Initial Thoughts
I like weird books and this one definitely fits that description. The story started out with a bang and I was hooked. The story did meander a bit in the middle but the story still held my attention. I liked our flawed protagonist, Julie, and was eager to see how she would possibly come out ahead with so much stacked against her. The story was violent and gory at times so it may not work for all readers. I listened to the audiobook and thought that Natalie Naudus did an amazing job of bringing this book to life.

ARC provided by the publisher. Full review to be posted soon.

WHAT A BLAST but also be warned this if you're any part squeamish because it is GROSS it is so gross and it's so fun.

The Dead Take the A Train follows Julie Crews, a demon hunter/paranormal detective/whatever because no one title will put her in a box from page one confronting an incubator (monster? demon?) inside a bride-to-be, harshing her high and nearly every page from then on is this gross supernatural adventure into eldritch creatures that want to do the nasty (literally) and eat the world as well as a full cast of immortals and Wall Street financebros that are very integral in managing said eldritch horrors, also, a sapphic "just kiss already!" interlineation.

Reading through I thought, "okay, this is the vibes of darker Sandman and some Vertigo comics" and lo one of the writers has written for Vertigo, and the other has several horror titles I've seen around but have not yet picked up.

Loved this, maybe I'm in my urban fantasy/supernatural horror era??

I know some reviews in places have said that it feels very the first book in a series as certain things aren't wrapped up but you know what I rate on vibes and I'm vibing.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor/Tor Nightfire and I WILL be reading book two.

Unfortunately I only made it 50 pages in before I found myself not really invested in this book. The writing was so good and I think the story was a good one, but for me I just was not into it.

have previously loved books by Cassandra Khaw so I was eager to read this collaboration with Richard Kadrey, an author I needed to read.

I liked this one but I will admit that cosmic horror is not a personal favourite of mine. I thought this one was well done, but not the kind of story I tend to love.

The characters were very adult and snarky in a way I didn't particularly care for, which is hard in a story set dependent on caring for these individuals. New York City also acted as a character in this one, but as an outsider I didn't get as much out of the story.

This is a case where I liked the idea more than the story itself. I think readers more familiar with New York City or those that love cosmic horror will get more out of this one.

Julie uses her magic to rid people of demons but it is not the job she wants or the headache from the horrible clients she has to deal with. She summons some help but instead of three wishes and a new life she finds more trouble than help. Look out New York City. Funny, gruesome and very violent this is a biting look at corporate America and the problems of a girl just trying to make it in the big city. Cassandra Khaw doesn't pull any punches but you might not want to eat while reading. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

I knew I was going to love this book but boy did I LOVE it! The humor, the horror, the atmosphere frankly everything was perfect and made this book work perfectly. I adored the characters even the ones who you were supposed to hate. Maybe it's because everything felt so real. I felt like this is exactly what would happen if the world was full of this kind of magic and evil. Overall this was an amazing book and I can not wait for the next one!

Dark, quirky, and gory! I couldn’t put down this macabre and utterly enjoyable horror romp!

With a reluctant heroine that is prickly and perfect and her motley crew of unlikely sidekicks, this blood bath of eldritch fuckery just never stops. You barely have time to breathe between gasps and guffaws!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my free copy. These opinions are my own.

I enjoyed the humor aspects of the story and the characters were fun, but the plot was lost on me at a few points to where I wasn't sure what happened. I did enjoy the story and the leadup to the next book though.

"Some people had it easy: they carried spells like a girl's trust in her mother, kept them chambered with no effort whatsoever. Julie wasn't one of them. She needed them stitched through the fatty part just under her skin. Otherwise, they washed away."

This is possibly the grossest book I have read in my life. It is also now an all time favorite.

I'm not super sure where to start? I finished last night before bed and it's all I've been thinking about since. Cosmic horror is not something I've read a lot of so I wasn't sure how I'd end up feeling but it was so...cool? I really enjoyed every new horrible being that was introduced, each one definitely worse than the last and so fascinating. Even the more gore-y aspects are just so interesting. I had such a good time reading this! Julie and her ragtag friend group are so sharp and funny and ridiculous. The bad guy(s) are truly bad and terrible and some of my favorite chapters to read.

