Boys in the Valley

At St. Vincent's Orphanage, isolated in a remote Pennsylvania valley at the turn of the twentieth century, thirty boys live under the strict eyes of a handful of priests—working the farm, praying, and never quite getting enough to eat. Sixteen-year-old Peter has made a fragile peace with the life. Then, one storm-lashed night, men arrive carrying a wounded stranger whose body is carved with occult symbols, and when he dies, something ancient is loosed inside the orphanage walls.

As a creeping evil possesses some of the boys—turning the once-cheerful malicious and conspiratorial while the priests refuse to see it—Peter and those he loves are forced to choose sides in a war for the orphanage, and for their souls. Philip Fracassi's Boys in the Valley is a brutal, atmospheric historical horror: Lord of the Flies by way of demonic possession, driven by dread and by the terrible choices of frightened children.