novel of 2023 in the Australian Aurealis Awards, making it to the longlist for the 2024 Ngaio Marsh awards based on it's thriller categorisation. 

A combination of a straight up thriller, with psychological overtones, there are horror and supernatural elements enough here to feel like it warrants the marketing spin "For fans of Stephen King and Stranger Things." I've certainly seen it described as a solid homage to King's work, with the story of childhood trauma and current day dysfunctional family, seamlessly interwoven with supernatural horror elements. Given the Ngaio Marsh entry, couldn't help thinking Paul Cleave deserved a bit of a shout out as well, although there's something slightly less "normal" for want of a better description about BUNNY than many of Cleave's excellent novels. Certainly there's a palpable sense of dread about this novel and some seering emotional aspects which reader's of the gentler ends of the spectrum may find confronting. 

Ultimately it's the story of a very unhappy childhood, with a twisted Aunt Bunny who went out of her way to make young Silas utterly miserable. Forced back to his childhood home in adulthood by financial circumstances, with his girlfriend Rose, the darkness seems somehow more overwhelming, and the addiction more difficult to overcome. Silas is quickly drawn back deep into the dysfunction, the weirdness, and the threat, with something deep in the woods surrounding the home not willing to let him go again.

BUNNY is very much another one of those stories of the past infecting the present. The reader's introduction to Silas and Bunny first occurs in 1994, and its not until 2018 that he returns, Rose in tow, to a world of fast-paced, emotional darkness that will capture some readers, and frighten the living daylights out of others. 

Doing a bit of digging, it seems that the whole novel was adapted from a screenplay originally, which is reflected in the visual feeling, the visceral, constant sense of watching voyerism that the reader is being forced into participating in. Either way, this is definitely one for fans of extreme thrillers, and you absolutely will need to have a high tolerance for horror and out and out gore.