Fog

I’ll admit, I’m skeptical of coastal horror. Too often, it leans on salt-air nostalgia and forgettable ghosts, but *Fog* bucked that trend from the first chapter. Diana Brown’s narration sold me immediately—her even-toned delivery doesn’t oversell the scares, yet every inflection drips with dread. She nails the teen voices without slipping into caricature, and her pacing is a masterclass in restraint; the silence between sentences feels intentional, like the fog itself pressing against the windows. That said, the story’s resolution felt a tad too tidy for my taste. The supernatural rules are clear early on, and the final confrontation lacked the raw, messy energy I crave in horror. Still, the journey is so deliciously oppressive that I forgave the neat bow. The real star here is the setting. Cooney doesn’t just describe the fog; she makes it a living, suffocating force. The B&B’s claustrophobic halls and the island’s isolation become characters themselves, and Brown’s performance amplifies that dread without resorting to hammy gasps. The audiobook’s production is clean, with no distracting gimmicks—just Brown’s voice, the occasional creak of floorboards, and the ever-present hum of the unseen. If you’re looking for a horror-lite experience (think *Goosebumps* meets *Stranger Things*), this delivers. But if you’re a purist who wants horror to leave scars, you might find the payoff underwhelming. For me, it was a chilling, immersive listen that lingered long after the last chapter.