A 17th century town is plagued by a curse. This curse is bestowed upon a child born under a new moon. They are doomed to change once a month starting around age ten and a sacrifice must be made or crops will fail, sickness will spread, drought will come etc. Everyone of course is terrible to the person that is stuck with the curse, this time a young man named Wendell, with the exception of his grandfather and the town's doctor. He spends most of his days and nights alone reading in the library just existing best he can. Then a mysterious traveler shows up and comes face to face with the creature and sets off a chain of events that threaten the little village in a new way.

Pros: The cover is beautiful, it's what made me look into what it was about. The premise contains so many of my favorite things. Creepy monsters, mysterious curses, secluded towns, queer characters and religious themes mixed with horror. The two main characters were distinct from each other, both flawed but likable. It was atmospheric and the woods and village felt like their own characters. The romance comes secondary which is what I prefer in a horror novel.

Cons: I believe this will be a favorite for someone, but sadly, not for me. The writing became repetitive and the halfway point is when the book lost steam. I picked up on repeated words and phrases. Folk horror rarely has many concrete answers but I did find myself wishing we got a 'why' or a reference to real folklore of that area. The random dancing bit towards the end was an odd addition. I think we were supposed to imagine what the dance was, but it wasn't very clear. Also this is one of areas where characters became very wishy washy. Towns people when from vehemently saying Wendall needed to stay away to a reaction of "oh I guess he's ok now" and this was after one afternoon. The ending in general was abrupt but not left in a way where a sequel would make sense. The inquisitor characters were a nice addition to give variety and have people on Wendall and Jacques side but when they showed up is when the time period seemed to fade away. The dialog was already clunky with a limited cast of characters but adding more just made me notice more issues with dialog and character discrepancies.

I am giving it a generous 3 and I'd pick up anything else published by this author in the future!

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately I just could not get into it. As other reviewers have mentioned, the dialogue is very clunky and basic and quite exasperating at times. The blurb is misleading - this didn’t feel very historical at all, and the romance was very teen. This was billed as a supernatural horror, which I think is to the book’s detriment - it’s really more of a YA or teen fantasy which I think affected my expectations. The story has definite potential but ultimately I struggled.

Thank you to Indigo River Publishing and NetGalley for an e-Arc in exchange for a review!

I really find the blurb of the book to be very misleading. It is not very historical, and I did not find that it was really a "tantalizing" romance either. If I didn't read the dates at the chapter titles, I wouldn't have recognized this to be taking place in the 1600s at all. The relationship between the two leads read sweet at times, but nothing really happened between them. It felt incomplete by the end of the book.

Overall, nothing really happened within the story. The writing and dialogue was very choppy, and with the abrupt changing of POVs during the first half of the book, it made the reading experience disjointed with no flow. The characters, who were supposed to be adults, did not feel like they were adults at all. This book read more like a Young Adult book or younger if anything.

I am actually quite sad I didn't enjoy this very much! The story is very interesting and I can feel the author's passion, which is part of what kept me going. It's clear what their favorite parts to write were (the monster scenes), as they are the best written. I overall enjoyed the story, but sadly, the prose was quite simply underbaked. It reads like a first or second draft. This feels very strongly like a book I would really enjoy after a couple more drafts, after a little longer in the oven.

The pros: The story itself is interesting. I like it conceptually, and I like it as it develops. The characters feel distinct and are fun to read and be with. The queer aspect was much more minor than expected/it's marketed as, but I like it. I very much loved the monster/horror scenes, they were the standout part of the book. It's easy to read.

The cons: It's... *too* easy to read. The prose was very lacking, even in the monster scenes where it is notably better. I can't quite call the characters "strong," because they overall feel very one-dimensional. I kept imagining Wendell as much younger than he actually is, which could be a me thing, but it certainly took me out of the romance at times. Speaking of, the romance feels underdeveloped, leading to a confession that feels pretty out of nowhere. The ending was abrupt and didn't feel like it was being built up too much at all. I think it *could've* worked, but in its current iteration, I felt kind of let down.

I really can summarize this as a victim of being undercooked. This has the passion of a novice writer, but also the prose of a novice writer. I would be interested in reading more from this author in maybe a couple years.

