This was alright, definitely a great concept and super creepy. Had some really spine tingling scenes!!! I really think the audiobook reader for me is what ruined it - she was incredibly annoying. Just my opinion. Maybe if I would have read it instead I would have felt differently.

Nestling by Nat Cassidy is a chilling sophomore novel perfect for lovers of urban horror. After Ana and Reid experienced the horrifically complicated birth of their daughter leaving Ana paralyzed, they begin looking for ways to push forward when, by what feels like a miracle, they stumble upon a seemingly affordable apartment in a luxurious New York neighbourhood. But between the unsettling neighbours and unexplainable bite marks, Ana can’t help but notice a series of eerie events that leave her feeling more than a little paranoid.

Nat Cassidy has not only cemented himself as a new favourite author in the genre with this one, but he has secured the position of being the literal footprint when it comes to men writing women in horror. Thoughtfully depicting Ana’s experiences with post-partum.

This book was creepy and impossible to down. I felt like it was paced fairly and concisely, I also appreciated how he incorporated Judaism and folklore in places where they have historically been misrepresented.

If you like horror, creepy apartments and vampires. Check it out.

Thank you, Macmillan Audio, for an advanced listener copy in exchange for an honest review.

New parents Ana and Reid who have had a string of bad luck finally win the lottery for affordable housing in NYC's renowned Deptford building. If it seems too good to be true, it most likely is.

From the beginning, the reader is whipped through a string of events which could not all be anticipated. I thoroughly enjoyed the creepy details here, truly thrilling, while the "horror" was kept toward the end. The story here seemed fresh and the creatures unique.

4.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy of this audiobook.

Nat Cassidy is a master of tone and setting. I loved the majority of this book, but the narrative was frustrating at times. Narration was fantastic!

After reading and enjoying Mary by this author last year, I was immediately intrigued by Nestlings' premise and was excited for more of his Cassidy's haunting and descriptive writing. For me personally I had to switch to a physical copy as I sometimes finds that helps me to build the tension a little more, but nonetheless the authors audiobook performance of his own books is *chefs kiss*,

If you read and enjoyed Mary by this author definitely give Nestlings a read!

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me a copy of this audiobook! All opinions are my own!

I needed a little bit of creepy to add to my fall vibes, and this was the perfect addition. It has just enough realism mixed in that it very easily kept me up at night wondering "what if???" It was atmospheric in a way that made everything jump off the page and had me glancing around my own apartment.

I loved the way that ableism (both internalized and external) is handled in this book. It really speaks to a hard relationship that people can have with their bodies after accidents or trauma, or just in general. Ana's struggle to love her new body as well as her daughter is so real, and I think that adds to the overall affect of the book. It makes everything more believable, it gives higher stakes, and helps the reader remember that Ana is just a person.

This is a perfect book to wrap up spooky season with, but be sure to check content warnings before starting!

This book was a little bit outside of my typical genre, because I have to fantastical elements. I hung with it, but I feel like the writing was trying to tell us that the building m was a character rather than show us that the building was a character in the book. I did like the ending.

(Reviewed for Library Journal) It takes a while to get going, but once its engine is revving, this horror gleefully presses the horror pressure points of body horror and parental anxiety.

Great idea, but not a fan of the pacing

I had recently finished reading another novel with a similar tone to "Rosemary's Baby" and loved it. Naturally, I was eager to dive into another one with a similar vibe. I found the concept and overall story intriguing. It even reminded me of American Horror Story: Hotel. However, the apartment residents weren't as fleshed out as I would have liked. Also, the pacing was off. The first half felt slow, while the second half felt a bit chaotic. This dampened my overall enjoyment of the book. Overall, an okay read.

***Thank you to NetGalley, Nat Cassidy, and Macmillan Audio for graciously sending me the audiobook to review. As always, all thoughts are my own.***

In Nat Cassidy's Nestlings, monsters lurk at home.

Parents find themselves monstrous as their mental fortitude fails in the middle of the night with a screaming baby. Racist landlords are on the prowl, wielding their power. A boss threatens to keep an employee in a terrible corporate trap, forcing the employee back home.

