Review of Feeders by Caleb Stephens

It’s just an average night at the Ink Tank, the tattoo shop in Austin, Texas, where Brynn works as a tattoo artist. After a long shift, all she wants to do is head home, pop a few pills from the fresh bottle of Roxicodone in her jacket pocket, and slip into a nice buzz. Her plans crumble when she’s abducted by her convict father, Alan, and forced into the road trip from hell: a cross-country trek to the Rocky Mountains and the shelter he built years ago to protect his family from the monsters living in his head, the monsters he says will erupt from the earth at any minute—the Feeders. With each mile he unravels further, thrusting Brynn back into the childhood nightmare she thought she’d escaped forever. Alan is paranoid, and he’s definitely dangerous—but is he crazy? In this novel, we find that truth is not always what it seems, and that some secrets are better left buried.

Praise for Feeders:

“I read Feeders in one bleary-eyed sitting and I swear by the end the words were wriggling right off the page. I thought I was devouring it, but nope, this book devoured me. First, it burrows. Then it erupts, taking what's left of your brain right with it.”

- Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters

“If you’re looking for a book that’s going to make you feel safe and warm, Feeders is not the book for you. Stephens doesn’t pull any punches as he takes you on a journey that’s visceral, raw, and absolutely brutal. This book is a cult classic in the making.”

- Caitlin Marceau, award-winning author of This is Where We Talk Things Out

“A thunder beneath your feet, a power you haven’t felt before gathering in the broken earth…it’s Caleb Stephens emerging fully formed, ready to tear out your willing heart with both hands.”

- Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold and The Handyman Method

“Feeders is an apocalyptic road novel with carnivorous bugs and a foot slammed squarely on the accelerator. Stephens crafts his story as an ode to the horror paperbacks of yore, where reading is akin to being swallowed whole, devoured by the power of unreality. But for every torn-up carcass, every tense square off, every horrifying revelation—there’s an underlying notion that people are good and worth fighting for. Feeders is a squint-through-your-fingers creature feature that never loses track of the people you hold when the monster comes for blood.”

- Carson Winter, author of Soft Targets

“Caleb Stephens' Feeders has all the thrills and epic scope of a long-running, post-apocalyptic TV series with none of the downside. There are no filler episodes or subpar seasons here as Stephens has crafted an exhilarating binge that will leave you satisfied.”

- CB Jones, The Rules of the Road

“Caleb Stephens has one speed: GO. Feeders devoured me in twenty-four hours, the drill bit of propulsive prose digging into my spine with the one-two punch of tender brutality that infuses every story Stephens births. He mines the beauty—and dysfunction—of family with a realism that makes me want to apologize to certain relatives and flip off others.”

- Christopher O'Halloran, editor of Howls from the Wreckage

“In Feeders, Caleb Stephens has managed to create a triple threat. One that is not only world-ending and road-trip taking, but thrives as a creature feature from a bygone era as well. Go on, take that ride. Thank me later.”

- Beau Johnson, author of Brand New Dark

MY REVIEW:

FEEDERS IS A BRILLANT APOCALYPSE NOVEL WITH A LOT OF HORROR THAT WILL LEAVE THE READER ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT.  I WAS HOOKED FROM THE VERY FIRST PAGE AND MY ATTENTION HELD THROUGHOUT THE STORY. FEEDERS 

REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF THE MOVIE, TREMORS. IT IS DEFINITELY A WORLD THAT I DO NOT WISH TO LIVE IN.  IT WAS SCARY AND DEVASTING AT THE AMOUNT OF LOSS THAT RESULTED FROM THESE CREATURES.

 BRYNN IS A TATTOO ARTIST WHO WORKS AT INK TANK, THE TATTOO PLACE IN AUSTIN TEXAS.  SHE IS ADDICTED TO DRUGS AND THEN SHE IS KIDNAPPED BY HER CRAZY FATHER  ALAN. HER FATHER HAS ALWAYS TOLD EVERYONE THE FEEDERS WERE COMING AND HE EVEN BUILT A SHELTER TO KEEP HIS FAMILY SAFE. NO ONE BELIEVED HER FATHER INCLUDING BRYNN, WHO ALWAYS THOUGHT HE WAS CRAZY. NOW ALAN TAKES BRYNN AND HER BROTHER ON A SCARY ADVENTURE THAT WILL LEAVE THEM WONDERING IF ALAN HAS BEEN RIGHT ALL ALONG. FEEDER IS A MUST READ FOR FANS OF HORROR.  5 STARS

Caleb Stephens

Caleb Stephens is a dark fiction author writing from somewhere deep in the Colorado mountains. His short stories have appeared in multiple publications and podcasts, including The NoSleep Podcast, Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, MetaStellar, The Dread Machine, Tales to Terrify, and more. His dark fiction collection If Only a Heart and Other Tales of Terror is available through Salt Heart Press and includes the short story “The Wallpaper Man,” which was adapted to film by Falconer Film & Media in 2022. He is also the author of Feeders, a speculative horror thriller available through Timber Ghost Press, and The Girls in the Cabin, a psychological thriller available through Joffe Books. You can join his mailing list and learn more at www.calebstephensauthor.com as well as follow him on Twitter @cstephensauthor.

The Girls in the Cabin: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3W8BSX2