Supernatural Book Review: “Fresh Meat” by Alice Henderson
The latest Supernatural novel from Titan Books was released today, “Fresh Meat” by Alice Henderson. This is Henderson’s first novel for Supernatural, although she’s written a few for Buffy The Vampire Slayer as well as other original novels.
I was fortunate enough to receive an advanced copy of the novel and it was quite a read. It kept my interest the whole time and was pretty easy to follow. I was also guessing all the way to the end. The author had a great knack for description of the action sequences and seemed to have a good grasp on the character backgrounds for season seven. She mentioned a few times Sam’s struggles with Lucifer in his head as well as Dean’s feelings over the recent loss of Castiel. This takes place somewhere in between “Defending Your Life” and before “Slash Fiction” since there is one section that mentions Dean killing Amy and him fearing Sam will find out. In this story, they had each other’s backs without any strife.
The best part though is the novel has Bobby! He plays a significant role in this adventure set in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Lake Tahoe. This is an action adventure story for sure, and there are plenty of twists and mishaps that fall on our trio, not to mention some pretty gruesome injuries. A lot of the scenes I pictured to be part of a feature film rather than a weekly TV show, but that only added to the entertainment value of the story. I especially loved the mythology and the way it was handled in this setting. The monsters in the story (and there is more than one) were a very interesting mix of foes.
The main weakness is I didn’t think the author grabbed the internal dialogue of the characters too well. It was almost like she read a bunch of episode summaries and surmised what these characters were thinking based on that. She was lacking with “show don’t tell” often with internal character struggles. However, there wasn’t much time for character exposition given the loaded plot, so those weak spots weren’t too glaring.
Here’s the synopsis:
A rash of strange deaths in the Tahoe National Forest bring Sam, Dean and Bobby to the Sierra Nevada mountains to hunt a monster with a taste for human flesh. Soon walking corpses, bodies with missing organs, and attacks by a mysterious flying creature lead the trio to a cunning and deadly foe which can assume a human form and will do anything to survive. When a blizzard strikes the area, and not knowing who they can trust, they must battle not only the monster, but also the elements to survive.
You can order “Fresh Meat” at Amazon.com. There’s a link to where to purchase the story on the right hand side of each page on this site for easy access.
Order “Fresh Meat” from Amazon.com
Alice Jester is the founder, editor-in-chief, head writer, programmer, web designer, site administrator, marketer, and moderator for The Winchester Family Business. She is a 30 year IT applications and database expert with a penchant for creative and freelance writing in her spare (ha!!) time. That’s on top of being a wife, mother of two active kids, and four loving (aka needy) pets.
Alice, I enjoyed reading this and I love how in all the Supernatural books the boys take on cases that are really epic – motion picture epic rather than just a TV episode. Imagine the cost of filming this with the avalanches, explosions, flying creatures, etc. Hopefully one day we’ll get a Supernatural movie 😉
Like you, I also enjoyed Bobby’s presence in the story and I thought Alice Henderson conveyed Sam’s anxiety about getting back to Dean very well. I agree, some of the dialogue didn’t seem very much like Sam and Dean, but overall I enjoyed it.
However, there was one very big error in my copy. You mentioned that this took place between Defending Your Life and Slash Fiction, but my copy has a notation saying that it took place between Shut Up, Dr Phil and Slash Fiction. As I’m sure you know, this isn’t possible.
At the end of Shut Up, Dr Phil, Sam and Dean had just bundled Chet into the impala’s trunk and called Bobby to let him know they were coming. Slash Fiction picks up at Bobby’s place.
In the book they have just finished another case and don’t know where Bobby was when they called him for help. For this to have taken place at the end of Shut Up, Dr Phil, would’ve mean that Chet was kept in the trunk of the impala while they did so. It’s a bit ludicrous and I’m not sure how they could’ve made such a glaring mistake.
Anyhow, once I got over that, I did enjoy the read 🙂