3 Stars!

Sasquatches are not my favorite horror monster, but I seem to be running into a lot of them lately for one reason or another. The Thing in the Woods by Gary Frank promised to be another one of those that came my way and I latched on to for one reason or another. I do not mind the monsters, though, as long as they bring entertainment and originality to the story so I was hoping to find a large-footed adventure within.



Rich his wife, Kara, planned the perfect weekend to get Kara’s sister, Allison, and her husband Max alone. They knew the couple was having trouble with their marriage and were determined to get to the bottom of it, or to get Allison away from her potentially abusive husband. A weekend at a remote New Jersey campground would give them plenty of time to talk things out and decide the best way to move forward. What they did not know was that there was something else in the woods. The locals knew about the monsters who lived in the woods, but they did not fear them. They knew that the sasquatches would leave you alone if you did not bother them. Unfortunately, Rich and Max did not know this golden rule.



When another couple shows up to stay in a neighboring cabin, their bickering starts to bring the situation to a boil. Mixed with the strange noises and terrible smell of a creature, or something, lurking outside the cabin at night, Rich and Max decide they must search the woods for whatever is stalking their campsite. When a sasquatch is injured in an accident and some enforcers come looking for the money the new couple stole from their boss, the situation becomes explosive with the only question becoming who will escape with their lives.



The Thing in the Woods is a story about sasquatches, but the creatures take a back seat in much of the story. This is not always a bad thing as there are some very good action sequences throughout the novel even though most of it is between the people in the story. The creatures are out there lurking throughout the novel, but they tend to stay in the shadows and provide tension more than action. They do come into the story more toward the end, however, and help bring the story to an explosive ending that kept me turning the pages as quickly as I could read them. There is a lot of action in the story and the second half of the novel, in particular, unravels quickly and keeps things moving along at a breakneck pace.



What holds this novel back from reaching its potential is that it spends way too much time focusing on things that are not important to the rest of the story. The first half of the novel bogs down repeatedly as the issue of Max’s abuse of Allison is brought up over and over. This makes it hard to get into the story and makes the characters difficult to care for as it forces their negative traits to the forefront. Throw in the criminal couple that do not seem real and gangsters that act like extras from a mob movie along with a novel family that seems to wander in from a bad family comedy and there is very little in the novel to care about. This provided a counterpoint to the strong action sequences that held the book back. If the novel had focused on the creatures in the woods and the action that comes toward the end, the book would have been much more entertaining to read. Instead, the novel reads almost as two separate stories. The first half is a Lifetime movie while the second half is more of a B-movie action romp. While I enjoyed The Thing in the Woods, it could have been much better if there was less family drama and more monster mayhem.



I would like to thank Crossroads Press and NetGalley for this review copy. The Thing in the Woods is available now.

The premise was super promising! I love horror books during summer, as they make the heat more bearable for some reason. The Thing in the Woods just fell a little flat for me. There were a lot of continuity errors, and I just couldn't really get IN to the story. Maybe the writing was off or the characters were strangely written. Whatever the case, this was a tough one to finish.

Another great read from Gary Frank. I don't seem to see all that many Big Foot stories, and tend to enjoy them when I find one. Can't wait for more from Gary Frank. #TheThingintheWoods #NetGalley

I was not a fan of the writing style and could not get into the story. It wasn't a long book, it but took me many tries to make it through. I found the characters to be not the best and overall just couldn't get into the story.

This book had a great premise. Two couples get away for the weekend. One husband has issues with alcohol, the other with anger. A child disappeared in the same woods thirty years before, could the wild man of the woods be responsible? And what’s up with the couple in the next cabin?

Unfortunately, this novel is plagued by bad characterization, unrealistic dialogue, repetition, weird changes in direction, strange behavior and a lack of any tension or atmosphere.

