Feeders by Caleb Stephens

 

It’s just an average night at the Ink Tank, the tattoo shop in Austin, Texas, where Brynn works as a tattoo artist. After a long shift, all she wants to do is head home, pop a few pills from the fresh bottle of Roxicodone in her jacket pocket, and slip into a nice buzz. Her plans crumble when she’s abducted by her convict father, Alan, and forced into the road trip from a cross-country trek to the Rocky Mountains and the shelter he built years ago to protect his family from the monsters living in his head, the monsters he says will erupt from the earth at any minute—the Feeders. With each mile he unravels further, thrusting Brynn back into the childhood nightmare she thought she’d escaped forever. Alan is paranoid, and he’s definitely dangerous—but is he crazy? In this novel, we find that truth is not always what it seems and that some secrets are better left buried.

Feeders is a road trip with a small group of people that you wouldn't think you'd like to be stuck with. There are strange and deadly bug like creatures bringing death and destruction in their wake. One man has what he hopes will be a safe refuge from these monsters if only he can get everyone there alive, even if it's against their will.

It's a strange experience to be made to like an unlikable cast of characters but somehow the author has pulled off this feat.

Brynn is a drug-addicted tattoo artist suffering from withdrawal.

Her father Alan is a murderer who has abducted her. Brynn's aunt has been cold and distant and resentful of taking care of Brynn and her brother Mac after their mother's death.

Somehow I ended up caring about all of them.

Feeders is an action-packed, creature-feature, survival horror. But before I knew it, it also turned into a story with heart and soul. It's also a cautionary tale that serves to remind us all that there is only so much we can take from the earth before we are made to regret it.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Timber Ghost Press.

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