Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this ARC!

This was a creepy slasher that I couldn’t put down. I loved the queer representation in Heads Will Roll, as well as the talk of social media and today’s “cancel culture”. There were quite a few book and pop culture references that I also loved and gave me some laughs.

I think this was a solid horror story and a bloody good book for summer!

Such a clever concept with people who are cancelled having a place to go to “recover” if you will. Loved the 80’s slasher vibes. Can’t wait to read more!

Heads Will Roll is the perfect summer horror book to take with you on your next outdoor adventure!

I have to say this is my first Josh Winning book and I was pleasantly surprised. I'm a sucker for summertime horror and this book did not disappoint! Willow, a former sitcom star, decides to visit Camp Castaway after being "canceled" from a tweet that brings her life to a halt. Two weeks in the woods with no phone, and no contact with the outside world? This is exactly what Willow needs. To make it even better, Willow's favorite actor Juniper is there, as well as a potential romance in Dani the cute writer.

However, the camp is not as it seems and Willow quickly finds out she will have to keep her eyes peeled and stay level-headed before someone (or something *wink*) separates it from her body.

What a great book! Full of action, horror nostalgia, queer representation, and more twist and turns than an old dirt road, this book is exactly what you need for your summer horror reading. This is perfect for your next campfire or hiking adventure. Or dare I say you sign up for a summer camp and use this book as a pairing? It will keep you up at night jumping at those shadows!

4/5 stars, would highly recommend! This review is on my Goodreads, Instagram, as well as episode 27 of my podcast The Books and the Bees (episode released 7/23/2024)

3.5 this was a fun read! Introducing Camp Castaway where people who have been infamously canceled go to clear their heads and check out of reality. But disaster strikes when campers begin to disappear. Fun and creepy

Thank you NetGalley & PENGUIN GROUP Putnam | G.P. Putnam's Sons for approving this ARC.
5++ heads rolling

This was quite a ride. Never a single dull moment during the entire book and it reads like you're in a movie. Josh did amazing with the character development and the place settings. I grew close to many of these characters and this book will have you on the edge of your seats wondering if your favorite character's head will roll. The twists were like riding the Vortex at King's Island. You won't see it coming.

This is a summer camp getaway for adults escaping their problems to find themselves. FMC gets cancelled for a post she made online which makes her life come tumbling downhill. Fiancé doesn't want her, she loses about everything. She has a savings that she decides to use towards going to Camp Castaway. Upon arrival you are to discard your cellphone into a locker which is locked and the keys stored in a safe box. You choose a camp name to go by instead of your real name. The FMC chooses her sitcom character name Willow. Tye the groundskeeper, Apollo the Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike, Willow's favorite actress Juniper Brown who uses her real name, Kurt the sweet musician, Misty the sassy old lady of the bunch, Buck & Kat who are besties and love to smoke together, and finally Dani who claims to only be there to write. We also have Bebe the Camp Mom and her sister Sadie, and Chef Jeff.

If you love slasher movies, you'll love this book

I loved this book! It was really fun and brought me right back to those 80s slasher. I also really liked the diversity in this book. The horror aspect was pretty solid as well it wasn't the scariest book I've ever read but thats okay because I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Originally it was the cover that stood out to me, but in the end it was the amazing story and the final girl that hooked me. This is a slasher film in book form at its core, but it’s so much more than that. The author aptly wrestles with other difficult and current issues like cancel culture and taking it too far, LGBTQIA+ community and how they have been ostracized and hurt through homophobia and trying to force them to be something they are not. The author also did an amazing job of keeping me guessing until the end and I was truly surprised by it. All in all, I love a good slasher story and this checked every box and then some. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

A throwback to the slashers that dominated the '80s while also featuring some very modern social commentary on cancel culture and misinformation. Come for the body count, but stay for the social media-based moral.

This was a super fun, super creepy summer camp slasher with an interesting commentary on cancel culture. I loved the “final girls” and found them funny and fully formed. I couldn’t put this book down!

What a great slasher story! I loved how relatable the characters and how easy/quick of a read this was. I could definitely see this being a movie!

Thank you to Josh Winning, Netgalley, and publishers for this ARC. This is my second book by this author, and I pretty much read it in one day! It's a summerish slasher at a camp, which was what I really wanted to read right now that summers about to be ending here soon. I definitely will be listening to the audiobook when it comes out.

I really enjoyed Winning’s first novel, Burn the Negative, and couldn’t wait to feast my eyes on Heads Will Roll. This one was a ROLLercoaster of sorts, sometimes it was slow, sometimes it was quick, and filled with a good bit of slashing but not nearly enough gore in my opinion. I liked the complicated characters and the idea of a camp for adults, because while I enjoy a good, camp slasher, YA books tend to grate on my nerves, so this aspect was fun for me. It did get a bit repetitious for me and I wasn’t super crazy about the execution of the ending, but I did appreciate the twists and views on cancel culture. If you’re looking for a light slasher read for the summer, Heads Will Roll was overall fun, and with short chapters it makes for the perfect poolside read. Heads Will Roll will be published 7/30. Thanks to Penguin Random House and Putnam for my advanced copy.

