5 friends from Connecticut try to contact the Melonheads to obtain revenge on the man who raped one of them. They don't initially believe in the myth, but soon discover that the Melonheads are real. I was personally not familiar with this legend, until I read this book. It was pretty interesting.

The five kids were an unlikely bunch, drawn together by their love of getting high. But they were true friends. Sticking up for each other and protecting each other. I really liked the depiction of friendship here.

It took a little too long for me for the kids to see their first Melonheads, but once they do the action is nonstop. The descriptions are pretty creepy. I enjoyed reading this book.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This is a book with some really tough subject matter so be forewarned that it covers topics concerning rape and it is very gory and has moments of extremes violence.

It is a fantastic horror story but it is very gruesome.
But I mean the book is about a mutant cannibalistic tribe so that's kind of to be expected but yowza...

If any of this sounds like to much for you than you might want to pass but otherwise if you want a terrifying nightmare giving book to read snatch it up!! The book is very well written is a legitimate nail biter from start to finish. This has a grunge vibe from the 90's era and does use an older urban legend from the region that I have actually had never heard of and well I love urban legends so WIN!! Although he name of the urban legend leaves a bit to be desired I don't find the name Melon Head that scary but these melon heads??? Um yeah super terrifying!!!

I received this book from NetGalley and Flame tree Press for an honest review.
#Misfits
#NetGalley

Excellent book from someone who is fast becoming. my favourite author in the horror genre. Easy to read, thrilling, engrossing and a story full of twists I didn't see coming. Loved the grunge era setting too. Keep up the good work Hunter Shea and I will definitely keep reading.

ARC received from Net Galley and Flame Tree Press.
Opinions are my own.

What can I say about Hunter Shea...he writes great monster stories. Fast-paced fun and fairly quick read, Mistfits delivers. Reminiscent of a Creepypasta it’s an entertaining and enjoyable story. I love the 90’s throwback. Brings back a lot of memories. Unlike a lot of stories involving kids, while the situations are extraordinary, the kids are own stories are pretty believable. Misfits and outcasts for one reason or another, we all know someone who fits these characters. Overall enjoyable and highly recommended.

Remember when you were a teenager and your friends were your family? No one understood you like your friends. They were your brothers and sisters - way more than anyone else could be, even those who shared your bloodlines.
Misfits is about a group of teens who are as close as family. They share the bonds of dysfunctional families and teenaged, misunderstood angst. After a brutal attack leaves one of them broken and bleeding, their search for revenge leads them to the fringes of their community. They encounter and incur the wrath of the Melon Heads - monstrous humanoid creatures thought to be an urban legend, a campfire tale. Now this group of misfits will need to fight for their very survival.
I loved this book. It is an awesomely good, bloody piece of storytelling. I found it to be full of nostalgia. I was able to relate with most of the characters - I found pieces of my teenage self in pretty much all of them. Hunter Shea once again wrote about people who made me care.
The ending threw me for a loop, and I love it when I can say that the ending was unexpected. I highly recommend this book! Definitely look for it when it comes out in September!
Thank you to NetGalley and FlameTree Press for the ARC of Misfits!

I am a huge Hunter Shea fan and will always read his books when they come out. I love his writing style and his true understanding of the horror genre. This book is no exception, just as great if not one of his best yet! I thought this one was very believable, and very frightening!

Rule of life #435:

Maybe, just maybe, don’t upset the mutant creatures that live in the woods.

Just don’t.

Now, our group of friends don’t *intend* to anger the mutants. They’re just looking for a little well-deserved vengeance. But does anything ever go right when you venture into that spot in the woods where legends just may be real?

Misfits is a whole lot of fun. However, there’s a ton of heartbreak mixed in with the fun. Much of what happens is spurred on by an act of brutality and the author doesn’t shy away from the horror of that moment.

Stepping away from that moment, it’s obvious that Shea had fun writing this – and you find yourself enjoying the ride. It’s fast, furious, and violent – and I loved what he did with the end of it all.

A highly entertaining read and not to be missed!

*ARC via Net Galley

First and foremost, I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I mean, I've enjoyed the authors novels in the past, but I never LOVED them enough to want to experience them all over again. Until this one... Misfits is an excellent horror novel and I was gripped by it from beginning to end.

I had high hopes for Misfits and the story certainly delivered. A group of five high school friends are driven to taking revenge when one of their friends is brutally raped.
There is a local legend of the Melonheads, a group of creatures once thought to have been released from a mental asylum, now turned feral, living in the local woods. They decide to capture the rapist and take him out there, just to scare him,but the Melonheads are real and want revenge of their own when one of them is injured.
I know the Melonheads are based on some real folklore in the US, but for me, personally, I simply couldn’t take the threat seriously when the creatures had such a silly name. I know H Shea obviously wanted to stick to local legend and kept their name,but I could only imagine people with heads that actually looked like watermelons and that wasn’t scary at all.
And that was the only thing that detracted for me from this story - my own PERSONAL reaction to a name. Apart from that, the story was very good, fast paced and intriguing.