The writing is just so good and sharp. This didn't feel like a 400 page book, it was over so soon. This is definitely now an all time favorite and I think it's appropriate to say that I'm ravenous for more!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Horror books have a special place in my heart. Prior to working at the library, our collection of horror books was slim to none. We had the typical Stephen King/Joe Hill books but not much other selection. Since working here we have buffed up our horror collection to include diversity, different levels of horror, and book length.

The Dead Take the A Train will have a special place in our library, I can't wait to see if we are able to order it.

OMG! This book was so fun! Supernatural creatures are all over New York, and some not so nice humans. Julie has her problems, including drugs and alcohol, but one of her biggest is her ex-boyfriend. He is a part of a supernatural firm on Wall Street. He thinks that using Julie to get ahead, and maybe have her die in the process is wonderful. Julie must fight herself, forces beyond her control and her growing feelings for her best friend in order to survive. This book was so much fun!

Being just across the river, I was excited to read The Dead Take the A Train which merges magic and otherworldly monsters with the gritty reality of New York City. It imagines a world where Cthulhu would be summoned by Investment Bankers or Legal Firms to increase their power. I had enjoyed in the past two of Khaw's novellas so was curious to see what a full length novel that they cowrote with Richard Kadrey would be like.

Julie, the main character, starts out feeling a bit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, pretty girl with powers who is underestimated, but only she can manage to save the world, but it is much darker bringing in Julie's drug use which she uses to fill the emptiness from being abandoned and abused in too many past relationships. Her found family includes a landlord who may be an ageless film star, who reminded me a bit of the narrator of Siren Queen, a recent favorite of mine. Plus there is Julie's online gaming friend who is the priest to a pantheon of digital gods reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's American Gods. All of these associations meant the novel was very much in my wheel house, but it also shouldn't be taken away that there aren't a lot of original ideas and concepts mixed in.

Julie and her long time BFF, Sarah, who have unrequited feelings for each other, both have exs who are mentally and physically abusive and the horrors of our real world are depicted as being just as brutal as those of the Nether Realm. This might be on the dark side for some fantasy fans, but horror aficionados will be counting the days to the sequels release.

I really enjoyed the way human was used to enhance the horror and the gore. I also found the whole book to be very believable in a way most books like this aren't aren't.

I'm always intrigued by co-written works, especially when I'm only familiar with half of the team. It's such an easy introduction to a new author, although it's not always clear how the work was actually divvied up.
I was excited to give THE DEAD TAKE THE A TRAIN a whirl because I've really enjoyed Cassandra Khaw's novellas, especially her approach to cosmic horror. I'm also generally a fan of urban fantasy, especially when you get a strong sense of place and a specific city.
I'm not sure I got a strong sense of *New York* specifically (maybe a New Yorker will see something a little more familiar in this text), but there's enough of a sense of *city* to still make this fun.
I described this book to a friend as taking some of the feeling of Kim Harrison's The Hollows Series (albeit with way less sex and romance), and the archane magical structure of Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence, with the grittiness of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. It's the combination of relationships being important (and Julie apparently craving connection and being quite good at alienating her allies), a magic system reliant on contracts, and visceral body weirdness that is definitely going to be offputting to readers looking for a light-hearted magical romance.
But for readers who want weird magic, side characters begging for their own stories (seriously, give me novellas on Dead Air and St. Joan PLEASE), and upsetting cosmic twists? You'll have a good time.

Julie Crews is a monster-slaying Manhattanite, exorcising ghosts and casting spells for cash in order to keep up with her expensive rent and drug habits. After her ex-boyfriend promises her a great deal of cash for a job that was supposed to kill her and a childhood friend shows up at her doorstep hiding from an abusive partner, Julie summons a guardian angel to bring some protection... with a summoning spell from a counterfeit book.

My favorite thing in this book is how grotesque it is. I haven't read any of Richard Kadrey's work, but I have read some of Cassandra Khaw's and I can sense their writing through the visceral descriptions of creatures and death scenes. The magic used in this urban fantasy sounds at best gross and at worst painful, something I don't read that often and a refreshing look at the genre. While the monsters were hard for me to construct a mental image of (pretty par for the course for cosmic horror, though), imagining Julie drinking a tracking potion made out of a mummified pigeon's foot and chicken stock nearly made me gag.

That said, while the book was a fun and fast paced read, the ending felt a little eh to me. I'm definitely interested in reading the sequel, but I'll admit that I don't really see what Sarah sees in Julie. While she was a fun character to read about, I don't think she ever got out of seeing Sarah as someone who needed to be protected. I hope the second book will build more on Sarah as a character and give us more reasons to want her and Julie to be together.

