Book Review: Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward

Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Genre: Horror

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Nightfire (February 24, 2026)

Length: 304 pages

Author Information: Twitter

Catriona Ward has built a reputation for writing horror that’s strange, unsettling, and often surreally disorienting by design. Nowhere Burning continues following in that same vein, though in this case, it might have gone a bit too far, pushing the story into hazy disjointedness. As a result, I didn’t quite take to this one as much as I’d hoped, finding it occasionally difficult to stay invested in what was happening from one section to the next.

In one major thread, we follow Riley, a teenage girl on the run with her younger brother Oliver. Desperate to escape their abusive foster home, she decides to seek out a place called Nowhere, rumored to be a safe haven hidden deep in the mountains where runaway children can live off the grid. The place, however, comes with its own dark history. The land once belonged to a reclusive actor named Leaf Winham, who built the sprawling ranch retreat years earlier. But what was meant to be a private sanctuary eventually became the center of a horrific scandal before a devastating fire consumed the property. All that’s left now are the burned-out ruins and the bad memories and ugly rumors that have grown around them.

In addition to Riley’s story, a couple others also run alongside in tandem. One follows a pair of filmmakers digging into the ranch’s past for a documentary, interviewing people who were connected to it from before the fire and trying to piece together what really happened. Another thread looks back at Leaf Winham and the early days of the estate, hinting at the secrets that shaped its creepy reputation. As the novel moves between these perspectives, details about Nowhere, its former inhabitants, and the events that led to its ruin gradually come together, showing how past and present collide.

Unfortunately, with so many separate threads and sudden jumps in time, the plot can start to feel a little choppy and hard to follow, and not every storyline gets the space it needs to fully develop. Riley’s is by far the most compelling and arguably the most important; some of the others, however, feel less essential. These came and went like side narratives that only appear in short bursts to give background information before shifting back to Riley’s perspective, which I started looking at as the “main” story. At least her chapters had plenty of emotional themes to anchor them, like her love for Oliver and her determination to secure a safe place for them to live. This was not the case with the “before” and “after” storylines, whose purposes were less defined and didn’t hold my interest as much.

That said, Ward still does a solid job creating a strong sense of place. The isolated mountain setting gives an unsettling edge right from the start, and once we get to the section where Riley finds Nowhere, the behaviors of the young people living there make things feel even more off. And no wonder. Bad things have happened in this place, and the kids here now have had bad things happen to them. The book is heavy with themes of trauma, abuse, and the misery that leads people to make desperate choices when they feel trapped with no way out. It can be difficult read at times.

At the same time, the nebulous tone that defines much of the author’s work can make the reading experience frustrating. The story often hints at deeper, hidden meanings without fully explaining how everything fits together. Granted, it’s clear that some of the vagueness is intentional, since there are secrets buried in the timelines before and after Riley’s storyline that don’t connect until the very end. And yet, the confusion it leads to doesn’t always feel rewarding since the story withholds too much information for too long.

In the end, Nowhere Burning ended up being a bit of a mixed bag. The premise is intriguing, the setting works well, and Riley makes for a strong central character. But the crowded structure and hazy storytelling kept the book from fully coming together for me. I’ve enjoyed Catriona Ward’s previous books (even the more surreal ones!) but this one might end up being my least favorite. Fans of her dreamlike style may still enjoy the ride, but for me this one ultimately landed somewhere in the middle.