Jackal is one hell of a book. It’s reminiscent of Ace of Spades, Get Out, When No One is Watching…but mixed together with a scary campfire story.

Liz is coming home to her small Appalachian town for 48 hours to see her best friend get married. Liz hasn’t been home in a long time; in high school, she had a horrifying experience in the surrounding woods and it has haunted her ever since. Not to mention the town doesn’t make itself very inviting for Black people…Liz feels out of place, unwanted. When something terrible happens at the wedding, it sends Liz on a journey of uncovering the mysteries of the woods & the town itself.

The last half of the book was flawlessly done. However, the first chunk of the book did drag a bit - I would have liked less time leading up to the wedding, and more time building the horror after the wedding. At times the writing felt a little repetitive short/basic sentences, over and over again. But the ending, and the overall concept, really made up for any of my small complaints. I ended up really loving this one, and I’m eager to see what else the author writes!

Also: the author’s note at the end was really a fantastic addition. It made me like the book even more knowing more of its inspiration.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine for providing me with a free ereader copy of this title in exchange for an honest review. I will post this review on my Instagram account (@bookish.901).

This is somewhat of a slow burn and took me a while to get into it because the pacing. I don’t know if it was my mindset at the time or the book structure itself. But in the end the story develops well. It uses the complexity of real life social injustices and mashing it with fictional horror themes.

Thank you NetGalley & the publisher for this ARC! These are my honest feelings of the book.

Wow! This is well written and was a quick read. I loved the author’s style of writing and thoroughly enjoyed the store. Highly recommend.

Many thanks to @Netgalley and @randomhouse for the ecopy!

"𝑨 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒘 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒔. 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆, 𝒃𝒐𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒅. 𝑰𝒇 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆, 𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒇𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒉, 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒕𝒉, 𝒐𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒘𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒉."

What a beautifully crafted work of art this debut was! Erin E. Adams pushed limits and broke genre boundaries and the journey to the finish line was awesome. I took in everything I read, re-read some parts and let it sink in. I've never read anything like it. Let's also give a round of applause for the most stunning cover. It's my favorite of the year due to all that it represents. When reading, along the way you start to pick up on Its true meaning and it's pretty special.

The protagonist, Liz is my favorite character in any book I've read this year. The way her struggles and hardships were depicted felt incredibly real. The way her strength gained momentum throughout the pages came to life. She is stronger than she gave herself credit for. That was the beauty of it. I, the reader got to see her for who she truly is through a lens of horror. How unique is that? Her relationship with her mother, the culture, the history surrounding her upbringing, and the small town with woods that are so horrific, they will have you squirming in your seat.

And to think as Liz returns to that very same town to attend her best friend's wedding, she will be forced to come head to head with everything she left behind. When the newlywed's daughter goes missing, there is so much in jeopardy. The woods are terrifying. The past rears its ugly head like never before.

Yet you will not be able to put your book down. It will haunt you and lure you in until you have no other choice but to let it. I finished this weeks ago and am still trying to get a grip on the ending.

JACKAL has a comparison of Lovely Bones meets Get Out. This is Adams debut novel which has an October 4 release date. I loved it. So creative and thought-provoking. If you want to dip your toes into horror, this would be a great place to start.

⚠️TW's taken from the author: Violence. Racism. Child death. Body Horror. Domestic violence. Gore. Alcohol abuse. Eating disorder. Animal death. Kidnapping. Off-page rape. Off-page violence against children.

Wow! Wow. Jackal is apparently the first novel by Erin E. Adams? Haunting, visceral, riveting, unsettling. I couldn't put this down. I was reading it in snatches on breaks at work, during lunch, before finishing chores.

Liz Rocher is a black woman returning to her intensely divided (and stratified) home town in Pennsylvania for the wedding of her best friend, Melissa. Liz has to face her own demon's and the unpleasant realities of her hometown when tragedy strikes the wedding. I don't want to say much more plot wise but I do want to mention that this is a horror novel through and through, I see some other reviews mentioning they were hoping for more realism. I hope potential readers aren't off put by that, because the setting and characteristics of the town are so real and gritty, and I think the supernatural elements only serve to enhance the real world horrors on display here.

But I can't recommend this enough regardless.

Big ol' cw for racism, murder and (off-screen) sexual assault of minors.