It was a nice story about a cursed boy finding a family among people new to town and gaining strength in them through their love and support.

The first half of the book is mostly told through snippets, with constant changes in pov and time, but the later half has fewer changes and longer scenes, which gives it a sense of stability and makes it feel more alive. This goes well with Wendell’s journey of starting to live as a person and becoming more than a cursed boy who must hide to survive. Still, throughout most of the book, the scenes are short and to the point, which can feel a little dry and doesn’t exactly allow for bigger emotional moments.

Being horror, I thought it would be scary, but aside from some slight body horror, the scariest thing was the actions of the villagers, who were just as monstrous as the monster they condemned.

I really liked the description of the cursed animals.

I wouldn’t classify the romance as tantalizing. It is a little understated. It's very sweet, the signs are there, and the characters are very supportive and protective of each other. It’s nice for when you need a break from over-the-top emotions, but not if you like going deep into the emotional state of the characters or a story that focuses on romance. Or if you are looking for spice, they don’t even kiss.

The story left me with a lot of questions. I wish they had been answered since I was most interested in the curse and how the couple was connected through it.

Thank you to Indigo River Publishing and NetGalley for providing an e-arc of this book. All thoughts are my own.

I'm afraid that this book isn't me, and I have had to DNF. The premise and jacket drew me in, but at a sentence level, the writing and characterisation just weren't complex enough for what I look for in a novel.

received the arc from netgalley, i would say thanks but i really don't want to.

i tried so hard but this is unreadable. this is the least historically grounded historical i have ever encountered. it reads fully contemporary, and like the author only did the most surface level, skimmed a wikipedia page research. the characters are flat, the dialogue is so clunky it reads like it is talking to a five year old, and nobody is going around casually asking others "are you religious" at the dinner table in germany in 1629. one of the more severe cases of people-don't-talk-like-that i have ever had the misfortune of reading.

i only made it 19% of the way in, but still. i encountered nothing that made me feel at all tense, or spooked. so much for horror?

anyways, really unfortunate that this didn't go well, the cover is really cool and the description was interesting but alas, we can't all be winners.

This book is not very good. I would say part of this has to do with the advertising. It is described as being a "supernatural horror" story and having a "tantalizing LGBT+ romance." This book had some supernatural elements, but I wouldn't describe it as a horror at all. I would honestly say it is a pretty basic fantasy or fairy tale story. There are technically some horror elements, but they are few and far between. As for the romance... what romance? There was barely any romance in this book. It was lightly implied throughout that Jacques and Wendell were into each other, but it was barely there. I wouldn't even really call it a slow burn, just nothing really happened. In fact, I would say that is a common theme with this book: nothing happens. The book is only 240 pages long but it just dragged. We barely get any answers and the few we get are either very obvious or come out of nowhere. The world is also very underdeveloped. This book supposedly takes place in seventeenth-century Germany, but you would never guess it. Even though this book is already pretty short, I think it would benefit from losing about 100 pages.

Deerstalker by Nicole M. Zaunbrecher is my favorite kind of queer horror story. There's body horror, gay pinning, found family, and more. It was in my opinion a very satisfying read.

Although the premise of this book was really promising, it kind of fell flat for me.

The story follows Wendell, who is cursed to turn into the form of a monster known as Nightmare once a month. Once a month, a villager or traveller ends up dead, as Nightmare demands a sacrifice. This is the way it has been for hundreds of years.

When a lone traveller named Jacques stumbles upon the village, survives the attack from Nightmare, and befriends Wendell, everything begins to change.

The beginning of the book does a lot of hopping around during Wendell's childhood, mostly just for a paragraph or two, and at times this can be very confusing. Some of the dialogue felt out of place for a setting in 1600s Germany. Despite these elements, I did enjoy the setting of the book and the elements of some of the other fairytales in the book.

Alright. The cover art pulled me in more than anything else, I'll be honest. The hook is decent. And! There's a twist with Jacques at around the 60% mark that was cool even though I saw it coming.

