Devil Sharks is a totally campy, cheesy, absolutely ridiculous novel a la Sharknado, 27 Meters Down: Uncaged, etc, and sometimes that's exactly what readers want. I love shark movies, and find them to be incredibly exciting if I'm in the right mood. Lovers of the genre will enjoy this.

Alex and his wife, Sami, are on their way to paradise for a reunion with Alex’s friends from university. Harry, who Alex has a complicated history with, has invited them to spend a week on board his 100 foot luxury sailing yacht. All expenses paid!

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The ocean is crystal clear, the weather is gorgeous and the alcohol is flowing. Except it’s not all smooth sailing aboard the Kid Galahad. They’re hundreds of miles from civilisation, sharks are circling and a not so merry band of pirates have made their acquaintance. What could go wrong?

Plenty, it turns out. It isn’t very long before their laughter turns to screams and the only thing flowing freely is blood.

“Something bumped his thigh, nudged him hard, and then he felt razor teeth clamp down and rip his flesh, felt himself dragged and twisted, and he screamed as he went under for a second time.”

Some of my favourite movies are B grade delights where humans find themselves knocked off the top of the food chain. It turns out that reading about especially bitey sharks is just as much bloody fun, although I definitely want to see this book made into a movie.

There is some time spent in the beginning setting up who’s who but it quickly all goes to hell. With a body count in the double digits, the tension is fairly consistent for over half of the book.

I initially took note of everyone’s occupation and personality so I could try to figure out who had the best odds of making it through the book with their flesh intact. It didn’t really seem to matter though as most of the characters are now in the process of being digested.

My only disappointment was the pirates. They had so much potential, but once they’d successfully ramped up the danger level for our group of friends they essentially disappeared. It was easy to forget they were even part of the story when the final battle for survival was taking place. The sharks well and truly made up for them though.

““What do you know about sharks?”
Alex cocked his head. “Mainly that I don’t want to be in the water with them.””

These sharks are relentless so there’s little chance your favourite character will survive. The person I most wanted to survive died and the person whose gruesome death I was looking forward to the most survived.

While this is my first Chris Jameson shark read, it will not be the last. Shark Island and Shark Beach are going to be bloodying up my imagination in the near future.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this book. I’m rounding up from 4.5 stars.

Pirates, sharks, every person for themselves- NOT a beach book for the faint of heart! This is a page turner. It's not the smartest book I've read this summer nor are the characters the most engaging, but it's definitely entertaining. I'd say it would make a good movie except, well, some of the scenes might be.....THanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Just when you thought it was safe to go for a swim, Chris James returns with another shark themed horror standalone following last year's release of Shark Island. Packed with plenty of summertime thrills, Devil Sharks would be a perfect beach-read if only Jameson didn't make you deathly afraid of being so close to the water.

Here, a group of now-distant college buddies meet up in Hawaii for a reunion. Invited by their former classmate Harry, now an uber-rich businessman, the group and their spouses expect to enjoy a few days of sun and surf aboard a luxury sailing yacht. After visiting the abandoned Coast Guard station where Harry's father once served, the group find themselves adrift off an atoll and at the mercy of drug runners using the old building as a base. Surrounding the atoll are sharks - sharks the pirates have been routinely feeding humans to, and who have since developed a lust for the taste of landlubbers.

Devil Sharks is, first and foremost, a work of survival horror. Things get off to a bit of a slow start as Jameson lays the groundwork on who his characters are and explores their relationships to one another, but once this book kicks into high gear, good lord this sucker is frenetic.

Jameson takes our cast, a wonderfully diverse group fronted by Alex and his wife Sammi, and puts them into one deathly encounter after another. As I said, this is a book about survival, and Jameson puts a ton of obstacles in the cast's way. Much like the pirates, Jameson is a take-no-prisoners type of author, and Devil Sharks takes some shockingly bleak turns. I will say, though, that I was a tiny bit disappointed by the somewhat ancillary nature of the pirates, but I get what the author was going for with them. They're certainly capable and loathsome antagonists, but ones that exist largely as a plot device to kick the story's central hook into focus.

Devil Sharks is not a Die Hard riff of Alex versus hardcore killers - although I thought for a moment that's where Jameson was headed - but a story of your common Everyman characters against the impossible odds of hungry, man-eating sharks. We're here for the sharks, first and foremost, and the pirates are a way of getting us there, even if their presence makes the story feel slightly unbalanced as a whole. While some of the story threads are left unresolved (but hey, c'est la vie!), their purpose in serving the plot is largely secondary; they're an appetizer to the main course. Devil Sharks is, naturally, all about the sharks - that's what we're here for! We want the threatening promise of fins in the water and lots of toothy shark carnage! And hoo boy, Jameson doesn't play any games on that front. In fact, Jameson proves to be just as bloodthirsty and merciless as his oceanic apex predators. Things get brutal quick.

The last half of Devil Sharks is absolutely fraught with tension and horrifying encounters. Once the action gets going, this book is impossible to set aside and I spent much of this book with my stomach churning like the frothy blood-red waters Jameson continually chummed. If you're looking for some wonderfully grisly and violent encounters with killer chondrichthyes, Devil Sharks viciously and unrelentingly delivers. Grab a beer and a blanket and hit up the beach with this one, but maybe take a moment to consider how badly you want to go for a swim and wonder, if only for a second or two, if you might become fish food.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, St. Martin's, via NetGalley.]

Alright everyone raise your hand if you’ve ever watched cheesy horror movies…. *hand goes up* Reading Devil Sharks by Chris Jameson I really felt like I’ve seen or read this story before, I mean I’ve even seen all the Sharknados just for something different done with some killer sharks and a few laughs. Devil Sharks felt very much like one of those made for TV horror movies that not only the sharks are dangerous but other nefarious elements out in the middle of nowhereland.

Alex Simmons and his wife are invited to the Hawaiian Islands to go out on a luxury yacht for a college reunion and who could turn that down even if the person hosting wasn’t your favorite? And of course even though Hawaii is exceptionally beautiful the host has to find an out of the way private spot to steer the yacht where no one else can come to their aid once the doo doo hits the fan.

Cue the campy horror music or simply play the theme from Jaws as of course things do not go well for our partiers. Insert an unknown bad guy mumbling about the “Devil Sharks” in his native language and some other dangers and tada, presto chango you have a lot of blood and scary stuff to ramp up the intensity for more ominous music to be played.

Not a bad read at all but as I mentioned it’s not overly original either, just turn on the Syfy network during Shark Week and you’ll see my meaning. I honestly did not mind at all though diving into this somewhat campy good old fashion horror for a couple of hours and think most fans of this genre would enjoy it.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I absolutely loved Shark Island and was so excited to read Jameson's latest. It did not disappoint! I have purchased both Shark Island and Devil Sharks for my library and plan to do a Shark Week display with them!

Fast-moving, thrilling action-adventure story. The author's descriptive abilities are excellent; I often felt like I was right there with Alex and Sami and the others, fighting for my life. I would have liked a little more backstory; the thing that made Alex and Harry not be friends seemed a little light to me.

Still, though, a good read, perfect for a lazy afternoon.