Synopsis
Nat Cassidy, author of the acclaimed horror Mary, returns with When the Wolf Comes Home, an unabashed, adrenaline-fueled pop horror thriller where the darkest fears can become reality.
A USA Today bestseller!
ABA Indie Bookseller bestseller!
“Get your claws into this one, horror fiends. It’s terrific. . . . Sink your teeth into a classic.”―Stephen King
“A crazy-good, balls-to-the-wall horror novel . . . it’s full throttle from the first pages.” ―Joe Hill
“This is the kind of great, big, epic horror novel we got back in the ’80s that came out swinging for the fences and left everything on the field. Welcome back, you shaggy, bloody monster of a book!” ―Grady Hendrix
Best Books of 2025―Vulture
The 25 Best and Most Anticipated Horror Books of 2025―Men’s Health
Most Anticipated Horror of 2025―Paste Magazine, LitHub
One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.
As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, Jess slowly comes to a horrifying understanding of the butchery that follows them―the boy can turn his every fear into reality.
And when the wolf finally comes home, no one will be spared.
Review
Thanks to NetGalley, Tor Nightfire, and Macmillan Audio for the audiobook arc. I loved Nestlings, so I was excited to get into more from the author. Helen Laser was a solid choice for narration, and she embodied the main character well.
I went into this one completely blind. I didn’t read the blurb and even avoided seeing my fellow reviewers star ratings (let alone dodging reviews). The opening gripped me from the jump. A struggling actress just starting out turned late night waitress reminded me of Mary Jane in the second Spider-man movie. It differs from there as Jess is forced to deal with what comes her way by herself. A late night argument between neighbors and a strange naked man, a violent attack, a scared little boy, and an across country chase. Jess simply followed her instincts by saving him, but she might just live to regret it.
Of course with the cover and the first attack, I really thought I was buckling up for a werewolf novel. In a sense, it is, but then again, it also really isn’t. When I made it to the part in the hotel, where Kiddo is left alone watching TV, I was so surprised by the curveball the author threw that I actually thought it just might not be for me and maybe I needed to DNF. It bordered on goofy to me, and of course I truly had no idea what the hell was going on. But if you know me at all, you know I don’t usually DNF anything, and I’m once again glad I didn’t. Once you understand what’s happening, it all clicks into place.
This is a unique novel, and it’s certainly multilayered. It’s a child’s nightmare, it’s a family drama, it’s a body horror, it’s a reflection of what people see us as when we let our anger win, it’s a commentary on government testing even. Although the author didn’t focus much time on it, the testing on the boy’s father carried notes of Stranger Things—the boy almost becoming Eleven to my mind. The banter between Jess and the boy, and how it slowly turned to trust and familiarity, was really well done. And then of course with any adult and child on the run I always think of The Last of Us, and while this is drastically different, you’re still delivered a story that pulls at all the heartstrings by the end.
If you had the ability to believe something was true, and then make it so for the world, what would you do? World peace? End world hunger? World domination? Unlimited money, success, fire power? Even if you had the best intentions ever, could you really fix what’s been broken—especially when all of your fears, your shortcomings, become true as soon as you believe? I thought it was incredibly well done that at every turn, Jess continued to lose people. Anyone close. And even in her grief, nothing was truly the boy’s fault. While the implications are heavy, there’s such a well built note of hope by the end. It’s complex and confusing, but I suppose I chose to believe it was there. This one is definitely a thinker.
Leave a Reply