Deerstalker has many elements that I enjoy in *other* books, so I really thought it would be for me. Curses. Claustrophobic towns that you can't leave. Fairy tale vibes. Queer characters. Unfortunately, I was hopelessly bored. Maybe that's my fault. Maybe if I re-read it down the line, I'd love it. But if I'm being entirely honest I wasn't excited to read this book once I'd actually started. I wasn't invested in knowing what came next. Deerstalker is only 240 pages but it felt much longer.

The blurb calls Deerstalker a supernatural horror and for the life of me I don't understand why. I fully admit and recognize that horror is subjective but I never once felt anxiety, dread, unease--let alone fear. I can't even point to anything that others might be afraid of because the book skips over anything remotely uncomfortable.

I found the scene where Jacques is attacked to be a huge letdown. This was such an important moment, this is where any horror elements could have really shined. Instead, it felt handwaved and glossed over. Which feels like a missed opportunity in a book that's supposed to be supernatural horror?? We get some descriptions *after* the attack when caretaking is happening, which is nice, but I would have preferred having more vivid and visceral descriptions of the injuries when Jacques was in immediate danger.

Similarly, I can't bring myself to care about what happened to Wendell's parents. Not just because they're unlikeable, but because they were around for such a short time. If that was intended to hit an important emotional beat, it was lost on me.

I don't have enough knowledge of Germany in the 1600s to speak much on what is and isn't accurate--but the existence of shotguns, especially having them be called such, was jarring and didn't feel right to the time period.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

A haunting and hopeful tale

Set in a village cursed by death, this story reads like a slow-burning nightmare. Every new moon, a man becomes a beast, killing without mercy. The villagers tried everything to break the curse, but ended up resigning themselves to live with the horrors—if you can call that living.

Wendell has carried the curse from birth, knowing he will become a killer once a month. Feared and shunned, his life has been marked by cruelty.
“When I was young, I learned how to run away from the rocks other children threw at me.”

This is a story about unflinching kindness and fear—about what happens when people turn against what they don’t understand.

The book isn’t the most polished in terms of writing, but it does a good job of exploring human nature. It filled me with sadness, yet there’s a point in Wendell’s journey where he’s no longer alone, where he dares to hope. And that hope, however fragile, is powerful.

I expected more horror, and I’m actually glad it wasn’t terrifying. Dark? Absolutely. But more than that, it’s about love, survival, and what truly makes a monster.
“A parent who cannot love their child is more a monster than someone like us.”

I loved Wendell’s resilience, Jacques’s bravery, and the Grandfather’s unwavering love. While I’d love to read more about their journey, the ending left me satisfied. A beautifully haunting read.

This was a strange, twisted, fairytale-like story that was full of folklore and curses. Set in 1600’s Europe (I believe Germany, although I don’t think it’s stated) it follows Wendell, a young man cursed to turn into a monster every new moon and to claim a ‘sacrifice’. When traveller Jacques passes through the cursed village, the monster almost kills him, but somehow he survives the attack and Wendell, back in human form and wracked with grief, vows to nurse the traveller back to health.

I loved the claustrophobic way the story is told; Wendell is prevented from leaving the village that he torments and he is hated by everyone who should hold him dear. Jacques is keeping secrets and is running away from a mysterious past… I enjoyed the addition of the ‘Inquisitors’ who initially sparked fear in Wendell and Jacques, but eventually became their salvation!

Rating this one was really hard… because on one hand I thought the concept was really interesting, I loved the way it felt dark and hopeless and creepy (someone else described it as ‘cosy horror’ and I absolutely agree) but equally I felt like it needed to have been developed a little further - the speech in places was extremely stilted (although I’m wiling to give it a pass as it’s set in the 1600s) and I thought the revelation about Jacques’ past needed way more information to make it make sense! You can’t drop that bombshell and be like ‘okay, moving on’ 😹 That being said, I found it an enjoyable read and once I’d come to terms with suspension of belief I was happy to overlook Jacques weirdness, so it gets 4* based on vibes alone but probably should only get 3* for technical writing. But y’know, reviews are about vibes and if you want a cosy horror with some co-dependent sweethearts looking after each other and battling a curse then give this one a go!

