I received this book as an ARC through NetGalley.

Wow! I have just finished this horror story and it was so good. I read late into the night (with the lights on!) to finish it.

The book follows the town of Deal and a monster that has a taste for humans. What I loved was that the story was told from both the monster, the people of Deal and the people brought in to help get rid of the monster.

I will be recommending this book. It's a good length, well written and I really enjoyed the story.

Well-written, researched well, compelling. I enjoyed it, and anyone wanting a gripping thriller would do well to read this.

Jay Sallinger is a marine researcher. While examining a shipwreck, he discovers another ship buried deep in the sand. On this boat is a stone box tied to the deck with leather straps and circled with chains. He and his team bring it to the surface. This will be a big mistake. What follows is terrifying for the victims of the Lusus Naturae (freak or abomination of nature.) The town is cut off, the military is involved, people drink too much and people die. Jay and what’s left of his team are in a cat and mouse game to see who or what will survive.

The best horror sneaks up on you. From the prologue, you know something is hunting the residents of the quaint seaside village of Deal. However, Chris Coppel gives you characters so well described and dimensional that you almost forget what’s lurking in the shadows. This is horror at its best. And for Coppel fans, there’s an Easter Egg hidden in the chapters. Enjoy but don’t read this at night. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Cranthorpe Millner Publishers and Chris Coppel for this ARC.

Lusus Naturae by Chris Coppel is one of those stories that creeps up on you—not with loud scares, but with that quiet, gnawing sense that something is deeply, unnaturally wrong. I wasn’t sure what I was stepping into at first, but it didn’t take long before the atmosphere fully wrapped around me, and I couldn’t look away.

The title alone sets the tone—a freak of nature, something that doesn’t belong. And that’s exactly how the story feels: uncanny, slightly off-kilter, like reality has been warped just enough to keep you on edge. It blends horror, science fiction, and speculative dread in a way that feels old-school in all the best ways, but also weirdly timely.

What struck me most was how Coppel makes the setting almost a character in itself. Whether it’s the isolation, the tension between characters, or the sheer sense of “otherness” lurking just outside the frame, there’s a constant push-and-pull between what’s real and what’s just beyond understanding. It’s a slow burn, but the payoff is deeply unsettling.

There’s a kind of moral and existential weight to the story, too. This isn’t just about monsters in the traditional sense—it’s about what happens when humanity plays with forces it doesn’t fully comprehend. There’s a deep, unsettling intelligence to it, the kind that sticks with you long after you finish the last page.

If you're into horror that leans cerebral but isn’t afraid to go visceral when it needs to, Lusus Naturae is a must-read. It’s eerie, thought-provoking, and just strange enough to leave you feeling slightly unmoored—in the best way possible.

I had high hopes based on the cover and description alone. I was expecting ultra-creepy, goosebump-inducing horror elements set against a small town backdrop. There were definitely moments of this — like the initial sarcophagus storage — and the Big Bad itself was delightfully gruesome. But it seemed to quickly settle into a fairly repetitive pattern of introducing a new character per chapter only to kill them off in exactly the same way. I liked the creature’s inner monologue, I liked the hint of banter throughout, the dynamic between the main trio was strong and it read really nicely, but altogether, the straightforward plot just didn’t quite hit in the way I’d have liked.