4 Stars!

When I first read a book by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth, I really did not know what to expect. After all, it was a science fiction/horror novel by one of the Impractical Jokers. Could it really be that scary or would it be a bad comedy? It was scary. It was fun. It was all-out, B-movie action and horror. When I got the chance to get a copy of Don't Move to review, I did not hesitate to snatch it up and settle in for some more action and violence.

Megan Forrester not only witnessed her family's deaths. She contributed to them. She watched her husband and her son in a fiery in accident in part because of her own inaction. Now her life is turned completely upside down and she is searching for a reason to keep living. When she is invited on a weekend camping retreat with a local church group, she thinks this may be the perfect opportunity to get back in touch with herself and find some inner peace. It seems like a good plan until the group takes a wrong turn and winds up in the wrong part of the forest in West Virginia. It is a mistake that could cost them all their lives.

Even as the group begins to come to the realization that they are lost, tensions between members of the camping party threaten to tear them apart. Not everyone has come on this retreat to get away from their lives. Some have brought their baggage with them. Even as the group begins to unravel, though, it becomes clear that they have wandered into a hunting grounds of an ancient monster. It attacks with an unparalleled ruthlessness and feasts upon those unlucky to get close to its home. There is no help on the way. They are lost and cannot be found. They need to run. But how can you escape from a creature that reads your very actions and the only way to stay alive is if you don't move?

If you like a story that you can ease in to, Don't Move is not for you. The novel takes off from the opening chapter with a horrific sequence that is a sign of things to come. Murray and Wearmouth waste no time in kicking the action into high gear before finally letting off the gas a little bit and developing the rest of the story. I have to say that this novel has one of the best opening chapters of any book I have read recently. The story then slows a little bit as Megan's situation is set up and the members of the weekend retreat are introduced. It is quite the cast of characters, too, and far from what one would expect on a church outing. I would not say that it is very realistic that such a group would come together, but this is an action/horror novel so it works. The group set off and mayhem ensues.

Spiders are creepy. They have the natural ability to get the hair on everyone's arms to stand up. Even if you are not afraid of them, they still have that alien quality to them. The monster in this book is a giant, ancient spider that is hellbent to kill anything that comes near it. Even worse, the spider hunts by sending every movement its prey makes. This serves to intensify the action as Megan and her companions cannot fight the spider without it knowing their every move. Don't Move is an all-out action story that is filled with violence and mayhem. Murray and Wearmouth do not give the reader to take a breath during the second half of the novel. Like the spider within, the story is relentless and dives right in for the jugular. This is not high literature. It is a story that can be read quickly and is just a lot of fun. If you like stories that will entertain and zip your through an afternoon without you even realizing how much time has passed, this is the book for you. Don't Move is a very good monster novel and is highly recommended for fans of the genre.

I would like to thank Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for this review copy. Don't Move is available now.

I read this book aloud with my partner and we both loved it. Think Goosebumps, but for a more mature audience. The writing was a bit slapstick and something you'd expect to see in Final Destination movies, but that was what drew me to this book. If you're looking for a quick, enjoyable, but high suspense book. Get ready and don't move!

3.00 stars
-
TW; child death, gore, blood, death, stalking, isolation.
-
Megan Forrester is haunted by her past, six months ago she witnessed the gruesome death of her husband and son. When a church retreat makes itself available to her, she figures what could go wrong? An eclectic group packs their way onto a bus to drive out to the middle of nowhere - what they don't realize is that this will be the fight for their lives. On the first night one of our unreliable characters "forgets" something on the bus, as he is accompanied by the tour guide back things go rogue very soon. The tour guide disappears and there's something in the woods hunting them.

We soon find out that there's a giant spider living in the woods and will hunt them down by their movements, the solution? They don't move. Realizing that this is not a real solution, the survivors of the group realize they need to move, and without disturbing the spider. It was really cool reading how the group progressed with escaping.