The novel starts with Rich’s wife, Kara, worried about her sister Allison, who hasn’t been herself recently. Allison is married to Rich’s good friend, Max, and they hope to find out what’s going on with the other couple over the weekend. However, later in the novel Rich and Kara have known about Allison and Max’s marital problems for so long that Rich didn’t even go to their wedding because he didn’t think Max should marry Allison (what Kara thought of her husband bailing on her sister’s wedding isn’t mentioned).

The kid disappearing 30 years before on Rich’s scouting trip is never referenced after the start of the novel. Despite that trip being 8 year old Rich’s last happy time with his father, we are later told that Rich’s relationship with his father ended when he was 6 or 7 years old.

Near the end of the book there appears to be one ending and a couple of seconds later a different version of the same ending, and Rich’s broken leg disappears between versions (along with other continuity errors).

Issues like alcoholism and spousal abuse are handled with the subtly of a sledge hammer. The female characters are devoid of any agency and wait around for the male characters to do things. In one scene, the women and children are held captive by some bad people and I liked how the 13 and 9 year old children were tied up while the adults were left free (because kids are the ones you need to watch out for when you are holding people hostage at gun point). Despite being in a camp ground in New Jersey which doesn’t seem to be very far from civilization, Rich and Max feel it is their responsibility to solve all problems with their guns, and bury the bodies in the woods. I like that their solution to the possibility of a bear opening the locked door to their cabin at night is to move their food from the fridge to Max’s car. Probably my favorite part of the book was when Rich saw Bigfoot for the first time and envied him not having to pay a mortgage.

I liked the idea of Bigfoot in New Jersey. There is a theme of taking responsibility for your actions which appears at the end, and I think that could have been very interesting if it had been developed more.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Netgalley. I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

The Thing in the Woods by Gary Frank was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. First, unlike other reviewers, I understand fiction is fiction so I will not harp on "domestic violence," or "he has guns." The book kind of left the title (the actual thing in the woods) as a second thought though, meaning there was way to much dialogue between characters and not enough action for my tastes. If you, or someone you buy gifts for, likes books about Sasquatch in New Jersey, maybe give this book a read.

3 Stars

Oh, come on. Authors. Press. If you’re going to give out promotional ARCs for reviews, the least you can do is create a listing for these books on GR. So here I am again, performing a public service. Gratis. Yey, me.
Ok, let’s talk about the book now, since I’m the first one to rate and review it.
Another mediocre offering from Crossroads Press. But this one has Sasquatches. I love those guys and tend to read whatever I can find about them, though this one certainly left a lot to be desired. On the flip side, it’s short, 44K in word count, so maybe 165 pages or so.
The initial thoughts were, like, Noooice, Sasquatches in Jersey. Way to make Jersey interesting.
But no, the author seemed to have more interest in focusing on his bland and way uninteresting characters instead. Practically a marital drama of two couples – two sisters and their men – who clash over a camping weekend, because of some spousal abuse.
Then there’s another couple thrown in the mix, two criminals fleeing with cash. Cryptids and criminals…wink, wink, nudge, nudge, this thing is practically writing itself.
Well, Sasquatches stumble into this mess, because it is their land, after all, and the stupid campers (who were warned, mind you) are like, no, yikes, where are them guns at?
Yeah. This is a VERY American book. Everyone’s got guns and everyone’s trigger happy. They can’t wait to shoot, and they are definitely of the ask questions later variety.
It makes you really pity the Sasquatches for having to contend with these idiots. Although these idiots are supposed to be the presumably compelling protagonists.
Plus, the Sasquatches definitely do not get their fair share of page time. Instead, it’s way too much marital therapy and crap like that.
Overall, it’s just about entertaining enough in a distinctly low brow way. About as original as its title, which isn’t very. But, at least, it reads quickly. Thanks Netgalley.

Repeat after me: There's no excuse for domestic abuse. Especially excusing it because you don't want to ruin your weekend away. Like seriously, what did I even just read?

Firstly, Rich didn't seem to have ANY issue with being friends with an abusive bully. His only issue seemed to be that it bothered Kara that her sister was being abused. It didn't bother Rich, at all. His constant need to "break the tension" was really just him not wanting to do anything about his friend abusing his wife.

