A charming corporate horror novel with a whole lot of heart.
When Colin Harris—a self-loathing low-level employee at Dark Enterprises—meets a shadowy figure at work, he strikes a deal to fulfill his heart’s desire (a promotion) and accidentally kick-starts the end of the world.
Located deep in the heart of New York City, Dark Enterprises is unique when it comes to multinational corporations. To start, there’s a people-eating monster living in the stairwell, and human tears and screams are harvested for all kinds of questionable uses. It’s hell—literally—but the people who work there love it. After years of toiling away trying to make a name for himself while sustaining emotional abuse from his co-workers, Colin is positive that his head is, quite literally, on the chopping block. When he meets a strange shadowy figure in the halls of Dark Enterprises who promises to fulfill his heart’s desire in exchange for a few drops of blood and a simple, unspecified favor, he asks for the one thing he knows will save his skin: a promotion. “The Thing studied me—that was what it looked like, anyhow—while my knees shook. You will have what you desire, it finally said. And once you do, I will return to claim my part of our bargain.” As promised by the terrifying, faceless entity, Colin’s dreams come true in the blink of an eye (and a drop of blood). He’s almost immediately promoted, and while everything seems to go smoothly at first, his life swiftly begins to fall apart when New Yorkers start to go missing en masse. Worse still, Colin’s best friend, Amira, is determined to set him up with a guy in her yoga class, and while Eric is undeniably handsome, he asks a lot of questions. The humor throughout this novel is delightfully witty in a way that fans of dry satire will greatly enjoy. Filled with top-notch worldbuilding, entertaining antagonists, and tongue-in-cheek charm that’s reminiscent of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020), this novel is not to be missed for fans of urban fantasy that gently toes the horror line.
A charming corporate horror novel with a whole lot of heart.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593818404
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Let’s hope for more from the next book set in this world.
Sasha Cadell has survived against all odds, holding onto her loved ones and strangers as they take their last breaths—and that’s why she’s known as Death’s Angel.
For six years Sasha has lived in Haven, the underground society built to withstand nuclear war. Since the war, since her family’s deaths, since discovering she doesn’t get sick like everyone else does, Sasha’s life has been full of death and overfull with grief. While working in the Ward, Haven’s limited hospital, she stays with patients as they die. When Tristian Hayes, a unit commander of the Force, ends up as her patient, hanging on for his life, she pleads for him to stay alive. He does—upending her bleak ritual as Death’s Angel. Hoping to forget everything she’s seen and to numb the pain, Sasha leaves the Ward in favor of a role with a pickax, expanding Haven’s tunnels. Tristian, fiercely determined and stunningly stubborn, recruits Sasha to the Force for a vital mission aboveground. The story picks up steam with Sasha’s intense training to become the medic for Tristian’s tightknit unit. Together, they bear the weight of their unit’s survival and all that’s left of humankind. While in training, Sasha struggles to discern friends and enemies, but nothing is as challenging as facing her own demons. In this prequel to her debut novel, Conform (2025), Sullivan tries to accomplish a lot with both the worldbuilding and plot machinations, resulting in a convoluted story and flattened characters. The plot doesn’t have a satisfying payoff, but the romantic tension between Sasha and Tristian will keep readers engaged.
Let’s hope for more from the next book set in this world.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091027
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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