Wow, where to begin. When I first read the description, it grabbed me immediately and I had to request it! The first chapter led me into what I’d thought in the beginning would be this mysterious monster story. It was much, much more than that.

The Hatching takes your fears for a certain kind of creature (not spoiling) and transforms it into this insanely frightening phenomenon where it will follow you into your dreams afterwards. Stephen King is a great novelist, but Ezekiel Boone is someone who knows how to strike fear into the heart of his readers. I never used to be afraid of the creature he monsterizes. As I read, I felt as if they were crawling beneath my skin.

The novel itself was split into different perspectives, much like The Stand, in the beginning through the middle in order to set the background for the future. As they each began to bleed into one another one by one, the story encloses itself all around you in it’s web. It does not release you till your mind searches for a valid solution, aside the vastly different cast of character’s fight for survival.

My Rating: 9 1/2 out of 10 Book Charms

I highly recommend this book for those who are seeking a thrill. It’ll send chills down your spine, goosebumps up your legs, and hatch it’s terrifying plot right before your eyes!

The Hatching takes the apocalyptic fiction to a whole new place. The novel begins like many political suspense novels. A bomb nuclear goes off in China. Was it an accident? Were they aiming for America? When the answers surface, the skin crawling begins. The "accidental bombing" was to stop the "bugs." All too soon we learn everyone should fear "bugs" and a using a nuclear bomb to stop this new threat does not sound too extreme.

Great book. Literally made my skin crawl at times.

This book was insane. I could not put it down. I really questioned my sanity given I have severe arachnaphobia and this book did not help it. The plot was riveting and the storyline moved at a pace that made sense and forced you to keep reading. My only complaint is I have to wait for a sequel now because the way he ended it was brilliant and set it up beautifully for the next book.

What a fun story! I'll be honest, I wasn't too sure about this one, I mean, spiders? But this series looks like it's a winner. Working between a thriller and a horror tale, The Hatching is a fun, surprisingly quick read that seriously kept me on my toes waiting for the next move. Love the wide ranging perspectives used in telling this story, and cannot WAIT for the next chapter!

The perfect Beach read! The synopsis sounded a little far-fetched…spiders…really?? Yes, really! It works! I found myself engrossed in this read and I can’t wait to continue the series. I love good science fiction that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Sometime you just have to let the author take you for a ride and see where the road takes you.

My only negative about this book was the different characters that were introduced. I know the second book will answer some questions and start bringing the characters together but it was distracting at times. I found myself rushing through some characters to get to others.

I can’t wait for the follow up. Thank you for the advanced copy.

All over the world something is hatching and eating people alive. Now there are rumors that China has set off a nuclear bomb on purpose to get rid of it. What could be so bad that a nation would set off nukes on their own soil? Are we in danger?

The Hatching was disgusting and wonderful. It was everything I have been looking for in a new horror release for months. The writing was entertaining and the multiple points of view kept me wanting more. By about ten pages into the story I felt itchy and that didn't stop until a few days after I finished the book.

Fantastic read.

Forget zombies! Spiders are going to rise and WE ALL GONNA DIE. The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone is the first novel in a new terrifying series. Turn the lights on, check for spiders and awaken your darkest fear.

Disclosure: I DO NOT LIKE BUGS. I don’t care if some are useful and spiders eat other insects…come near me I will scream and kill you dead.

My fears are deeply rooted and they began at the tender age of five. It was a bright summer morning and I burst out of bed eager to begin my day. Independent at an early age I reached in the closet grabbed a sundress. I quickly whipped it over my head before heading down to breakfast. That is when the horror began….my dress started jumping, I could feel something crawling along my skin. It was trapped. I WAS TRAPPED!

*pants as heart races* You are probably asking yourself, “Why the heck are you reading The Hatching?” The answers are simple. The thrill of fear and those heart-pounding moments as you flip pages, swallowing your fear and wanting to flee. Simply put I am a tad twisted. Self-torture is a thing.

Five Terrifying Reasons to read The Hatching:

It was refreshing to read an apocalyptic novel that does not involve Zombies. Sure, I love the slow-moving brain eaters and the fear of being bitten would have me hiding but this ancient race of CARNIVOROUS spiders that emerge are scary as F@ck. Think about it. How do you hide from spiders? Lock your doors and close your windows? Gulp. Spiders get in. We KNOW they get in! Now imagine a hoard of them. Go on; take a minute to digest that.

The writing was intense and shared perspectives all over the world as this outbreak began. I started this late one Friday evening and sat up until its conclusion. Which by the way is only the beginning, as this story continues with SKITTER in 2017. The story has a fantastic flow to it, weaving back and forth between key characters, catastrophic events and terrifying attacks. Boone carefully weaved all the threads together creating suspense and fear in this addictive tale.