Read Deerstalker for:
✨ Cosy horror
✨ Human(??) x Cursed Monster
✨ Claustrophobic vibes
✨ Folklore and fairytales
✨ Curses and sacrifices
✨ 1600’s Europe
✨ Found family

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC of this book. It’s available on 15th April 2025.

what an amazing read
every twist and turn in the book made me keep on reading.
the darkness added to the story but it did have a few funny parts

This is a captivating dark fairy tale and fantasy that is definitely worth reading. The plot is rich with familiar elements, including forbidden love, a curse, and a fearsome evil creature that will leave a lasting impression on you. By the end, your perspective on the story may completely shift. While romance plays a role, it is the camaraderie and sense of gratitude among the characters that truly drive the narrative. The "Inquisitors" add an extra layer of intrigue to the story, and I hope there will be a sequel to this deliciously dark fairy tale in the future.

'deerstalker' by nicole m. zaunbrecher is a supernatural horror story with a romance subplot. it follows wendall, who is plagued by a curse that causes him to transform into a ravenous beast every new moon, claiming a sacrifice... until jacques comes along, managing to survive.

this story was very easy to read, and i quickly became invested. i liked the writing and often forgot i was reading. the characters were sweet (well, not all of them), and i appreciated the emotional bond between the two main characters, which made their love for each other believable and honest, not feeling forced. the cast of characters was diverse, and i particularly enjoyed the second half. i wonder if this will become a series, given how it ended... if it does, i’ll probably check out the next book :)

i do have to mention that the book felt a bit repetitive at times, especially in the beginning. it gave me the chance to get to know the characters more, but it also left me feeling a bit lost at times, not really sure where the book was headed. but, as i mentioned, the second half improved a lot, with new characters being introduced and more events unfolding.

i would’ve loved to see a deeper exploration of the main character's relationship with their sexuality. the book is set in a time when homosexuality isn’t accepted (as shown in the way other characters are treated), and i thought there was a great opportunity to explore themes of identity, self-love, expression, and acceptance. we didn’t really get any of that here, and the romance itself was pretty minimal. i'm curious whether this was intentional or something that may come in a potential continuation.

the message of the book, and the way it was conveyed, was excellent. it tells the story of a boy who is discriminated against and outcast for something he cannot control, which is something many people can relate to. overall, i definitely had fun reading this.

thank you to nicole m. zaunbrecher, indigo river publishing, and netgalley for an earc.

The cover and the marketing blurb for Deerstalker do a lot of the heavy lifting because, frankly, this book doesn’t have a lot else going for it.

Deerstalker is the story of Jacques and Wendell, two young men in 17th century Germany. When Jacques stops in a small town during his travels, he discovers that the village has been cursed. As the book unravels, Jacques and his newfound friend, Wendell, must grapple with the town’s curse, its unwelcoming people, and a growing connection between the two of them.

While toted as a supernatural horror, I found this book to be rather soft. There’s some violence, but overall, the story glosses over those moments to delve deeper into the budding connection between Jacques and Wendell. The character’s interactions with one another are soft and indulgent, and the novel really plays into themes around friendship and found families. The novel is thick with the supernatural and delves into those aspects really well. Using the phases of the moon as a timeclock gave the novel solid grounding and a mystic edge.

That being said, the first half of the novel skips around a lot, beginning with the present and then occasionally jumping back to Wendell’s childhood and upbringing. These flashbacks, if you want to call them that, were important to the story, but felt very thrown in and disorganized. Additionally, for a book being propped up as a historical fiction, there were many issues with the novel’s language that really threw that tag aside. Sometimes characters would speak with what I’d call “old timey” language but then be talking like someone I met on the street an hour ago. Neither of those are the wrong way to go, but the novel really needed more consistency. The other thing that really bothered me was when shotguns showed up toward the end of the novel. Sure, rudimentary versions of them existed then, but shotgun wasn’t popularized as a term until the late 1770s as far as I’m aware. I know I’m being nitpicky, but instances like these give the whole novel a more amateur feel, not what I would expect from a polished, ready-for-publication draft.

