Book Description
Deep in the jungle of Peru, a black, skittering mass devours an American tourist party whole. FBI agent Mike Rich investigates a fatal plane crash in Minneapolis and makes a gruesome discovery. Unusual seismic patterns register in a Indian earthquake lab, confounding the scientists there. The Chinese government “accidentally” drops a nuclear bomb in an isolated region of its own country. The first female president of the United States is summoned to an emergency briefing. And all of these events are connected.
As panic begins to sweep the globe, a mysterious package from South America arrives at Melanie Guyer’s Washington laboratory. The unusual egg inside begins to crack. Something is spreading…
The world is on the brink of an apocalyptic disaster. An virulent ancient species, long dormant, is now very much awake. But this is only the beginning of our end…
The Hatching is the stuff of nightmares (well mine anyway), I should have known when I received this book in the post and two spiders fell out (ok they were plastic but they still gave me a hell of a fright) that this book would make for an uncomfortable and damn right disturbing read (if you suffer from Arachnophobia you may want to give this book a wide berth). Up until now I haven’t been a huge fan apocalyptic disaster fiction, but hand on heart I did enjoy this book.
As you have probably gathered by now the plot centres around spiders, but these aren’t your bog standard house variety, these are flesh eating spiders, a species that lay dormant for millions of years and now they are invading the world. If this was all The Hatching had to offer you wouldn’t be reading my review now, but fortunately It’s much more than that. Ezekiel Boone has created a huge set of characters, they span across continents, have different job professions, and have different roles to play in the apocalyptic disaster, it was interesting to see how each character reacted to the deadly threat, and the reader is able to gain a much better perspective of the circumstances surrounding the unfolding events. Obviously with such a large number of characters you only get a superficial feel for the characters, but in the authors defence it makes for a better read, as it fits in with the chaos of an end-of-the-world disaster.
Reading about the spiders and their fight to literally eat the world alive made my flesh crawl, the vivid descriptions of these spiders made for a chilling read, and I found myself checking around me for spiders more than usual. The Hatching is delivered in mostly short snappy chapters, which add to the tension as events spiral out of control. If I had a couple of gripes about this book it would have to be the ending which in my opinion felt rushed and left me feeling deflated, (although I do believe there could be a follow up at some point) also there were a couple of scenes that were written in that bore little relevance to the plot. All in all it was a worth while read, an enjoyable thriller that reminded me very much of the classic horror movies I use to watch as a teenager.
Thanks to Sophie over at Orion books for my ARC in exchange for an honest review
4 ☕️☕️☕️☕️ out of 5
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