Spoiler ahead:

I only kept reading in the hopes Max would die, and was very pleased when he did. But why did Allison have to die to? First, she's treated like her abuse is just an inconvenience and then she gets killed off. No, thank you.

I love cryptids but the way domestic abuse was handled (or not handled), the pointless side characters, the stilted and expository dialogue, the unrefined writting style, and the constant use of 'bear' as the plural form of bear, made it so what cryptid elements I may have otherwise enjoyed fell completely flat.

This book was definitely not for me despite the premise being spot on for my usual tastes.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Unable to add review to Goodreads as title in not in database.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Thing in the Woods by Gary Frank.

Well now I really hate agreeing to give an honest review because this is my first one star, ever. As I always say, I HATE giving bad reviews but here goes. The writing was juvenile as well as the dialogue. The characters were all extremely unlikeable and it felt like I was reading a book a child wrote at times. I apologize if this is harsh but I just didn't like this one at all.

The book starts out strong, and we rapidly get into the “Cabin-In-The-Woods” creepiness, a subcategory of horror I really enjoy. Oh and there’s a big stinky creature lurking nearby.

One of the main issues I struggled to comprehend was the “meh” attitude of the characters when they find out one of them is abusing their spouse. It just didn’t seem realistic to me, granted I’ve also never been in that situation; if I found out my sister in law was getting smacked around we’d be outta there and getting her support asap! It feels bizarrely wrong that you’d want to keep camping in the face of domestic violence. This was a sticking point for me and I couldn’t enjoy the book as much as I initially had.

The Cryptid parts were interesting, there were a few other odd add-ins to the plot, like the criminals. Overall this was a decent, quick read. I definitely liked the Oilers reference, being an Edmontonian myself!

Thank you to NetGalley, Crossroad Press, & Gary Frank for a copy.

The Thing in the Woods is not the book for me. The dialogue, specifically in the first chapter, was stilted and tried to give way too much exposition just by characters having a (probably redundant) conversation for the benefit of the reader.

I also just... What were Kara and Rich thinking staying in a remote area with a man they suspected and later confirmed was violent with his wife, while he had guns (plural) in the cabin?? That's how victims of DV get murdered, which Kara knew and was concerned about. There was no talk of an exit plan, no on-page interactions between Kara and Alison or Rich and Alison when they finally did have time alone to really talk about how much danger Alison was in. Perhaps that was supposed to be part of the horror, but it just made me want to yell at someone, specifically Rich. For all he is made out to be the stereotypical peace-keeper/hero, his inaction on something this important bugged me.

Glad Max got what he deserved in the end, although did Alison really have to die, too? It wasn't enough that she survived years of abuse and was now going to be free of her abuser, only to die by gangsters. Which also... what was the point of the gangsters again? They just seemed so random.

I did actually like the concept of this book: going away on a cozy cabin retreat only to find something lurking in the woods. A classic trope that doesn't get old, much like the gothic-style novel. I even liked that the so-called monsters seemed to be some type of executor of morality and based much of their aggression on those who hurt them and/or did wrong. This book, however, I just found to be predictable in a way that didn't add or refresh anything in the already existing trope. Of course Rich wouldn't have gotten to just black out and be on his way; the park ranger told him as much. It was at least amusing that when he finally did "stand trial" all the creature did was punch him and move on. I don't think Rich "deserved" to die in the end, but if we operate on the basis that these creatures act based on morals and attack those they find lacking... it seems weird that we were told multiple times that Rich is an alcoholic (which is a disease and not a moral failing, but was treated more like a moral failing in this book, so it stands to reason that the creatures would believe he should die for that, but I digress.)

The Thing in the Woods was a quick read, and I think if someone is looking for that tried-and-true monster in the woods story, they may want to give this book a try. Just because this book wasn't my favorite doesn't mean it can't be someone else's, but I don't see myself recommending it if asked.