In season, there's the tourists. Off season, there's only the locals--and visitors like Carla. She's on a working holiday, editing a book, but first she's got to clean up the house and play host to a bunch of friends. Nearby, a family of barbarous humans lurks in the woods, watching, waiting to feed their unnatural hunger...And within the next few hours, a group of sophisticated people will learn just how small a step it is from civilization--to savagery...

Put people in life-threatening danger, and see what happens. This concept seems pretty simple, but this story is far from it. For a horror novel, this is a lot more complex than monsters waiting under your bed. It’s a study of human – and inhuman -- nature, and the will to survive, even in the worst of circumstances. Add wild children into this scenario and the characters’ actions and reactions are skewed away from anything resembling mainstream scare tactics. From Ketchum’s point of view, the monsters can just as easily be neighbors as a band of cannibals living in the woods.

To be honest, I can’t even really describe the action or plot without giving away the best – and worst – this novel has to offer the reader. It is graphic and disturbing on so many levels. With its intensity and brutal pace, it is everything a terrifying novel should be. This is nightmare territory on a grand scale.

I’ve stayed away from the more purist forms of horror for a very long time, so this was a great – and very damned scary -- re-introduction to the genre.

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Mass Market Paperback: 308 pages
Publisher: Leisure; Reprint edition (May 30, 2006)
ISBN: 0843956968
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