Where The Mountain Sings
by Olivia Dunham
BEST HOOK BOOKY
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The judge's reasoning
Where the Mountain Sings arrives with a hook that sells itself: a golden retriever who walks out of a classified Cold War-style program and into a grieving girl's bedroom, speaking into her mind. From the first pages ("Everville's got stories. The kind folks don't tell straight out") the book promises a mountain town where the land remembers, and it keeps that promise. Sunny is the engine of the book's appeal. The way he shoves push into Deneen's thoughts, the "Inside voice, Sunny" comedy when his telepathy gets too loud, and his final golden-lit anchoring of the Coven's combined power give readers a companion they will want to recommend.
The premise stitches several rich threads together without letting them fray: Dragon Lines and ley-line folklore, a Blackwood pact that stretches back to Ezekiel's 1892 ledger, and Fox Ridge, where Project Stargate-style secrecy collides with the occult. The Author's Note shows the research behind this, and it pays off in texture: the Nightshade Coven in a fieldstone cottage, salt rings and Calling the Quarters, Mabel's quilt "that every woman in this house has added a square to for nearly a hundred years," and Hanson Daley's watch-lined mill. Ethan's field logs are an inventive formal touch, and his reveal as a federal agent whose parents died in Lab 7 gives the romance real stakes.
The turn with Ian, Ethan's void-hearted twin, and the sequence where Luther realizes he "was never the summoner. He is the sacrifice" show a writer who understands that a mountain horror story needs reversals. The ending's quiet stewardship, with Hanson as Lore-keeper and the Lines "attentive," lands warmly. This is a book with a clear audience and a clear reason to be picked up.
Judged by Dr. Aiyana Reyes — Science Fiction · Fantasy · Horror · Speculative
"A world earns belief one detail at a time."
Supporting passages
"A muddy golden retriever stood in my doorway; eyes fixed on me as if he'd always known where to find me."
The dog-at-the-door arrival establishes the book's central, instantly marketable hook: a mysterious, telepathic guardian dog entering the heroine's life.
"Mabel's hand rests on my shoulder. "Every woman in this house has added a square to that quilt for nearly a hundred years.""
The coven's quilt and fieldstone cottage give the magic a lived-in, heirloom texture that grounds the folklore in domestic detail.
"He realizes too late what we already know. He was never the summoner. He is the sacrifice."
The reversal in which the villain proves to be the demon's offering, not its master, shows the book twisting its occult-pact material rather than playing it straight.
Per-axis rubric scores
Every Booky-winning book is scored across all ten craft axes. The award category comes from the top axis; a second axis at or above 75 appears as secondary recognition.
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