Heads Will Roll is a horror slasher that takes place at a summer camp. everyone who goes to Camp Castaway are some form of celebrity or someone who just gets a lot of media attention and at the camp they’re promised a chance to leave all their problems behind. but when the other campers start turning up dead with their heads decapitated, the main character Willow is forced to figure out what’s going on.

i had fun with this one and Juniper was 100% giving Laurie Strode 2.0 and I was here for it! i liked how the author tackled cancel culture and the way society can more often than not be overly harsh to anyone who makes the slightest mistake. the mystery behind who the killer was wasn’t what i was expecting and i enjoyed the direction it took. even though the end picks up with the gore and kills, i never really felt any tension and the final scenes were a bit cheesy for my tastes.

Title: Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning
Publication Date- 07/30/24
Publisher- Penguin Group Putnam
Overall Rating- 3 out of 5 stars

Review: Review copy given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Heads Will Roll will give you summer camp, slasher vibes. There is a lot of discussion surrounding cancel culture and phone attachment. Most of those aspects I enjoyed. Some people won’t like them, however, I thought there could have been more commentary on cancel culture and society.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere and setting of the camp. There are various characters we get to know outside of our main character whom I also enjoyed. The character development is well done and you really spend a lot of time getting to know each of their stories which was enjoyable.

You don’t want to take this story too seriously in any regard. It’s supposed to be a light hearted slasher with some commentary in the background.

Some things I felt were missing or I didn’t enjoy: It felt like at about 50 percent the story had reached it’s ending and the last half was one long ending. There are a lot of different twists and most didn’t seem to make sense, flow or felt too convenient. At the end of the book, I didn’t feel satisfied. Some things that would have made me feel more satisfied would have been more creative death scenes, less convenient plot points, less dialogue between the characters which is something I never thought I would say. On that note, I think something that was missing was more experience with the characters, we basically just listen to them talk and then their thoughts there’s not a lot of doing…. Anything.

Unfortunately this story just felt really disjointed. Like I said some aspects were entertaining like the summer camp atmosphere, some aspects of the characters, some kill scenes. It’s like it was almost there.

If you haven’t read Burn the Negative by Josh Winning, you should give that one a try. I enjoyed it a lot more. I will continue to read from this author because all in all I think he’s a great horror writer and has some important things to say about culture and humanity. I wish we would have seen more of that in Heads Will Roll.

Thanks to @prhaudio and @netgalley for the #gifted copies of Heads Will Roll.

This thrilling story follows actress Willow as she seeks to escape cancel culture and the chaos of her life by retreating to a secluded electronics-free summer camp. Little did she know that her getaway would turn into a terrifying fight for survival, as mysterious decapitations begin to occur. With no one to trust and nowhere to hide, Willow and her fellow outcasts must race against time to uncover the truth and escape with their lives intact. "Heads Will Roll" is a heart-pounding slasher tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Whether you're listening to the gripping audio version or diving into the print edition, this is a perfect summer read for fans of chilling slashers and relentless thrills.

This book was really interesting. It made think of Scream at summer camp. This book moves pretty fast because there is a lot going on and if you don’t pay you might miss a few tidbits.
The book is mainly about canceled culture and how it can envelope a person so much that it hurts. This book takes you through many people that got canceled for different reasons. That is why people go to the camp to detach from public eye and No Technology means No Technology. The thrills were literally rolling around every corner. I thought the book read YA it could had been pushed a little more with the gore.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for providing me with a free yebook in exchange for an honest review.

This is going to be on everybody's summerween list next year. It's a fun summer slasher with all the fix ins of an 80s horror movie. I loved the characters even though some rubbed me the wrong way. This is a book you will not want to out down I know ai didn't. From the beginning to the blood soaked end I was hooked and cannot wait to pick up more books from this author.

This is my first time reading Josh, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I love a good classic camp slasher story, and he managed to work in the common pop culture cancelling into the story in a way that worked really well. It's strongly written, paces well, and has characters that are easy to empathize with.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this arc!
This was a fun slasher read, perfect for fans of Sleepaway Camp and Friday the 13th! While I found that some of the story dragged, I did stay interested in finding out more about Knock Knock Nancy and why the campers (correct term?) were disappearing. While I did have fun, I didn’t feel that Willow’s actions and thoughts were super believable. I think she and some of the other characters needed to be fleshed out just a little more to form any attachment to them. Despite the minor things I found to be less than perfect about this book, I would absolutely recommend it to a friend (and already have).

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for allowing me to read this before release!

I was a big fan of Josh Winning's book that came out last year, so I was excited to be approved for this book. Based on the title, description and book cover I expected a campy slasher and that's exactly what I got. While I enjoyed the plot, none of the characters blew me away. I just didn't feel incredibly invested in any of them, so when people were being targeted by the killer I wasn't on the edge of my seat worried for them.

I will say I did not guess who the killer was though. If you're looking for just a fun, summer slasher then I'd recommend you give this one a try! Also, while this one wasn't a top read for me I'll still be checking out Winning's future books.