Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig

 

An interesting Horror novel, centered around rural family and small-town. Suitably grim as it needs to be, but elements of hope. On the one hand, I have to think that using apples as the vector of evil has to have intentional and unintentional subtext to it; on the other hand, the Afterword goes to some lengths to make it clear that Wendig is into apples, and his expectation is that not everyone is going to get that he's weird that way. Both these things can be--and probably are--true. Other little things to notice in reading the novel: The 2020 election in this involved the same two candidates as the election in Wanderers, and the epilogue of this novel has a strong whiff of King's The Stand to it.