And those numerous frights are only the human monsters populating Cassidy's second horror novel.

In his lecture series, “American Monsters,” author and professor Adam Jortner argues that the haunted house trope in American cinema was a natural result of the 1970s housing crisis. In this decade, Americans were struggling to actually pay for the houses they bought. “Americans flocked to stories about monster houses," Jortner says, "because many of them really did live in houses they couldn’t afford. The houses owned them.” (1)

The consequences of American anxieties about housing are a fear of the home and the presence of “evil real estate,” as Jortner calls it. Just as the 1970s were ripe for new monstrous creations, Nat Cassidy gives us in Nestlings a new set of monsters for the post-pandemic, post-QAnon era. Ghostly memories of the pandemic haunt the sidewalks of big cities, and fervent believers in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories still walk the streets, spurred on by right-wing talk show hosts. In the novel, "realtor signs were as common as people sleeping in doorways lately." The city has become "broken."

In Cassidy's story, we are forced to confront an “emotional homelessness,” as he describes in the novel's moving afterward. In other words, though we may be housed, we struggle to feel the satisfaction or belonging that “home” should offer. And, juggling personal and parental responsibility, we harbor a constant vigilance and false sense of security, both of which many experienced during the pandemic's worst years.

Cassidy clarifies in the book's afterword that he is not a parent, that he was instead able to use inspiration from a colleague as a window into parenthood. But a reader would never know that to read Cassidy's prose. He captures the unique feelings of motherhood in an astoundingly precise way, implying that a parent-child relationship can often feel parasitic, especially in the early years, but a parent's impulse is to do anything to protect their child, despite being drained of energy and sometimes teetering on the brink of mental collapse.

For the most part, Cassandra Campbell's audiobook narration contributed to the slow burn and oftentimes darkly funny horror of the narrative. A door opens and disrupts the silence like "a person screaming in church." One of the characters realizes near the end that "nightmares don't click across the floor." Campbell knows when to slow the narrative, when to speed up to increase the horror. The (numerous) villains' voices are excellently creepy.

On a few occasions, however, the narrator took creative licenses with accents in the book which distracted from the story. For example, a friend of the female protagonist is described as having a “hint” of a southern accent, yet the narrator drops into a full-blown caricature every time that character speaks.

Haunted house stories usually succeed in terrifying when they isolate an individual. A person or a family battles the evil lurking in the home or the home itself. But Cassidy's novel asks, what are the added terrors that crop up when one is surrounded by others? What is a haunted house when surrounded by other residents? By doormen? Elevator operators?

Where does the danger come from when you're not alone?

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advance copy of this title.

References:

(1) Adam Jortner. “American Monsters.” Lecture One: Monsters in America’s Attic.” The Great Courses. 15 June, 2021.

What a terrific blend of Salem's Lot and. Rosemary's Baby! Not that this book is a copy of those, it's Cassidy's own thing. It's his own realistic, scary, dreadful story.

Reid and Anna win an apartment lottery they barely remember entering. It's an affordable, gorgeous luxury apartment on a high floor of the Deptford building in NYC. A building famous for its movie star tenants and its terrible history. With new little baby in tow, they happily move in, in spite of Anna's fear of a possible fire. Together, all 3 try to get used to their new life and the feeling that "they don't belong there."

Anna's misgivings about being on a high floor are real-you see, she was paralyzed during childbirth, and even though it might be temporary, Anna does not seem to be progressing towards walking on her own. Will Anna, Reid, and baby girl Charlie be happy in their new home? More importantly, will they all survive their new home? You'll have to read this to find out!

To be honest, I don't think I've ever came across this author's work before. I am super impressed! I listened to this on audio, (narrated by the awesome Cassandra Campbell), and found myself totally wrapped up in the building dread and the suffocating atmosphere. I do most of my listening at work with no detrimental effects. However, this time...I found myself pausing and staring at my phone, so intent on what was happening I almost forgot about work completely. This book is full of surprises!