I really enjoyed this. Jackal is not an easy or light read, it's dark and sad. But it's real.

Liz Rocher has dealt with trauma in her past and recently. So she's not in the best frame of mind when she has to return to her hometown, something she never wanted to do, for her friend's wedding. Liz is Black and her town is mostly white with it's own fraught history.

The tension is palpable from the moment she starts interacting with everyone from her past. Then a girl goes missing in the woods at the wedding reception, echoing the past incident Liz was scarred by, literally and figuratively. The girl taken back then was found brutally murdered and Liz doesn't want history to repeat itself.

While desperately trying to help find her, Liz discovers there's always a Black girl that goes missing during the summer solstice in these woods. She investigates and as she gets closer to the truth, someone is trying to frame her. There's a horror element throughout so you don't know if a person is doing this or if there's something darker that lives in the woods. Or is there something in Liz making her do things she doesn't remember?

Jackal is well written social horror at its finest. Could the story have still worked without the horror aspect? Yes, but it wouldn't have been as unique. I don't want to give anything away. I will just highly recommend Jackal as a perfect spooky season read. And do not skip the author's note at the end.

Thank you NetGalley and Bantam for the e-ARC.

Great book! Highly recommend! For sure will read more by this author in the future! Very impressed and captivated by the story.

Jackal needs at least one more of developmental editing to tighten up what could be a great horror novel that involves race and class. As it is, though, there are just too many messy things that need to be strengthened or clarified: how Anubis--or a worshipper of Anubis--brought the jackal to the town; what the ramifications of the flood were, as relevant to the story beyond class; the in-book issue of solstice events vs non-solstice events; the oddity of the narrator's memory/dream recollections, typeset as right-justified and hard to read; a number of character interactions and behaviors that are given weight and then abandoned; and pacing. I think this will have a lot of fans, but it would be so much better if it was just a bit tighter.

Jackal is a gripping, fantastic read of a page turner. We follow Liz as she returns to her hometown, where Black girls disappear every summer. When her return is derailed by another disappearance, Liz is drawn into the years old mystery.

Like the best genre fiction, Jackal uses the tropes and tools of horror to examine social issues. Liz (and through her, us) is forced to grapple with the racist past of her town and her own blindness and complicity. I loved this book and can’t wait to see what the writer does next.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

Jackal is at its heart, a discussion of living on the edges of society, forgotten and rejected. Liz is a young Black woman returning to her hometown for her best friend's wedding, after a tragic incident in high school led to the disappearance and eventual death of one of her classmates. Mel is her best friend, and her daughter Caroline disappears as well, on the night of her wedding.

Jackal follows Liz as she is determined to both find Caroline and unravel the mystery of the missing/murdered Black girls who disappear every Summer Solstice. This book is dark and fraught with graphic and cruel descriptions of death and blood for both humans and animals. I found it to be well written and strongly drawn from beginning to end, with a touch of fantasy/horror at its conclusion, but primarily it is a thriller mystery as Liz slowly gets closer to revealing the true human killers in the town. To be clear though, most everyone in the town is guilty of looking the other way and pretending it's OK when young Black girls disappear every year.

Thank you to Bantam and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

Well, this wasn't for me.

The summary sounding amazing and like it was right up my alley. I am so bored by all the domestic thrillers (who is the REAL wife? Who is the fake one? Are they both murderers??? etc etc), so the idea of a thriller that addresses race and class was promising.

The first third is riveting, the next third is interesting but starts to falter, and the last third goes totally off the rails. When the true villian is revealed, I just couldn't buy it. I guess this is technically horror adjacent but it just fell flat in all aspects.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for this review.

Well, I got into this one without an idea of what kind of book I was getting into and that's the best way to dive into this one. It maintained the urgency and stayed being frantic all the way. Liz is back to her hometown to attend her bestie, Mel's wedding and Mel's daughter Caroline goes missing in the woods. These woods are infamous with girls ending up dead every year over last three decades. Liz starts her own investigation and things become more and more messy with weirder secrets coming out in the open. I started like this had race a key plot point but it was not actually connected.