This made me feel as if I were watching a cheesy B-movie you'd watch on tv, the dialogue was okay, but it felt like every moment was peppered with as much drama as possible. The opening was probably the best part of the book, it was so graphic and was so descriptive, it has turned me off completely of amusement park rides. Other than that, it felt like the story moved too quickly, it seemed as if the moment they started to arrive they were getting killed off. We didn't really get to know any of them much - I think slowing down the pace would have really helped.
-
I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book for an honest review, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I read this book in a day. James Murray knows how to keep your attention. His other series was as good as this one. If you like scary, spiders, and creepy then this is the book for you.

Don't Move is about a church group  that is going camping out in the forest of West Virginia and things don't go quite as planned when they seem to end up in the wrong spot. 

Megan has had it pretty rough after the death of her husband and son. They dead in a carnival ride gone wrong and it all happened right in front of her and she wasn't able to save them. She always thought it was her fault because she should have done more. She is hoping to mend her broken heart with a camping trip. 

Right before they go another man named Ricky stops the bus and ask if he can go camping with them. He use to date the pastor's daughter so he doesn't seem to see a problem with it but his daughter is going with her new boyfriend and tells him he needs to behave. There is also a older couple with their grandson going as well. 

The driver says he knows where they are going and has a nice speech to go with it as if he is trying to be a tour guide and not a very good one. He seems pretty sure that he knows all about where he is going but he takes them deep into the forest but it's not the Canyon he said it was and instead he leads them right into the lair of a prehistoric arachnid!

Ricky is a good person and Emma's new boyfriend Ryan has had run ins with him so they are at each others throats through most of the story. Ricky wants to go back to the bus to get something but they won't let him go on his own so the driver goes with him and he is the only one with a Sat phone. When something bad happens to him and it terrifies Ricky who runs back to camp of course Ryan thinks he did something to him. They all decide to go off looking for the driver where it all really goes downhill. 

This is one of those stories where there is probably just only one person you really care about surviving and everyone else can just die. :) You don't know how many times I wanted to smack Ryan, he was by far the most annoying character! You don't really get attached to any of the characters which is good because most don't last long but there are a few that once they last as long as they do you do start to root a bit for them towards the end. 

I really enjoyed the arachnid creature as it was a huge spider and I don't know about you but giant spiders are just freaking scary! It couldn't really see you but it had all this webbing around the forest so if could find you if you moved into it and you couldn't see it in the day time or with a regular flashlight, so good thing one of them brought a fancy light. ;) So if you didn't want to get ate by a giant spider the best thing to do was DON'T MOVE! :)

This was a decent creature story but it had it's problems too. I think my biggest complaint was it was supposed to be a church group yet none of them acted like they even knew what a church was from their language to how they treated others. Maybe except for the old couple but their grandson was a horrid kid. As a church goer myself I wasn't impressed with the group at all. Also I wasn't a huge fan of how it ended. It has one of those ending that I think you will either like it or not and I didn't. 

I think if you like  creature features that you might enjoy it as it was decent.

I love horror novels with spiders!! And this is so well done, I couldn't put this down! After an overzealous and a bit incompetent guide brings them to the wrong side of the canyon. They learn very quickly why this part has never been surveyed. This book was fast paced and absolutely terrifying! I loved every second of it. And for someone who's read alot of "creature feature" horror, I was really impressed! I can't wait to read more by this duo of authors. I highly recommend this book!

I might be another one to have picked up this book because-Hey, is that THAT guy? But you shouldn't pick it up for that reason. You shouldn't NOT pick it up for that reason. What we have here is a good old monster story. It starts horrifically. Megan loses her family in a way that would be totally at home in one of Final Destination movies. The opening scene is truly gruesome. And you know it is coming pretty much from the get go. The authors are adept at the sense of foreboding and imminent doom. Megan watches her husband and son die, the world sees it on YouTube, and she has pretty much pulled out of the world. Who wouldn't?

She decides to try to get back to life by taking a hiking and camping trip with a small church group. This group is taking it to the extreme. Let's go somewhere that no one has been to in who knows how long. Now, I must say that I am not one of those people who is spooked by the woods. I live in a national forest and I spend my summer nights outside on a hammock staring at the sky and the treetops. I say hello to the coyotes, raccoons, what have you. We respect each other and leave each other alone. (Even I back slowly away from the bears and hope never to see in person the mountain lions that show up on my Ring Cams.) Still, not afraid of the woods. Doesn't help here because you know that this is not the same forest.