Using the Salem's Lot/Rosemary's Baby mash-up titles as a description works to a certain point. But this is Cassidy's story and his alone. Ever see a vampire battled with Jewish artifacts instead of crosses? Nope, me either! New York city isn't the small town of Jerusalem's Lot, but if you think about it, what a perfect place for them to live-the city that never sleeps.

The characters here were so well drawn and as readers/listeners, we can't help but relate to them all. Anna with her fears of being wheelchair bound while trying to protect and care for little Charlie. Reid with his sudden responsibilities of taking care of two people, instead of just one new baby-it's easy to relate to his feelings of being overwhelmed and a bit resentful. All of this combined to captivate me and I tore through this audio in just a few days.

Again, I'm super impressed by this unique little book and I am now on a mission to read everything from Nat Cassidy. I loved the afterword to this story, (read by Mr. Cassidy himself), in which he relates a bit about himself, his family, and how this story came about. It was touching and heartfelt.
All I can say is, WELL DONE, sir!

My highest recommendation. Period!

*Thank you to Macmillan Audio, NetGalley, Cassandra Campbell and Nat Cassidy for the free audio download in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*

I tend to shy away from horror books, but I figured I could handle an audiobook version. I loved this!

I love the setting of the creepy old Manhattan building, full of mysterious occupants and secrets. The setting kind of reminded me of Lock Every Door by Riley Sager.

The characters were very well-written and well-developed. I really felt Ana’s struggle with postpartum depression and her new disability really. Reid just made me angry, with his obsession with the building and his new boss, and the fact that he took FOREVER to run one simple errand.

The audiobook was fantastic. I loved how there were certain lines that were repeated thrown in. One of my favorite chapters was just dialogue betweeb Reid and Anna when they went to investigate why Charlie was crying, it completely sucked me in.

I liked the ending but wish there had been a little more explanation.

I usually skip afterwords but I am glad I listened to this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I absolutely love Nat Cassidy's writing. His characters are always interesting and unusual. The plot has all the traditional elements of vampire lore but has his own special twist that makes it unique. I would love to see more of the humor he had in Mary but it still comes across from time to time in this novel. I will definitely be reading more of Nat Cassidy. Oh, and I really appreciate the conclusion that reveals where he found inspiration for his work. I'd like to see more of the introductions and conclusions in his next work.

I wanted to read Nestlings because it seemed like a really great choice for Halloween. It started off pretty interesting with Ana and Reid moving their family to a new high rise, Deptford, in NYC.
Much of the first half of the story was devoted to misunderstandings and secrets between the couple, and the pressures of what they were both dealing with seeping over into their marriage. I could feel both their pains, resentments and stress. Ana had suffered an injury during childbirth that left her bound to a wheelchair; Reed was the sole caregiver/provider and ended up snapping at his job. That was the highlight of the story. This section was interesting, yet had me aching to get to the "horror" element, and past so much marital drama.
Then, the "horror" crept in. It was pretty disturbing and grotesque. I liked the eeriness of the building and the tenants. The gargoyles lurking in the corners and windows. The baby changing from calm to being in a constant frenzy. But nothing actually scared me, which was what I needed. I was most afraid of what happened to Ana during childbirth.
The narration was ok. I was familiar with one of the narrators from "Where The Crawdads Sing", but her tones and sing songy approach made Ana come across as drunk or woozy. I just didn't like her voice for this character.
What I loved most was the author's note and how this story came to play. His portion in the audiobook made me wish he had narrated the book himself.

After reading Nestlings, I am a lifelong fan of Nat Cassidy! He knows how to do creepy! This book was an easy five-star rating for me! This is one of the first books I have ever read where I actually felt physically creeped out. Cassidy sets the perfect scene involving a prestigious apartment building in the heart of Manhattan inhabited by increasingly strange residents.

Ana, her husband and their infant seem to have hit the jackpot, literally, when they win an apartment lottery and move into The Deptford. Ana is the first to notice that things are not as they seem but following a horrific delivery that landed her in a wheelchair, everyone around her chalks it up to postpartum depression.