I enjoyed the fast pace and though it was gory and gruesome horror, it kept me intrigued but my issue is with the ending as it was just beyond plausibility and it took into a direction that I did not anticipate at all. Well, I wish it was more satisfying ending but nevertheless, it came out completely weird and unpredictable that made it riveting actually!

I love debut novels, I feel like I made a new friend and I can’t wait for them to meet my other friends. Jackal comes out October 4th, the perfect spooky read, so pre-order it and/or request it from your library!

Going home is never easy and Liz is only making the trek for her best friend’s wedding. When Liz’s goddaughter is lost in the woods during the wedding, Liz must stay to help with the search. Liz has been afraid of the woods since her childhood and stepping back into the woods plunges her into her nightmares and secrets she’s never told anyone.

This novel has mysteries on mysteries, horror, discussions on race in a small town, the enduring love of mothers, and a compelling conclusion. I devoured it and I can’t wait for more people to get their hands on this.

May I give this one all the stars????

I loved everything about this one.

First, you have a truly chilling plot. This meshes horror with thriller wonderfully. I’m not going to tell you exactly what or why – I’ll just tell you that what happens is horrific, heartbreaking, and I simply didn’t want to start reading.

While the plot deals with race, I never once felt like the purpose of the book was to teach – racism is intricately enmeshed in the plot, but it’s not a morality play. As a POC reader, I really appreciated seeing so many different facets of Black culture – without having to lecture the reader. It’s a story about Black people, written by a Black woman, that’s a genre story and we need more of this!

I would happily read the author again!

• ARC via Net Galley

Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward and passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing—and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.

It’s taking.

As a frantic search begins, with the police combing the trees for Caroline, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern: a summer night. A missing girl. A party in the woods. She’s seen this before. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart missing. Liz shudders at the thought that it could have been her, and now, with Caroline missing, it can’t be a coincidence. As Liz starts to dig through the town’s history, she uncovers a horrifying secret about the place she once called home. Children have been going missing in these woods for years. All of them Black. All of them girls.

It’s your turn.

With the evil in the forest creeping closer, Liz knows what she must do: find Caroline, or be entirely consumed by the darkness- Goodreads

I waited sometime before writing this review. This book sticks with you. And as a Black Woman, it sticks with you even more. Let's be clear. When a Black girl or woman goes missing, there is less media attention and they are least likely to be found and/or found alive. This book touches on that without bluntly saying it the way I say it.

This book is powerful. It stands on its own and the author is fantastic. She wrote a difficult conversation while keeping me engaged, and invested in the story not just as a Black girl but as someone wanting to find those missing girls.

I'm struggling to find the proper words to describe this book. But what I can say is even if you are not a Black Woman this book is an amazing well-written murder mystery small town let's expose all the secrets let's try to redeem ourselves, complicated family novel.

It is a must read and a must-buy. I plan on purchasing this novel despite having the arx.

Overall,

5 Pickles

The story features Liz Rocher, a 30-something Black female whose life is somewhat of a train wreck. Liz returns to her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania for her best friend's wedding. During the reception, the bride’s daughter, Caroline is abducted.

This happens very near where a friend of Liz’s was abducted in high school and found murdered. As Liz investigates, she learns of other Black girls who have similarly disappeared over the years. This is where I got off of the ride.

I enjoyed the pace of this book - it was frantic. It also included important commentary on racism. However, I didn’t care much for Liz or any other character, but the story was developing until it unraveled. There was too big of a leap in plausibility for me to bridge. She is a great writer and I enjoyed her style. But there were just too many plot holes and I felt like the end was lacking.

Many thanks to Bantam Books and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

A fascinating melange of social commentary,mystery and the supernatural set in a small nrural Pennsylvania town, Jackal is a good read. The characters are well developed and the plot is filled with twists and turns.

Bahhh what did I just read?? Upsetting in a way that sticks with you, messy/gory, surreal, haunting, and absolutely beautifully written. This novel mixes real life issues with a somewhat fantastical imagining of a serial killer, and a potentially unreliable narrator who’s hell-bent on saving the latest victim (and uncovering why she was spared). I’ll be thinking about this one for a long while.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Excellent book. Quite a different type of horror/thriller/fantasy all in one book. Loved it. Who committed the crimes keeps you guessing as well!

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Fast paced, full of suspense a spellbinding thrill fans of the genre will enjoy.