A tightly paced story that grips you with its noose.
Angry Hornet Nest begins with a chilling prologue, as Pakuna, a figure from centuries past, flees across snowbound ground while carrying the burden of an ancient curse—a shadow destined to reemerge in the mining town of Dryton, California. In the present day, high school misfits Francis and Bodie spend their days numbing themselves with video games, until a vicious prank by bullies drives Bodie deep into the woods. There, he discovers a crumbling building whose decayed floorboards hide a sinister, timeworn book. The relic pulses with dark power, offering a taste of vengeance that Bodie, bruised by years of humiliation, cannot resist. Soon, the bullies begin to suffer “accidents” that grow increasingly violent. While Francis tries to dismiss them as unfortunate coincidences, a horrific incident at the harvest festival makes it clear that something ancient is working through his friend. Forced to confront the terrifying change in Bodie, Francis finds himself caught between loyalty and survival as Dryton spirals toward a reckoning born from Pakuna’s curse and Bodie’s hunger for revenge. Stoney Brooks blends supernatural horror with the raw struggles of adolescence, creating a story where the past’s buried evil collides with the present in shocking, relentless ways.
With a flair for drama and the tension that all good horror-thrillers need, Stoney Brooks writes from a unique descriptive lens that blends folklore and modern terror into a seamless, chilling narrative that readers will find it hard to look away from. Anchoring the story in a haunting historical past and setting the stage for some truly terrifying plot twists, the novel evokes a sharply atmospheric tone. Francis and Bodie’s friendship feels raw and real, making the horror all the more heartbreaking as it sets in and puts them to the test. This realism in the emotional storyline of the central characters allows the supernatural elements to escalate with chilling meticulousness, but also grounds them in believability for maximum impact. Brooks displays a keen sense of scene and space, capturing the claustrophobia of small-town life and the cruelty of teenage hierarchies with authentic dialogue and realistic interactions. As the book explores how temptation and rage can spiral into monstrous transformation from even the smallest seeds of trouble, readers will be hard-pressed to forget particular emotional touchstones that are both gruesome and emotionally charged. There’s also heartbreak aplenty that is never undercut or sensationalized by the horror elements, and Bodie’s descent is tragic, frightening, and disturbingly believable even without supernatural ephemera. Angry Hornet Nest is a tightly paced story that grips you with its noose, pulling readers further with each chapter for a darkly cinematic and chillingly deep tale.
