Rose of Jericho
by Alex Grecian
ROSE OF JERICHO (Tor Nightfire, 335 pp., $28.99) continues what Grecian started with his 2023 novel “Red Rabbit,” and that’s a good thing.
“Red Rabbit” introduced readers to Sadie Grace, who is wanted for witchcraft; Rabbit, the ward of a hunter who is tracking Sadie Grace; and Rose, a widow who eventually adopts Rabbit. The novel traced how these strangers came together, but it also took Grecian’s voice into weirder, far more magical pastures. “Rose of Jericho” picks up as the group travels to the village of Ascension, Mass., to take care of Rose’s sick cousin. Unfortunately, there is more to the town than meets the eye. The house they move into is rumored to be haunted. There is a monster lurking in the nearby woods. And in Ascension, people don’t seem to die. In one case, when a young boy gets run over by a swayback mare pulling a dogcart, his torso is split open and his internal organs exposed … and he just picks himself up and walks to the doctor without any pain.
Rose, Rabbit and Sadie Grace race to get to the bottom of things, but unbeknown to them, something worse than the undead is making its way to Ascension.
Sadie Grace and Rabbit are intriguing enough to make this an engaging narrative, but Grecian also deftly juggles other fascinating characters, like Moses, a man with a bullet hole through his skull who killed Death to avenge his wife. Together, this cast elevates the novel into must-read territory.
Fast-paced, surprisingly funny and unexpectedly grisly, this is Grecian at the very top of his game.
REKT
by Alex Gonzalez
The internet is full of gruesome, terrible things, and those horrors are at the core of REKT (Erewhon Books, 355 pp., $28), an intensely unnerving novel about a grieving man who, in his despair, turns to the darkest corners of the web.
Sammy Dominguez has always been haunted by the death of his uncle, which he witnessed as a child and feels responsible for. However, it was the death of his girlfriend Ellery in a car crash that sent him into a spiral. In his agony, he develops an addiction to awful videos — including snuff films and scenes of death and mutilation.
Then someone sends him a link to a site called “chinsky.” There, Sammy finds footage of Ellery’s accident, along with dozens of videos of her dying in other ways. In fact, he can type anyone’s name into the site and watch them die in a variety of dreadful scenarios. As his life disintegrates, Sammy becomes obsessed with the person who sent him the link and with finding out what chinsky is all about.
This is a great novel, but it’s not a fun read. “Rekt” is ugly and ruthless, moving from normal situations to gut-churning descriptions in a heartbeat. Gonzalez is a talented author who delivers solid character development and sharp writing about grief and guilt, but what sets this novel apart is its unflinching brutality. It’s tough to read a book filled with horrific accidents and vicious murders, but Gonzalez makes the price of entry worth it with his sharp assessment of human nature. In “Rekt,” he highlights our gluttony for pain; explores how algorithms can pull people, like a strong underwater current, to terrible places; and shows, unforgettably, how the internet can desensitize us to atrocity.
Nameless Things
by Ernest Jensen
If you want a little pulp in your horror, look no further than NAMELESS THINGS (Rising Action, 281 pp., paperback, $17.99), a tension-filled, alien-haunted romp through the wilderness.
Mike is a mid-30s man recovering from a tough breakup. In a hazy fuzz of angst, he agrees to join his friend Wade on a hiking trip through the Devil’s Cup state park in Colorado. One night, they see a meteor fall nearby and go to investigate. As they make their way to the crash site, they meet two couples: one pair with a kid and the other from Australia.
Then the deaths start. The meteor brought something with it, and soon the ground under them is brimming with deadly worms, and the earth grows so soft that they can topple healthy trees with a little push. To stay alive and get out of the park, the ragtag group must move quickly, because the worms might be mutating and something even more terrifying might be on the horizon.
Though Jensen gives us plenty of mayhem, essential things like back story and character development are left in the shadows. We never learn much about any of the players, which means readers feel little empathy when they start dying. But the running around in a panic and the twitchy bodies full of worms make for a fun read, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
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