Julie is always working to climb her way to the top even when it means battling demons and monsters, but her friends and enemies end up in the crossfire along the way. This is described as “cosmic horror” which is a new genre to me, and one I didn’t quite connect with, but fans of NYC can appreciate the references. Also great for fans of snarky characters and gritty dark humor.
Thank you to NetGalley & Tor Nightfire for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is out now.

This book is nuts and I loved every second of it! Yes, it’s gory. Yes, it’s completely bonkers. And yes, there are monsters, parasites, and tons of otherworldly creatures. There is also found friendship, a budding romance, and plenty of magic!

New York City is the perfect setting because no one bats an eye when something weird happens. If any city truly has a behind-the-scenes magical landscape, it’s going to be NYC. The combination of @casskhaw ‘s particular brand of horror and @rkadrey ‘s flair for fantasy provide for a unique reading experience you won’t soon find in any other book! Unless book 2 is coming which…..I’m totally hoping for!

With an out-of-the-box story such as this one, you need an equally animated narrator for the audio version and @natalienaudus DELIVERS. Her firm grasp on the sarcasm thickly spread throughout this tale is a five star performance on its own. I read most of this book as I followed along with the audio and it truly enhanced the experience for me!

If you’re a fan of gruesome horror, an out of this world plot, and likable characters, definitely add this one to your lists!

I don’t know what prompted Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey to write a book together, but I am so glad they did. I’m also very excited that there will be another book from them. The Dead Take the A Train is the first in the Carrion City duology. I saw an ad for the book a couple of days ago, and John Langan blurbed the book as “compulsively readable.” I can’t think of a better description. It was hard to put down, and even when I did, I was thinking about it. It is a visceral read with A LOT of viscera.

We meet Julie Crews at a bachelorette party at a speakeasy themed bar that’s gotten very bloody. The bride to be is possessed by a demon and in Julie’s efforts to remove him, the bride’s body has lost some parts. Things go downhill from there and Julie isn’t paid what she’s owed. She doesn’t have enough money to cover the next month’s rent, so she isn’t in a position to say no when Tyler, her Wall Street dirtbag ex, calls with a job offer. What we know, that Julie does not, is that Tyler is trying to farm out a job that may get Julie killed. Upping the stakes, Julie’s old friend Sarah shows up, fleeing her abusive ex. They are, of course, in love with each other, but they keep insisting they are just “best friends.”

“It’s like they’re trying to be stupid,” said St. Joan in an awful stage whisper.

“I know,” said Dead Air before his face softened. “But we probably should let them be stupid in peace.”

There is a lot of plot and I would gladly recite it to you like a three year old tells you all about Thomas the Tank Engine, but I won’t. I will tell you that The Dead Take the A Train is funny, and kind of mean. It has a big heart, and that heart is actually an eldricht god who will burrow into your brain and wear you like a meat suit. This cosmic horror is smiling too widely with too many teeth and whispering “be careful what you wish for” so softly you don’t understand what it said until it’s too late. Khaw and Kadrey don’t shy away from using big words and the prose is otherworldly. I loved it.

CW: intimate partner violence off page, torture mostly off page, eternal torment, possession, murder, self harm, piles of entrails, gun violence, threats of violence, violence.

I received this as an advance reader copy from Tor Nightfire and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.

This book was B.A.N.AN.A.S. in a completely amazing way! Gruesome and gory and hilarious and fun and I cannot wait for the second book in this duology.
Julie is a demon hunter who is just barely getting by on the meager earnings from exorcising demons, casting spells and ghost-hunting. When her best friend, Sarah, shows up at her front door, Julie will do just about anything to protect her. Casting a spell for a guardian "angel", Julie unwittingly unleashes pure evil among the city.
So many layers and crazy characters and storylines that will need to get all wrapped up neatly in the second book. At least that is what I'm hoping for. That, and a happy ending for poor Julie.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for this e-arc.*

I loved this! Fantasy horror is such a great genre, and these two authors hit it out of the park. The different POVs were done well, and I enjoyed the way the "villain" was characterized a lot. This definitely walks the line of how much gore I can handle, so if you're really not into gore I would steer clear of this one. This was brutal and gross and I cannot wait for more from both these authors and this world!