Book Review: Blood Country (The Raven #2) by Jonathan Janz

Title: Blood Country (The Raven Book 2)

Author: Jonathan Janz

Publisher: Flame Tree Press

Page Count: 288 Pages

Publication Date/Year: 2022

Genre: Horror

I’ve been making my way through Jonathan Janz’s backlist over the last couple of years. About a year ago (June 2022), I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Raven, his take on the post-apocalyptic story, but with a very potent horror lacing throughout the story. Blood Country is the second novel in the series and the focus, as the title implies, is vampires.

Briefly, in the world of The Raven, a group of rogue scientists released a virus that transformed humanity into creatures out of our nightmares: werewolves, trolls, cannibals (the strength of the people they eat is added to their own), witches, and vampires. Dez McClane is a rarity, he was unaffected by the virus so he is a man without any added abilities. Since the first novel, he’s been searching for the woman he loves. The conclusion of that novel provided him with a direction to head: Blood Country, the land of the vampires. With the woman he saved (Iris), Dez sets out to find his girlfriend Susan and to hopefully right a wrong.

Reading The Raven is a must before diving into Blood Country as the two novels very much feel like two episodes of a larger story, and the story Janz is telling in these novels is an absolute blast. He puts us in Dez’s head, which allows Dez’s fears and doubts to be felt quite effectively. Before the events of the series, Dez lost his family and has blamed himself so his self-blame is only increased with the loss of Susan.

Dez, Iris and their other allies (Michael, a man who can control fire as a result of the changes to the world, a young boy named Levi, and a couple of other allies I won’t spoil) head to the heart of Blood Country, a high school which serves as the seat of power for the vampires, particularly the Vampire Queen. Once they arrive at the high school, the action gets more intense and the emotional twists and turns become more sharp.

The story is very brisk and works somewhat cinematically. I was able to visualize a lot of the action Janz was relaying the novel and felt myself turning the pages rather quickly as a result. In the relatively short space of the story (under 300 pages), Janz crafts a story that is equal parts breakneck plot and character. After having read a small sampling (4 novels at this point) of Janz’s work, I’ve found my reading sensibilities really sync up with the stories he writes. When I was younger, one of my favorite RPGs was Gamma World. I think what appealed to me about that game is something Janz nails so well, even if Gamma World leans more towards fantasy-based monsters and Janz is firmly planted in horror.  The mix of “our world” and something fantastical and horrific is what both these things capture so well. Ultimately, Blood Country was just pure fun for me because I love an over-the-top apocalyptic tale, especially when there are monsters and/or mutants of some kind.

After two novels in The Raven series, I was very pleased to learn there will be at least one more novel. The conclusion most certainly left a very clear path where these characters need go and I cannot wait to catch up with Dez and his crew. The world and characters seem rather fertile for more stories and the length of the two novels so far lend themselves nicely to an episodic, long-form story that could lead to more than just one additional novel.

© 2023 Rob H. Bedford

Book Review: HIDE by Kiersten White

Title: Hide

Author: Kiersten White

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Page Count: 256 Pages

Publication Date/Year: 2022

Genre: Horror

We all played Hide and Go Seek when we were kids, right? How many of us played in an amusement park, let alone an abandoned and closed amusement park? Probably very few people were afforded that opportunity. That’s the basic premise of Hide, Kiersten White’s first novel for adults. The added layer is that 14 people are chose to play in the “Olly Olly Oxen Free Hide and Seek Tournament” in an Amusement Park that has been abandoned since the mid-1970s. The winner is promised fame and $50,000. 

Our main sightline into this novel is Mackenzie Black, a young woman who is the lone survivor of her father snapping and killing her family. She’s out of work and essentially homeless, so it is difficult for her to say no. Especially since she has spent most of her life hiding…hiding from the spotlight, hiding in the house when her father murdered the family.

Other participants in the latest game are an “internet celebrity,” a CrossFit instructor, a person hiding from his own cultish family, a street artist, an actress, among others. White does a very good job of providing just enough background for these supporting characters to make them distinct and real.

Each night the contestants go out and hide, with two people always being “found.” How they are found, nobody knows. The “found” contestants simply don’t show up at the check in in the morning. As more of the contestants are found, the remaining contestants begin to form bonds in pairs. This is not something Mack planned on or even wanted when she entered the contest. Her journey as a character provides a great deal of the novel's emotional weight. 

I couldn’t help but find parallels between this novel and one of Stephen King’s early novels written as Richard Bachman, The Long Walk. The Long Walk is a gem of a novel and could be considered one of King’s best. White takes a similar premise and adds in some of her own flavors, particularly around the history of the amusement park and how the contestant pool shrinks every day. There’s some borderline folk-horror elements to the tale, but White grounds the events and characters with enough reality that those elements are just as believable.

I thought she brought Hide to a very satisfying conclusion that could have some room for more stories.

I’ve also got to give a big shout out to the design of this novel, the end papers are wonderful. Anybody who has visited some kind of amusement park knows there’s a map you can get that shows where the rides are. Well, the endpapers in Hide Elwira Pawlikowska are clever in their depiction of “The Amazement Park” where the novel is set.

Hide is a fun, dark, vicious novel I have to recommend.