Blurb:

Welcome back to the food chain…

A chunk of white rested inside the dip of her collarbone. She fished it out and flicked it away, its rattle echoing as it bounced under a display table, alerting her to the silence. The ringing in her ears had finally stopped. The mask and goggles were long gone; fallen off in her haste. Pointless to wear them now, anyway...

Caede wants to complete her master’s degree, refresh her dating profile, and finally join the land of the living. Instead, she wakes up on a cold, wet pavement, surrounded by dead bodies and ferocious monsters. Kai waits anxiously for his sister to return from the world's longest night shift. Ravi hides under a desk in his office, and Efia lays unconscious in a garage.

Jonathan, recently dumped and drinking himself to death in an empty flat, is waiting for the end to come… until a grizzly attack sends him stumbling into the path of Caede, and all the horrors of an apocalyptic London.

Review:

The title of this book is very apt: I absolutely devoured EAT. With tense horror, electric action, and an immensely gripping cast, EAT is a fantastic read for those craving a great monster horror. Jesse Brown absolutely nailed this one.

The year is 2030 in London. A government-funded research lab has produced strains of a gene therapy called Sigma. One strain is like CRISPR on steroids; another reverts those mutated by it to their basest animal instincts…and that is the one that has been unleashed. After finishing a long shift at work, Caede awakes surrounded by monsters on the streets of London. After enduring a devastating breakup, Jon is on the brink of ending it all. But when the attacks force these strangers together, they know there is nothing they can do to stop them. There is only one thing they can do: survive.

Right from the jump, Brown pulls you in with Caede witnessing a man turn into a monster right before her eyes, and they do not let you free from their grasp until the final pages. This is a credit to Brown’s mastery of atmosphere and prose. The hallmark of a good horror story is that feeling of tension, that no character feels safe, or that anything that can happen will happen, and Brown nails all of that. Intense moments fly off the page, transporting you into these claustrophobic situations that, at times, had my heart pounding and had me reading between my fingers. 

The monsters—or chimaera, as they’re called in the story—are both dangerous and terrifying, a hybrid of man and beast intent on hunting survivors and turning them. The hybrid nature of these monsters made for a unique antagonistic group, as the chimaera count among their ranks humans fused with everything from snakes to spiders to wolves—and some even more and inventive combinations beyond that. The groups of chimaera take on the characteristics of their respective beasts, presenting a variety of situations for our protagonists to escape and survive, but always making clear that these monsters can—and will—savage someone, given the opportunity.

Make no mistake—EAT is a violent story, but it’s handled with restraint. While there are very gory moments, Brown uses these scenes sparingly, and that allows these instances to shine. It’s made clear what the chimaera could do to the protagonists, and that makes the moments of danger all the more tense when they come to pass.

And all these moments of dread are carried by a well-realized and multi-dimensional cast, each with their own distinct personalities and motivations, all doing what they can to survive this post-apocalypse. The horror-filled chases, monstrous stand-offs, and explosive fights wouldn’t work half as well without this cast there to support it. In a lesser author’s hands, I wouldn’t care for the well-being of some of these characters, but Brown absolutely nails each one, from the determined to the annoying, that no matter who was in the most danger at any time, I would be laser-focused on the action, hoping that they would make it out okay.

There’s very little I can raise as issues with EAT. At times, the pacing felt a little off—a moment or two where some minor conflict is resolved too quickly, such as when one character “quits” in one chapter, only to immediately change his mind in the next chapter for plot convenience—but these moments are few and far between. I could also raise issue with a moment involving the central antagonist where they have a few of the characters cornered, and then does the ol’ villain trope send-off of “This isn’t over, we’ll meet again.” But honestly, any issues I could raise are just nit-picks that do very little to diminish how much I enjoyed this book.

I can’t sing EAT’s praises enough. I’m not normally a horror reader, but this book gripped me right from the start. I’m already hungry for more from this series. Be thankful I only (knowingly) included two eating-based puns for this.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go pre-emptively snake-proof my entire house, because, I mean, well…Christ, why’d it have to be snakes?