Ten Sleep by Nicholas Belardes

Ten Sleep by Nicholas BelardesTen Sleep by Nicholas Belardes
Published by Erewhon Books on June 24, 2025
Genres: Horror, Western
Pages: 432
Format: ARC
Source: NetGalley
Purchase on: Amazon// Barnes & Noble// BookBub
Add to: Goodreads // StoryGraph

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.



Jordan Peele's Nope meets True Grit in Nicholas Belardes’s Ten Sleep, a supernatural modern-day western about a trio of young people on a 10-day cattle drive that leads them through a canyon haunted by ancient mysteries and savage beasts who existed long before humankind.
A young Mexican American woman detects uncanny creatures stalking her on a cattle drive toward a canyon soaked in blood in an unforgettable novel, brilliantly infusing the modern Western with spine-chilling horror . . .
When Greta Molina’s old friend Tiller offered her the job, a ten-day cattle drive across the Wyoming prairie from the ranching town of Ten Sleep, it sounded like a well-paid break. Three hundred and twenty cows and calves, two guys her age she’s known since college, and a few long days on an ATV will give her time to sort out the mess in her head. The canyon along the trail has a history, sure, but nature has a tendency toward violence. Greta can accept that, even if it makes her insides squirm.
What Greta doesn’t know is the legacy of murder and rot that runs deep into the rocks of this land. As each night passes on the prairie, the trio faces mounting supernatural dangers: a ghost train of the damned, wild animals walking alongside dead ones—and evidence of a gigantic creature in the skies, one that’s supposedly been extinct for eons. And Tiller may be hiding even darker secrets the further they go. Safety is only ten sleeps away, but Greta soon realizes that may be too long for all of them to survive.
Nicholas Belardes’s Ten Sleep is a fresh portrayal of the American West for fans of Catriona Ward, Victor LaValle and Jordan Peele’s Nope, by a rising star in horror.

three-stars

review

This one is a struggle. It has been a struggle to get lost in, and is a struggle to review. I picked up Ten Sleep by Nicholas Belardes, really looking forward to a good horror to sink my teeth into, especially one I could relate to now that I live in rural Colorado. Unfortunately, the pacing made this really hard to get into.

The tension was constantly interrupted so that any kind of fear and unease that had built up in one chapter was gone the next. We get one chapter following Greta and then another chapter following wildlife. Then, we get lessons and lectures about the American west in Greta’s POV, as well as her fixation on her missing girlfriend Hannah. When we started with the prologue, I was expecting something massive, blood, the feeling of being stalked and hunted. Instead, this is like a slowburn that simply drags on and on.

One of the major issues is the endless questions that get thrown at us without getting any answers. It really didn’t give me anything to latch onto to want to continue. It wasn’t here’s a small answer that led to five more questions. Instead, it’s simply question, after question, after question. It isn’t until close to 50% that we start to really see connections build, but by that point, I was already uninterested.

All of that said, this reads more like an ode to the American west than a horror novel. There are these big descriptive paragraphs that paint such a pretty picture, and a lot of background and historical information. The animal chapters are also amazing. The Coyote chapter and the Bear chapter, both broke my heart. It was written with so much emotion. The animal chapters were honestly my favorites.

I think if you’re a BIG fan of westerns or the American west, then you’ll appreciate Ten Sleep by Nicholas Belardes. If you’re looking for something that is more horror that is western flavored, this might be a bit much. I still don’t know how I feel about it completely.

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