I’ve been a fan of Hunter Shea for a few years and was originally attracted to his dumb, fast-paced creature features, which were often very humorous and violent horror novels which were great forms of escapism for a few hours. However, his recent output has upped the ante, blending a similar type of horror, but with stronger stories and more importantly characters which are more fully drawn and much more than the brief sketches from some of his earlier book. Shea’s previous novel Slash, a clever play on the final girl myth (with monsters) was a fine example, with an outstanding heroine. Misfits takes this to another level, bouncing a third person narrative around five friends in their final year of school in a no-name small town, Milbury, they would all love to leave.

This novel has an outstanding opening chapter which takes up back to Christmas Day 1977 and Chris has just got a new bike and is taken out by his much older teenage brother to try it out. They head to the infamous ‘Dracula Drive’ an area of town which is boarded up and encroaches on the forest. Chris does not want to cycle there but is dared by his brother who has his own, yet unknown, agenda. Once they are close to the woods Dylan slashes his little brother’s bike tire and leaves him. But why? And for what? What follows is a bolt from the blue, but there will be no spoilers from me.

Misfits then jumps to 1993 where most of the novel is set, and it throbs to a convincing grunge soundtrack which I know very well. Music throbs throughout the story and Shea makes a fine job of taking us back to 1993, where Nirvana dominated the airwaves, backed up by the likes of Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. And the days of underage drinking. Every small town has a dive which serves kids without ID! The town I grew up in had many, but hey, that’s Scotland and few drink like we do.

After a while you’ll realise where 1977 connects with 1993, meantime we’re introduced to the five best friends of Mick, Marnie, Chuck, Heidi and Vent. For the most part they are very different characters and could very well be the ‘misfits’ of the title and have one major thing in common: the love of smoking dope! They are serious stoners and spent a lot of time together, chilling, going out and listening to music.

Mick has the toughest story and has been abandoned by his mother and stepfather, living in a caravan in the forest which has no running water. He shoots squirrels with a bb-gun for food, sells dope, and is helped particularly by Vent who comes from a steady family and excels at school. The dynamics between the five characters is highly convincing, floating between the different voices, their rushes, problems and dreams. Where is the horror you might ask?

Every small town has its own myths and legends, many are very localised and in Milbury it goes along the lines of “If you don’t watch out the Melon Heads will get you”. Lots of towns will have their own variations of an old wives’ tale of creatures in the forest, Big Foot or some long lost ghost of a dead hitchhiker. After a horrific incident where one of the five is raped they decide to take revenge on the assailant by driving them out to the woods. Big mistake. Things do not go as they planned.

At that point Hunter Shea really begins to move through the gears and although it sounds corny ‘nobody does it better’ blending bone-crunching action sequences with vicious body horror. This is even more hurtful as you really care about the five teenagers who end up fighting for their lives. In between the chase and fight sequences the author still finds time to develop the characters, their personal interactions and the other casualties as the body count begins to mount up.

If I was to spell out what happens I would forgive you for saying it sounds dumb, however, this author is an absolute master of turning very far out plots into slick pieces of fiction. Yup, it is stupid, it is not believable, but at the same time you care about the characters and it is very easy to be swept along with the action. At 288 pages Misfits comes in at a perfect length, and although the action sequences are numerous, they never become repetitive, this is probably because all the characters are fighting for their lives and deep out of their comfort zone.

Misfits was a very enjoyable piece of horror trash from one of the most reliable authors in the genre. Keep them coming Hunter!

Thanks to Netgalley and Flame Tree Press for the ARC! 3.5 stars.

Good, dark, and creepy story. Hunter Shea delivers a solid horror read!

4 and 1 / 2 stars

On Christmas morning, seven-year old Chris is impatient to ride his new bike. Badgering his cranky parents does him no good until his teenage brother Dylan says he'll take him out.

Several years later, Marnie is assaulted by her former boyfriend's father. He is very drunk. Marnie is badly hurt and her friends Heidi and Chuck attempt to help her. She won't let them call the police or take her to a hospital. When she turns to another friend Mick. He is determined to set the record straight in a rather unconventional manner. Vent is the fifth member of the friends.

The five friends thus set out on an unbelievable (no one believes their tale when they try to tell it), adventure. They are on their own. They set out to protect their families, friends and t he little town in which they live. Their plan goes awry almost at once. The violence begins. Many deaths occur. Sadly, some of our heroes do not survive.

A huge surprise brings the book to a close.

This is a very well written and plotted book, as are all of Hunter Shea's novels. It is filled with one action scene after another. It reads very fast and it so entertaining and entrancing that the pages just fly by. I stayed up way to late to read on. I liked the gang of five kids. They were brave in spite of their fears, they were honest with one another and most of all, loyal to their group. Very well done, MR. Shea. Keep 'em coming!

I want to thank NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for forwarding to me a copy of this most delicious book for me to read, enjoy and review.