And, of course, I have to talk about the characters. I didn’t like any of them. They all felt like flat caricatures rather than real people that I could empathize with. We did get some emotion from Jacques throughout; he probably felt the least like a cardboard cutout. Jacques in a lot of ways became the reader’s eyes as he learned more about the village he’d stumbled into and its curse along with the reader. It gave him more dimension as he struggled to come to terms with who he was and worked to change into who he wanted to be. Everyone else acts just about how you expect them to with no growth, emotion, or interest.

Finally, I’m not sure who the target audience of this novel is. I’d assume adult (especially given that tantalizing romance is one of the descriptors), but it reads much younger. I’d say middle school, but the violence might bump it up to high school. The romances are all very PG (not that that’s a bad thing), and the language was all rather simplistic (and clean).

Overall, this book was a big miss for me. The cover is beautiful and the description intriguing, but the actual novel just didn’t live up to the expectations those two things set for it.

This would appeal to upper-middle grade and YA readers, as well as fantasy (in a more real world setting) readers.

I thought there would be more of a horror aspect to this book, so it was a little disappointing when it wasn't. The story did however flow quite well, minus a few tidbits that pulled me out a little bit.
Not much to complain about though! It was a cozy story of family and connection, about loving people not despite, but including what might be seen as "flaws".
The writing felt stiff in some places, but it wasn't so bad that I had difficulty continuing to read it, it was just a little startling.

In a land far, far away, there lived a boy, burdened with a curse, in a tiny village where everyone despised him… until he found people that valued him.
This story had such a nice fairytale vibe to it that I could excuse some of the clunky dialogues at the beginning. This luckily evens out very fast, and you end up with a fairly flowy writing style.

Once upon a time, the cursed boy met another boy, someone who looked at him differently. But that didn't help the wrath of the villagers that hated him…. And who had really interesting second names.
If you know German, you will notice how a lot of the side characters will be referred to only by their second name, which is always the German word for their occupation, which felt very hilarious at times. Aside from those stylistic choices, I enjoyed the found family aspect of this story a lot, even if it takes almost half the book to finally meet them.

And they lived happily ever after… or did they?
At the end of this story, I was left with a lot of unanswered questions, like:
How does Wendell's curse actually work?
What is up with Jacques past? (They moved on way too quickly from one very, very important realization.)
But most importantly:
What now?

With the open-endedness of this story, it feels like there could follow a second book, but I have found nothing of the sort.
Regardless, „Deerstalker“ is a very atmospheric fairy tale with a hint of romance but a lot of found family that is worth reading if you can look past some unwieldy dialogue and an uncertain ending with unresolved questions.

Thanks to NetGalley and Indigo River Publishing for providing me with this ARC in return for an honest review.

3.5, actually.

This was quite a pleasant read. Somehow, when I read the summary, I expected it to lean more into horror, but it actually turned out to be quite the cozy tale about a monster who ends up finding his true family.

The story is about Wendell, a young man who is cursed to become a deer-like-monster every month. While he is in that form, he has no control over what he does... and killings enssue. I liked a lot Wendell´s personality: He´s the kind of golden retriever kind of character who wouldn´t hurt a fly if it can be avoided (hated how his parents treated him, btw, I know plot wise it was necessarity but asdfghjkl).
Then we got Jacques, a traveler who came through the village and got attacked by Wendell in his Nightmare form. Things happen and Jacques, after some weeks of healing from his wounds, decides to stay at the village and help Wendell (who´s kind of a pariah in this society) to get rid of the curse.

So, basically, things that I liked:
- The story was pretty wholesome, overall.
- The Inquisition guys were lovely. I feared for a moment they were going to be villains, but I was pleasantly surprised to see they´re not.
- The premise was very interesting (maybe this is also on me, cause I like to see my characters suffer for a bit before being happy)

And also the things I didn´t like that much:
- I felt it lacked of a bit of character development. Specially in regards of Jacques (author, you cannot drop THAT bomb 2/3 into the novel and not give a proper explanaition besides, "he´s just like this")
- The ending also feels a bit rushed.

Other than that, it was a nice YA story with very light horror and fairy tale elements. I liked it, so I recommend.