The premise of this ancient race of CARNIVOROUS spiders was fascinating. Boone introduced American University professor and leading spider expert Dr. Melanie Guyer. She becomes involved when an ancient egg is shipped to her for study after being unearthed during a dig in South America. She is even more intrigued when it appears to vibrate and crack. Guyer, the ex-wife of the President’s Chief of Staff will be instrumental in sharing knowledge and terrifying theories about this predator.

The Hatching unfolds in bits, introducing us to characters to care about from FBI Agent Mike Rich in Minneapolis to scientists studying seismic activity for earthquakes. We follow the U.S. President and her closest advisors after China drops a nuclear bomb on its own country. The events take place over a single week creating a fast paced, edge of your seat read. IT WILL give you the heebie-jeebies. Boone terrifyingly describes the swarm of spiders and shares their acts. He brings us up close and personal with a few of those attacks providing graphic details from the perspective of eyewitnesses. Just when I thought, it could not get any more horrifying he reveals twists that will unleash a blood-curdling scream from the reader as the knowledge of these reveals are digested.

The Hatching was engaging providing that rush of adrenaline that comes with an epic horror story and it is only the beginning. The ending of this tales comes with reveals that let the reader know the horror has only just begun. The Hatching would do well in theaters, but trust me when I tell you I will not be going. I might love to read horror stories but viewing them is another kind of crazy. Skitter the next book will release in May 2017.

Want to be freaked out? The Hatching offers all the thrills and chills and the best part…it’s only the beginning. Read it if you dare!

The Hatching by Ezekiel Bone is old school horror. Those movies you watched as a kid where the world was going to get taken over by one creature or another. Most of the time created by our fear of the power of the atom which we had just split. Ezekiel Bone takes us back to the thought that all our power, all our technology, all our military might is not enough to deal with the power of nature and the deadly creatures she can create.

"...Okay. Tell them to send it to us so we can take a look at it.'
'He already sent it. It's back in the lab. I, uh, I told him they could use our FedEx shipping code, so he overnighted it.' Julie said. The words came out of her mouth as though she expected Melanie to yell at her.
Melanie stifled her annoyance. Budgets had been tight, but not so tight that Julie couldn't charge the shipping costs of a package if it was actually lab business. Though, Melanie wondered, how much did it actually cost to overnight something from Peru?
'There's more,' Bark said. He was standing straight and staring at her with an intensity he usually reserved for when they were alone.
'More?' Melanie glanced at Patrick and Julie and then back at Bark. All three looked nervous and excited, clearly unsure if what they had come to get her for was as big a deal as they thought it was. 'Well,' she said, hearing that her voice was sharper than she meant it to be. 'Out with it.'
Bark looked at his colleagues, then back at Melanie. 'The egg sac,' he said, 'it's hatching..."

In the jungles of Peru, an excursion ends in disaster as a black swarming mass consumes several people whole. In India, seismic patterns register in an earthquake lab that make no sense to the scientists monitoring. In Minneapolis a private plane crashes and the FBI make a gruesome discovery in the wreckage. But strangest of it all, China drops a nuclear bomb on a remote region of its own country.

The President and her cabinet prepare for war but when the reality of what is happening dawns on them; they realize it is nothing they have ever prepared for. The world is on the edge of disaster as an ancient species, once dormant beneath the earth, awakens.

"...Melanie.' He wasn't angry, but he was firm. 'Enough. I get it. You might be wrong. But you might be right. What are we dealing with? People here are starting to panic. I'm willing to take the risk that you've got it wrong, because right now, right this minute, we don't know what the hell is going on. The spiders in your lab are the same as the one that crawled out of Bill Henderson's face, and we think they're probably the same things that are on the rampage in India and caused the Chinese to drop a nuke. As far as I know, you're the only person who's actually studied one up close. When I was in your lab, you told me they were scary, but they were just spiders. And now you're calling me to say maybe not. Maybe these spiders are something else. You're saying these spiders are like little machines that can only do one thing. So please, just tell me, Melanie, what's the one thing these spiders are designed to do?'
'Feed,' Melanie said. 'They're designed to feed..."

Yes. Spiders. I know. Can we get any more Saturday morning, black and white, sixties monster movie television than this. But somehow it works. Actually we know how it works because Boone doesn't do any slight of hand here. No he runs right at you, in that dark and dim recess of your modern thinking brain, that somehow feels it's above all of these silly kid fears and rips it out and puts it right up in your face and says, "Here! You see this! You remember this!" And you do. You remember that silly moment in the dark before you flicked on the light, when you were certain you weren't alone. When you felt something crawling on your skin, only there was nothing there and for a crazy moment you thought, maybe you couldn't see it because it was under the skin?