I was hooked right from the beginning when Ana meets her neighbor as she attempts to jump from a high stairwell and kill herself rather than be in her apartment with her own baby. The way people within the apartment treat these seemingly bizarre happenings as if they are completely normal creates an ominous undertone that something very wrong is happening in this building.

The ending was so satisfying and spooky. I love the way the author tied in the architecture of the building into the sinister circumstances of the plot. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a thriller or horror book!

My initial thoughts as posted to GR upon reading the summary: "biTe mArKs oN tHe bAbY". You can tell by the funky usage of capitals that I was very intrigued and disturbed by this book's possible contents. And it turns out my excitement/interest radar wasn't wrong. This was fantastic, in a horrible, creepy, bugnuts and all kinds of fuckery sort of way.

The general premise here is inspired by a combo of Rosemary's Baby (which I just read for the first time this month, so the parallels really hit me) and 'Salem's Lot, but it's not quite either of those things and definitely branches off into doing its own weird, creepy as hell but really smart thing. Ana and Reid Green have just won the NYC low income housing lottery and we meet them as they're touring their potential new apartment in the old and prestigious Deptford building. Despite Ana using a wheelchair*, and the Deptford having almost zero accessibility accommodations, neither of them can pass up the chance to live in such a beautiful historic building at such an affordable price. So they move in with their almost one-year old baby, Charlie.

*Her spine was compressed severely during childbirth to the point where she is now paralyzed and can't walk. This disability and the fact that it was brought on by childbirth is important, and handled surprisingly well by the male author. His wife must be cool.

And then shit gets weird. I really don't want to say more than that. I was basically in agony over not being able to spoil myself for the plot of this book like I do most horrors, because there were no spoilers bc ARC, but I'm glad I stuck it out and read on because this was definitely better with all the surprises and turns to the plot left unspoiled (which isn't always the case for me!)

But the thing that upped this one to five stars for me was the ending, which Nat Cassidy knocked out of the park. Oh, and definitely don't miss out on his afterword where he goes into his inspiration for the book, which gives it even more depth.

The audiobook was great, performed very nicely by Cassandra Campbell. She probably helped me get through the book when otherwise I would have spoiled myself all to hell on the plot or given up on it entirely. Very glad I persisted! Putting his first book, Mary, on my TBR immediately.

[4.5 stars, rounded up for the ending]

I truly loved this book and was so thankful to receive an ArC of this book especially since I read his first book and fell in love with his writing ❤️

Ana and Reid have nearly survived their first year of parenthood, but not without challenges.

Reeling from an incident they refuse to acknowledge, and in need of a change, Ana and Reid reluctantly accept an affordable housing apartment on the 22nd floor of the Deptford building. While Ana struggles to feel like they belong in the upscale apartment building, Reid becomes obsessed with its history and celebrity inhabitants. Their infant daughter Charlie, affectionately referred to as “baby bird” is acting strange and odd bite marks begin to appear on her body.

Tension builds between Ana and Reid leading up to Charlie’s first birthday, as they struggle with their roles as parents and partners. When it becomes clear that there is something very wrong with the Deptford building and its creepy crawly inhabitants, it may be too late to keep their family intact.

Nestling’s was a truly creepy and unexpected horror, I had the privilege of having access to the audiobook through Netgalley, thanks to Macmillan Audio and Tor Nightfire, prior to its October 31 release.

The Audiobook, which was narrated by Cassandra Campbell was engrossing and well paced, the production, along with the content held my attention fully and I listened to it whenever I had the chance. Campbell does a good job of using accents, without it being annoying or too over the top. Frank may be the only exception here, but he was a completely odious character to begin with.
Which brings me to appreciate the fully fleshed out characters, specifically Ana and Reid. The subject matter is sensitive, as it deals with postpartum mental health, disability, life as a caretaker and just the insecurities that new parents face in general. I think the author did a thorough job with the research and taking the time to get these things right and it shows through the character’s. That being said, I myself have not experienced any of these things, so I can’t day for sure that they were done right.

