Children of the Dark

By: Jonathan Janz

Narrated by: Matt Godfrey

Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Will Burgess is used to hard knocks. Abandoned by his father, son of a drug-addicted mother, and charged with raising his six-year-old sister, Will has far more to worry about than most high school freshmen. To make matters worse, Mia Samuels, the girl of Will’s dreams, is dating his worst enemy, the most sadistic upperclassman at Shadeland High. Will’s troubles, however, are just beginning. Because one of the nation’s most notorious criminals - the Moonlight Killer - has escaped from prison and is headed straight toward Will’s hometown. And something else is lurking in Savage Hollow, the forest surrounding Will’s rundown house. Something ancient and infinitely evil. When the worst storm of the decade descends on Shadeland, Will and his friends must confront unfathomable horrors. Everyone Will loves - his mother, his little sister, Mia, and his friends - will be threatened. And very few of them will escape with their lives.

©2016 Sinister Grin Press (P)2019 Craig Shaeffer

Levels & levels of horror!

Children of the Dark
By: Jonathan Janz
Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
This book has so many different levels of horror! Just when I thought I have listed all the horrors in this book, I remember other ways this book uses horror! Great characters, the good ones are good and the bad ones, well, I wanted to throw away my morals and choke someone! The world building is great, I could picture the town and the hollows and more! Very little time in the book to get bored, something tense or terrifying is usually going on or you know might happen soon. That anticipated soon comes true but always unpredictable, never what you expected. This was a great horror book!
Narration is excellent!

Fun with lots of action, never boring

Loved this book, looking forward to reading more from this author, It made my drive fun! Scary but those 5 hours flew by.

Perfect for a monster kick!

I’ve been wanting monster stories for a bit and this one was perfect to get back into them! The writing style is fantastic, just the right description of the decimation of people, teenagers are captured perfectly, etc. It was gruesome in the perfect way and you never know who will be safe. Totally recommend!

This started out really well and then......meh

This is an entertaining listen. It's better than most television and I really wanted more for it.

It really drags toward the end, and while things wrap up reasonably well, I just can't get past the whining.

Coming of Age Horror at its Best

Fans of coming of age horror will absolutely love CHILDREN OF THE DARK. The character development, suspense, tension and action are woven to perfection in this horror novel. The narrator steps up and performs perfection to honor this amazing book.

Thankful for "monster" books

Everyone knows stories and shows, like "The Walking Dead", are not about the "monsters". They are about the character's and the life or death situations they find themselves in. I really enjoy this storyline about The Children and hope Mr. Janz is writing more about them as I type.

Great Read

This book reminds of the old Stephen King. It’s Salem’s Lot, It, & Mr Mercedes in one book.

I want a book 2

I liked everything but that last 3 minutes I want more I want a second book! Why what else happens tell me MORE!!!!!

Great narrator, fun coming-of-age/monster story

I received a free copy of the audiobook from the audiobook narrator in exchange for an honest review.

The narrator, Matt Godfrey, is hands down one of my favorite audiobook narrators. His voice is interesting and captivating. I could, and frequently do, listen to him speak for hours on end. This book was no exception. My only *complaint* (if you can call it that) is that sometimes he uses the same or similar voice for several characters, but honestly, that's not much of a criticism in my book because having unique voices for EVERY character in a book with a lot of characters is HARD. Godfrey's performances are always good. He could read from a phone book and I'd be hooked. But enough gushing about the narrator.

This was my first Jonathan Janz book, and while I wasn't blown away by it, I enjoyed it quite a bit anyways. I tend to like my horror more on the literary or cerebral side, and I often find books about monstrous creatures to be a bit... I dunno if "boring" is the right word, but it's the closest I can come to right now. There's nothing wrong with books about monsters; they're just less interesting to me than other types of horror. For me, the story should ALWAYS come first. For example, the best ghost stories aren't about the ghosts themselves but about the people who are haunted by them.

Ostensibly, that's also what creature books are "about" as well, but sometimes the human characters are little more than fodder for the big, bad, "scary" monster. That's a bit of how I felt about CHILDREN OF THE DARK, though I think Janz handled that with much more finesse than a lot of horror writers out there. I also tend to enjoy coming-of-age stories (Stephen King's IT is one of my favorite books), and I think it worked well in this case.

Overall, I liked the story of CHILDREN OF THE DARK, and I'm looking forward to reading more of Janz's work. This book wasn't groundbreaking or even all that "original" (a term I dislike using because it feels like a cop-out of providing more substantial criticism), but it used the tropes it relied on in several fun, interesting ways, and it managed to successfully blend two types of monsters (serial killers and wendigo-esque cannibals) that otherwise might not mesh well together.

Overall, I think if you're looking for something fun to read (or listen to), I hope you'll give this book a try.

Fantastic!!

Jonathan Janz is great at what he does and what he does makes you hang on every word! Thank you mr Janz