Spiders. Only its not just your childhood creepy factor kicking in now. No, Boone takes it on a global scale and says not only can I freak you out in the dark of your kitchen, but I can take this planet of ours away from you too. Only that's not exactly what the spiders are doing here. They are just doing what they do. The people are inconsequential. The people are an annoyance, powerless to stop the tide of nature as she takes back what was always hers.

Spiders. If you are slightly annoyed at them. This will freak you out. If you are really afraid of them, then the Hatching will send you in for therapy.

Lots and lots of therapy. And know what else? This is just book one. This is a series with more to come and yes, as I write this, I am pulling my bare feet back from under the desk, because, well, how do I really know what is under there?

A really good read and an author to look out for!

I posted the below 5-star review on Every Day Should Be Tuesday, Amazon, and Goodreads on 7/7/16:

Review of The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone

I recently posted reviews of The Stand by Stephen King and World War Z by Max Brooks. The first was serendipitous, the second was not, because I read The Hatching but wasn’t ready to get a review up yet. Ezekiel Boone’s wonderful, terrifying new book about 10,000-year-old flesh-eating spiders reminds me a lot of both wildly successful books. Only better.

Deep in the jungle of Peru, where so much remains unknown, a black, skittering mass devours an American tourist whole. Thousands of miles away, an FBI agent investigates a fatal plane crash in Minneapolis and makes a gruesome discovery. Unusual seismic patterns register in a Kanpur, India, earthquake lab, confounding the scientists there. During the same week, the Chinese government “accidentally” drops a nuclear bomb in an isolated region of its own country. As these incidents begin to sweep the globe, a mysterious package from South America arrives at a Washington, DC, laboratory. Something wants out.

[Cover pic]

[Read more]

The Hatching is terrifying and compulsively readable. I picked up The Hatching (figuratively, it was more like a few swipes of my finger got me from The Dark Side to The Hatching) on a flight and barely put it down in the next day, somehow both finishing the book and driving from Texas to Florida during the same short period. So yeah, it’s compulsively readable. And terrifying. I could normally give two shits about spiders, but this is not a book I would recommend reading while you are driving a garage full of stuff from one spider-infested state to another. Because Boone, like King and Brooks before him, is a man who recognizes the journey can be as terrifying as the destination.

The Hatching, again like those two other books, hops around following a host of POV characters, from a billionaire entrepreneur to an entomologist specializing in spiders to her White House Chief of Staff ex-husband to an FBI special agent to a Delhi seismologist to the heir to a mystery series empire. Some become main characters, some exist to move the story along, some apparently exist to play a role in the sequels. More on the latter in a bit, but I will say that even the plot device characters are well drawn and interesting. Boone has King’s knack for making everyday people who are bit players come alive.

[Nazca Spider]

The spiders titular hatching is cicada-like, with a petrified egg sac from the above pictured Nazca Spider being dated back 10,000 years (we think the actual Nazca lines are more like 1,500-2,500 years old). But the egg sacs aren’t just in Peru. The spiders start hatching in spots across the world and it becomes a race to react in time. If there is even any reaction that will save humanity.

Because these aren’t your grandmother’s spiders (the oil tank behind my grandmother’s house was a reliable place to find black widows). They’re fast, they’re organized, they eat flesh. One spider is a nuisance readily removed with a boot heel. A river of them? And they’re specialized. One way they travel is by catching the breeze with a silky strand of webbing. The more terrifying way is by burrowing into a person and laying eggs inside their body.

It’s a damned terrifying concept, and Boone nails the execution in every way, from characters (major and minor) to pacing to prose. My only complaint, and I finally decided it wasn’t really a complaint at all, is that this is just the first act in the story. The Hatching Series in parenthesis probably should have been my first clue, but unlike a lot of book 1s The Hatching doesn’t pretend to be able to stand on its own. But who cares if Boone doesn’t lollygag about finishing the series? I almost said the sequels should have been pulled into a single volume, but The Hatching alone is 352 pages. It doesn’t read like it. And I’m not sure how many books Boone has in mind. A couple of the characters have the ability to really ride out the inverse-decimation of humanity, and I get the feeling that is what we’re going to see. I trust Boone so much at this point that I want to see it all, from apocalypse on through to the post-apocalyptic aftermath.

5/5 Stars.

Disclosure: I received a copy of The Hatching from the publisher.