Considering the length for this book (just over 300 pages), I was surprised how detailed the characters were and how real they felt. I really felt for both Ana and Reid, because as terrifying as this story is, it was also kind of heartbreaking. As with most horrors, and I guess it depends on which way you look at it, there’s not really a happy ending here. Even as someone who is not a parent, I felt their insecurities, their reluctance to give up the people and the couple they once were and their ever looming fear of parental inadequacy.

For me, Ana proved to be the most complex and more transformative of characters. Yes, she is bitter, exhausted and struggles with feelings of inadequacy and the resentment towards her infant daughter that keeps rearing its ugly head, but in the end she really takes control of her disability and becomes the hero. We watch a struggling new mother, realize exactly what motherhood is and claim it, all of it. With all of its sweet loving moments and all of its horror.

Throughout the progression of the story, I started to like Ana more and Reid less. Their entire dynamic flips.

This is admittedly the first Jewish horror I have read, and that added layers upon layers to this story for me. Ana and Reid’s identity as Jewish New Yorkers affects their relationship with certain characters, such as their scumbag ex landlord and Isaac, the Hasidic Jew who Reid consults regarding their supernatural issues at home. Their identity also plays a role in how they approach the horror that threatens to possess their infant daughter, as they ultimately take a Jewish approach towards understanding the ancient monsters that plague them and towards defeating them.

In a big way this horror speaks on the Jewish history of suffering and surviving. Ana is often wondering if their family is cursed, while Reid is determined to force their luck to change. In the end this dynamic is flipped, allowing us to see them each as the survivor and as the sufferer, throughout the course of the story.

Cassidy’s identity as a Jewish author lends a dynamic approach to the way we conceptualize traditional horror tropes as well. You’ll find that your crucifixes and silver bullets don’t work here. This, along with its ties to the parental and psychological aspects of this story, created a uniquely devastating horror.

There were honestly a few scenes that gave me AHS vibes, most of them involving the extravagant occupants of the Deptford. Thing’s certainly got that AHS brand of WEIRD at times. There were one (or two) feeding scenes that made me feel positively ILL and a certain ceiling mural (and kind of the story as whole) that reminded me a bit of Clive Barker’s The Midnight Meat Train. Even before we get down to the true horror lurking within the building, the Deptford is full of eerie chill, sure to leave you covered in goosebumps.

Nat Cassidy’s author note proceeding the story, is well worth the read, and fully explains how personal this book was for him. As I develop as a reader, I find myself really appreciating a well thought out author’s note and always try to wait until I’m finished with the book before reading it. Usually, it changes the way I feel or think about the book, and typically in a positive way. In this case, I loved the book and after the author’s note loved it even more. I will say that I think I like the original book title, a bit more than Nestlings, which they settled on.

I’m very happy that I can say my final horror read of October was a 5/5 stars.

Read this full review and others at my blog www.reddogsread.com

This was one creepy book.

Ana is suffering after a complication with the birth of her first child, Charlie, left her in a wheelchair. She is full of resentment towards life, her husband and even her baby girl. When her and her husband Reid win a housing lottery, they get to move into their dream apartment. It is a fresh start for the family, or so they think.

Almost immediately, things are just not right.

I can truly say that this book was horrifying, and very descriptive. In addition to the horror aspect, it was full of suspense and family drama on top of everything else.

Although Ana was bitter at times, I really loved her "eff it all" personality that came out blazing in the end.

I can't say too much more without giving away spoilers. But I appreciated that Ana kept encountering bizarre things and red flags, and she didn't ignore them. Most fiction these days includes main characters blindly walking through red flags, and it is so unrealistic. Ana spoke up about them, but what added to the suspense was that she couldn't just leave because she was confined to a wheelchair and relied on the building's elevator and staff.

I thought the narration of this book was fantastic. Ana sounded exactly how I pictured in my mind. The author had such good voice inflection and the emotions really came across.

I found the book to be a tad bit slow at times, but overall, I highly recommend this book if you want to be frightened and grossed out.

The narrator did such an amazing job with this book. I absolutely loved her. You could keep the emotion and desperation in her voice. Loved it