**This book is not yet available to review on Amazon or BookBub.

I have been enjoying a lot of the books sent released by Flame Tree Press and had high hopes for this one - and those hopes were achieved! This is a novel I found hard to put down, so hard in fact I read it within 24-hours of being provided an ARC. A quick pace, some gruesome scenes and an fantastically weird ending make for a great novel. I have never read anything by Hunter Shea before but I will certainly be checking his other novels out. Recommended for fans of backwoods horror with a great throwback to the 90's as well - enjoyed the music references dotted throughout!

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. I loved this so much. The legend of the melon heads was one I had never heard of, being from the south. We have a lot of legends here as well and this was indeed an interesting one. Always love this authors books. Keep up the great work.

***My thanks to Netgalley, Flame Tree Press and Hunter Shea for this ARC. This is my honest and unbiased opinion.***

This was a great story.

Who doesn't know how it feels to be the misfit?
Even in adulthood, my dark sense of humor makes me feel so lonely sometimes. You know what reaction I got when I the car dealer showed me the trunk and I made the comment:
"Wow, big enough to hold two bodies!"
Hint: He didn't even smile...

But this story is about a group of five friends - misfits, stoners and kids who didn't have an easy life - who didn't conform and fit into the mold society expected from them.
Mick, Marnie, Chuck, Heidi and Vent are a group of friends whose bonds are stronger than sharing some weed and the occasional alcoholic beverage. While they are shunned by the popular kid, they show a maturity beyond their years when they accept one another exactly as they are, and as a group they are function well.

But, as the end of their school career approaches, their lives will be ripped to shreds when a violent act pushes them toward revenge rather than justice.
They will soon learn that there is always a price to pay, regardless of whether the cost is understood or not.

Bring on the Melon Heads - who are very much real and not just a myth created to scare kids.
There will be blood.
Not everyone will survive.

Okay, there are some things that this author did very well. It mostly takes place during the early 90's - and I could relate because I was about the same age at that time. While people like Vanilla Ice impressed the hell out of my best friend, I could never get into it. I liked it heavier. And even though I didn't go full grunge, it was mostly the music I listened to at that time. (I have to remind you that Ozzy was still banned from my country and he had just come onto my radar, which influenced me greatly - I was never a metal-head, either, but I found myself somewhere in between.)
Shea managed to take me back there with this story. He captures a feeling of a world changing around us when we are just beginning to discover some hard and painful truths about real life.

Having said that, though, I also have to point out that the first third of this book created a little too much atmosphere - it felt overwritten and made it feel much longer than it actually is. I must add that it was not done to the point of making me want to quit the story, and I am very glad about that, because the story was really great. The last 30% of the story was perfectly paced.
And I loved that ending, even though I have to wonder if it will be mainstream enough for the masses. In my opinion, it couldn't have ended better.

If I had to give you a feel for this one, it might be a little THE HILLS HAVE EYES meets something like CHASING GHOSTS by Glenn Rolfe, with the children just a little older but not yet adults.

I recommend this to horror fans in general - it is not extreme but it does pack a punch.

Hunter Shea is becoming a new favorite author of mine. Once I picked up this book I couldn't put it down, I had to know what was next.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Flame Tree Press and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Legends live in small towns. Legends about creatures that live in the shadows, pale, deformed, hungry. They inspire fear and nursery rhymes that hold warnings for those who dare to seek them out on Dracula Drive.

In the 90’s, with Soundgarden playing in the background and the smell of weed in the air, a group of teenagers are just trying to make it through small town life. When one of their group is savagely assaulted, they vow revenge in the most heinous way they can think of—they take the scum sucking offender to Dracula Drive and offer him to the creatures who are rumored to live there. This one act will put this group of friends on a bloody path of no return, where legends become reality, death is a way of life and betrayal knows no bounds. Lives will be lost, sacrifices will be made and nothing will ever be the same again.

My thoughts:

Let me start this by saying, I picked this book up yesterday and ended up reading well into the night because I simply had to know how it all turned out. Hunter Shea gives us a tale, steeped in 90’s nostalgia, that sinks its rotten teeth into you and doesn’t let go. Just like the creatures, Shea wants his pound of flesh, and he most definitely got it from me. Misfits is a helluva ride and I loved every word.

It’s a coming of age story set to grungy soundtrack I could almost hear playing in the background. Serious 90’s feels! I’m going to show my age here, but this book transported me right back to high school. Pay phones, video stores, having friends call school and pretend to be your mom to get you out of class... It’s all here. The setting was so damn solid, perfectly paired with a chilling monster story and clever plot. From stomach churning gore to heartfelt revelations, this book has it all. I felt a bit wrung out when I reached the twisted conclusion.

A word of warning, this books deals with sexual assault. The author gives the act just enough attention to make readers understand the gravity of the situation without it ever feeling gratuitous. He did break my heart though with how he handled the aftermath. Well done Mr. Shea, well done.

If you’re a fan of coming of age horror, this is a must read.