Everyone on the trip has a backstory that we get a peak at. I would have liked more than a peak on most of them. Maybe not all of them, but I saw some definite opportunities for some more detail that would have helped the story move up a star. Regardless, I felt like I was watching a monster-of-the-week episode of one of my favorite supernatural shows. We had a pretty cool monster. We had people acting stupid and people learning and acting slightly less stupid. So....people. And I have to say I was pretty satisfied by the ending. Sequel or not, it worked. Really glad I picked up this one. It was a little short. It was a quick, fun read. I'd like to thank the authors, publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC.

Read this review and others on my blog at: https://readeotw.wordpress.com/2020/11/25/dont-move-byjames-s-murray-and-darren-wearmouth/

Terror from an Impractical Joker. Original concept and well thought out characters. Super scary and so fun! Like an old 80’s B movie.

A book about giant spiders should at least have a good ick factor to it. But "Don't Move" is too goofy and preposterous to give even the most sensitive arachnophobes pause. The characters are cartoonish and their conflicts grating, so by the time their church bus finally arrives at the spiderworks factory, it's a relief that they're almost all instantly gobbled up by one monstrous spider with no sense of portion control.

This is one of those B-movie books where the set-pieces are so uninspired that you can't help but distract yourself with the practicalities. The text never mentions it, but the book description claims "Don't Move" is about a prehistoric spider who hunts its prey with patience. In practice, it murders pretty much anything it sees, from wildlife to humans. So not only does it have zero patience, it also should have completely depopulated its food supply long before our heroes stumble across it.

Then there's the matter of the obligatory "Yes, the heroes survive, but the monster laid eggs" twist. Upon recovering in a hospital, our protagonist wakes up to discover that baby spiders have literally filled her room with webs in all directions and are now waiting for something to fall into their trap. But... wouldn't they have run across her while stringing their webs and already eaten her already?

The less said about the mechanics of the traumatic amusement park accident that opens the book, the better. Suffice to say, I am fairly certain chair swing rides do not work like that.

These are all things you shouldn't be thinking about when reading a book like this. And breifly sketched, you can imagine how "Don't Move" might be dumb fun. Unfortunately, one of those two qualities is absent.

I'm torn with this review. Did I like the book? Overall, yes. The pace was fast (although it took a little too long to get to the spider, when we knew that's what we were getting based on the synopsis), Megan was a good main character to root for, the carnage and gross-out moments were on point, and it had a fantastic closing moment.

The downfall was that the writing wasn't...great. It almost felt like I was reading an elongated movie script that was turned into a novel in hopes that a production company or studio would pick it up and make it into a movie. The rest of the characters were fairly stock or under-developed, so seemed to be there as chum for the spider... and therefore, you didn't care when they died. There was also not as much suspense as you would hope there would be in a story like this. But when it delivered on the gore...it really delivered. In fact, the opening scene seemed right out of a "Final Destination" movie.

So...I liked it. But I didn't love it. Which means I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to EVERYONE.

Don't Move starts off with a gruesome, chilling first chapter and never lets go.

Enjoying a summer evening at the local traveling carnival, Megan Forrester's life shatters before her eyes when a horrific accident claims the lives of her husband and son. Months later, Megan is trying to get her life back together and overcome the near-paralyzing guilt she feels. A church camping trip seems like the perfect way to ease herself back into the world a bit and start claiming her life.

Little does she or any of the other members of her party realize that what started out as an innocent weekend excursion will soon become a terrifying, deadly fight for survival in an isolated part of the Monongahela National Forest.

James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth's Don't Move feels like a lot Stephen King story that you'd tell around the campfire as you tried to scare the fool out of each other. After the horrifying opening chapter, Murray and Wearmouth take time to introduce and develop the various members of the camping party so that when bad things start happening, we've developed an emotional investment in the party. From Pastor Rizzo to his daughter Emma and her boyfriend, Ryan to the grandparent and their grandson, Murray and Wearmouth create more than just a group of victims waiting to meet a horrific fate. We also meet Ricky, the ex-boyfriend of Emma and drug dealer who has a different agenda for this trip than just getting away from it all.

