TITLE: Savage Species
AUTHOR: Jonathan Janz
RELEASED: January 10th, 2019; Flame Tree Press
GENRE: Horror
AGE RANGE: Adult
When the local paper assigns Jesse and his coworkers to cover the new Peaceful Valley Nature Park, he thinks it’s a great gig—but nobody could have warned him about the vicious creatures the construction work awakened. Meanwhile, Charly’s trying to make it through another long day in her crumbling marriage when one of those same creatures captures her baby, sending her on a chase to get the child back before it’s eaten—or worse.
I think, by now, we all know that I’m just going to gush about everything Jonathan ever writes (or ever has written), so we might as well skip the intro and get on with it, eh? ?
The last thing Jesse saw as he tore his eyes away were the two other creatures dropping inside the jungle gym and setting upon the other victims in a flurry of claws and teeth.
First, as always, Jonathan has a way of writing genuinely terrifying stories that work wonders at getting under my skin and seriously creeping me out! Savage Species is no exception, especially considering the way he has of writing these characters who remind you of the awful monsters humans can be, too.
These characters are so complex and set apart from each other, and some of them are impossible not to hate, while others break your heart a few times—and in-between comes, as always, the comical and intriguing ones, like Frank, the softcore porn-addicted unlikely hero (who was tied with sweet, guilt-ridden Sam for my favorite member of the cast, easily).
The creatures are the best part, though—they’re these massive, grotesque humanoid beasts who are nearly indestructible and get their kicks from ripping people to shreds and eating them alive. It’s gruesome, gorey, and graphic as hell. There’s another terror in the story that I won’t say much about, because of spoilers, but it’s so freaking awesome and the ending (which revolves around this other, new “fear”) had me dying to read more immediately. Well freaking done, Jonathan!
Content warnings for violence, gore, murder, sexual assault, child kidnapping and endangerment.
All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Flame Tree Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
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Very cool!! I’ve seen this around and I’m very happy to read your review. V interested in this one.
Awesome!! This makes me happy to hear. 🙂 I hope you like it if you do pick it up!
This is fab… I hope I get to read this.. I want to try horror soon
Yesssss! That’s awesome 🙂 I hope you do, too!
This looks terrifying in a really, really good way.
The BEST kind of terrifying! That basically sums up all of Jonathan’s books, actually! 🙂
This sounds soo good. I think I’ll have to look into his books
It was amazing! All of his work is so good. I really recommend starting with The Siren and the Specter if you can! 🙂
Great review, but I’d be hiding behind a cushion if I tried to read this.
Hahahaa thank you for checking out my review either way, I really appreciate it!!
Awesome review, Destiny! I am about halfway through the book myself but I started feeling slumpy so I had to set it aside. This book absolutely delivers on the horror and gore, I love that Janz can creep me out with his writing!
Thank you! I’m sorry you started feeling slumpy, but I hope you can kick your slump soon!
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