Are you looking for a creature/horror/pandemic novel?

If so, this is the book for you! While looking for a book that would fill that hollow spot in my heart that clamored for blood and gore, I searched for something in horror with a zombies-ish or pandemic-ish theme. I filtered the search for results from around 2000 to 2010 to avoid what was available; since either I was familiar with the current books and didn’t want to read them or had read them. I also wanted something from before the market became so glutted and familiar with the topic.

Boom, I found The Missing!

A seriously good book.

I took a chance on a book and author I had not heard of before. Sarah Langan. This is a book, that is very well worth reading, The Missing.

I loved it; it first came out in 2009. How’d I miss it, I don’t know. In the 414 pages of the book, there are multiple characters, each is complex, and each is fully and well rendered. You’ll follow them as they enter this horrible pandemic situation where its victims either die or turn into creatures that slowly, from the shadows, begin to stalk and attack the residents of Corpus Christi, Maine (What is it with Maine, seriously?) They are individuals confronting a growing threat and doing the best they can until escape is impossible.

It has a delicious and tense slow burn, but it doesn’t skimp on the horror or how it affects its vulnerable characters. They struggle they face as they try to love and protect each other in a situation they’ve never encountered before. And a situation that slowly robs them of options.

Is Gruesome Your Thing?

If you’re reading this you likely are a horror reader like myself. I can tell you that this book will deliver on the gruesome, the suspense and the menacing atmosphere. But also bring on the angst of being rejected, loved conditionally, or not, but with the prose of a skilled and talented writer.

I hope you’ll take a chance on this book, because, friends, it’s worth it.