Tension and terror built over the course of the novel as the group discovers something lurking in the woods that's out to get them and that help may not be as easy to get as they hoped.

Listening to the audio version of Don't Move was a suitably creepy experience. Read by Murray (of Impractical Joker fame), there were times when the story not only had the characters looking closely at the shadows, but I was as well. (It may not help that I get up early to job and this book accompanied on several mornings as the sun was coming up). Murray does a superlative job of ratcheting up the suspense and creating and distinguishing each character through his performance.

Creepy and compelling, Don't Move is the perfect horror/suspense story for the Halloween season.

I received a digital ARC of this book and the audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

ARACHNOPHOBIA in the Monongahela National Forest

This book starts out with a truly horrific and graphic prologue at a state fair in New Jersey so be warned.

Jump ahead nine months and Megan is trying to put the calamity that befell her family a bit behind her. She signs up for a church bus camping trip in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia.

A motley group of people including the pastor ride on the bus from New York to West Virginia led by a less than competent tour guide. By the time the group realizes they are no where near the place they were to be camping, it's too late...and the horror show has really begun.

I wasn't too impressed by the last book I read by this writing pair but I enjoyed this one much more. Yes, it's like reading the script for a Grade B Creature Feature movie but that's okay with me - I used to enjoy watching those movies.

I liked Megan's character - a strong woman with an important job overlooking operations at a huge food distribution center. She had earned her reputation as the ultimate puzzle solver through her intellect, instinct, and logistical skills.

She brings those skills to the forest trying to survive and helping her fellow campers survive.

Do note there are gory, graphic scenes. Be prepared.

I received this book from Blackstone Publishing through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read and review it.

Holy cow! Or should I say spider? This book was fast paced and hard to put down! You won’t want to stop reading until the end and even then you’re going to want more! Even as an arachnophobe this book was the perfect one to send shivers down your spine and if there wasn’t already a story to stop you from camping this surely will be!

Set aside a little time when you’re ready to read Don’t Move – because this is one roller coaster ride of a horror novel.

This is a Creature Feature – will all the ickiness that entails. Our critters are hungry, smart, and everywhere!

The book starts with a scene that’s utterly horrifying. It’s more of a character building scene than anything related to the rest of the story. However, the feel of that section continues in the rest of the book – building horrors and heartbreak upon horrors and heartbreak until you just can’t breathe anymore!

The book does skirt some things – like the why and how of it all – but you aren’t likely to notice while you’re deep in the middle of the action!

Definitely a solid horror thriller. Would love to read the author again!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley.

Many months after a personal disturbing life tragedy, Megan arranges a camping trip getaway with her pastor and church group hoping for an opportunity to insert normalcy in her life once again. Realizing the facade of what seems like paradise on earth is actually a nightmare in hideous disguise, Megan soon realizes history is about to repeat itself.
Don’t Move by James S. Murray & Darren Wearmouth is a great creature feature presentation spotlighting an enormous eight legged arachnid. The author duo creates a setting where a group of people isolated in a claustrophobic wooded area stumble upon a deadly six foot spider. Moving silently through uncharted territories and spinning its network of webbing, this monstrosity lurking in the darkness is written with a considerable amount of intensity and sudden startles. The creepiness factor is through the roof as is the nightmarish shocks that are ever so consistent, keeping the reader trapped and continually on guard. Just when you think these authors won’t go there...they go there, demonstrating that anything can happen and there are no lines that won’t be crossed. Not only does this book have all the factors that make a great story, it flat out makes purchasing a copy a must.
The next time you find yourself in the stunning outdoors with no communication, suddenly having the entire area fall silent, hearing a distant high pitched hissing and viewing a glimpse of movement in your peripheral vision...just remember... Don't Move. Highly recommended by the Horror Bookworm.

A good escape into a compelling "what if" scenario. I love a good creature feature and this one definitely satisfied. Plus, killer ending!