Thanks to Gallery Books and Netgalley for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review!

This is not my usual genre, but I like Jones so much that I had to read it. He does a nice job explaining without over-explaining, in order to connect book #2 to book #1. It’s extremely gory, which anyone who read the first book should know to expect.

Jade serves 4 years in jail for the events that happened at the end of My Heart Is A Chainsaw and is released the same day a serial killer escapes near Proofrock. Almost two days later in the middle of a snowstorm with phone lines down, a trail of bodies is left behind. Jade reunites with Letha as they track down the murder and save the town. Slasher trivia is thrown in this time by both Jade and Letha. It has the same feel of the first book, horror mixed with history of the town and a few other familiar faces are back in Proofrock.

Every chapter title is the title of a horror movie, which was a great little, added touch. I don't want to say anything else that could come close to a spoiler, but if you liked the first one, you're going to love this.

The sequel to MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW is HERE!!!!

This is the sort of book you will enjoy, but enjoy 10000x more if you read book 1. It's definitely worth it since this book is labeled 2nd in a TRILOGY!

In Chainsaw, it was 2015 and Jade Daniels was a half-Native American poor 17 year old living in a small town with a very abusive father, her mom working at the local dollar store and pretending to not recognize her. Obsessed with serial killer movies and stories from the 80's she narrated the story of the Reaper arriving in Proofrock, home of Indian Lake. At the end of the story Jade is taken to jail in place of her father.

In Reaper, it's now 2019 and Jade is out of jail, with a promise to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, Dark Mill South, a known serial killer is on a collision course with Idaho. Jade, now going by Jennifer, realizes there maybe more than one killer and a new final girl. But will anyone listen to her?

Stephen Graham Jones continues with the steady stream of consciousness narration, a certain rhythm that hypnotises you as he reels you in with references to famous slasher movies, all the while moving the murderous chess pieces around the board. As we circle closer and closer to an actual Friday the 13th it's anyone's guess who will still be alive to see a Final Girl.

If you like slasher movies, rhythmic and pulsing storytelling, or just can't wait to see what's happening at Indian Lake now, Grab Don't Fear the Reaper!
#Gallerybooks #Saga #SimonandSchuster

How is this book even better than the first?
It's everything a slasher sequel should be: A slightly broken heroine. Higher stakes. More guts and gore. Bigger and better death scenes.

Stephen Graham Jones loves slashers and makes the reader love them too.
Has he dethroned Brian Keene as my favorite horror writer. Why yes...I believe he has!

Thank to Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I'll be over here impatiently waiting for the third book!

A fantastic follow up to My Heart is a Chainsaw. The action picks right up and doesn't let go. Jones knows how to write a gory slasher book with some panache. A big reccomendation from me!

The followup to My Heart Is A Chainsaw sees heroine Jade viewing the slasher movie her life has become with a more mature and - well - jaded outlook. There's no doubt that Graham is a fantastic writer, and his blood-soaked world of small town Idaho feels painfully lived-in. These books are written for people who've loved horror and its most iconic slashers just as much as the protagonist, right down to narrative structure. Second book syndrome was not a problem here.

4.25 stars

Wow! This is a fantastic follow up to My Heart is a Chainsaw. I definitely got the slasher vibe a bit more in this one. There is no easing into this novel, it starts with a Bang and doesn’t really let up. Stephen Graham Jones is becoming a must read for me. I can’t wait for more.

Jones' Don't Fear the Reaper is not necessarily connected to Blue Oyster Cult's masterpiece of the same name, although Romeo and Juliet never experienced the bloody aftermath of ProofRock, the cute little town in the mountains by the lake. Don’t Fear the Reaper is the page-turning sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw and it is billed as part two of the trilogy, meaning that somehow there are enough living breathing souls left in the small mountain lake town to have one more bite at the apple. Maybe? Nevertheless, each one of these books in this trilogy is fairly self-contained and you may dare venture into Reaper without devouring the first of the series, although you are missing some background, some history, some massacres.

Reaper is Jones' second book in this love affair with horror movies and you had best familiarize yourself with the genre if you are going to get all the inside jokes. This one also stars Jade Daniels, now having returned to town after four years in custody, awaiting trial for the fiasco at the lake that was the previous book. Four years changes a lot. Dorothy, you are not in Kansas anymore, and you are not in high school. Those four years removed gives Jade perspective and she can function without necessarily the same kinds of relationships with people. That's good because she is doubtless going to loose a lot of these people in her battle with the slashers and serial killers.

After reading My Heart is a Chainsaw I was excited to be approved to read this book. It was really good but there is no easing in, it starts with a bang and doesn't let up. I for one love things like that but no it isn't for everyone.

This is the perfect time of year for books like this, but honestly I will read them at any time. I can't wait for the next book by this author.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy in exchange for a review!
This book made me feel much better about my incessant need to read everything Steven Graham Jones writes.
I usually find it really annoying when books talk too much about what happened in the last book, but read the first installment of this trilogy right when it came out last year, so I had forgotten a lot of the plot points. A lot of the characters do come back a lot, whether it be just in discussion of their absence or that they actually survive the first book. So it was a little difficult for me to connect those just because of my own lapse in memory. But wow. Lots and lots of character development. Lots of connecting issues from the last book, to this one. Lots of gore, so much more. Good read.

Stephen Graham Jones is one of the best writers working today, regardless of genre. His unique voice forces you to slow down, read every word, and then you're there with the characters, facing all manner of horrors. It's an experience that causes a physical response: you'll hold your breath, squirm in your seat, wince and cringe. And, in the end, you'll have that story superglued into your brain. It lives there now.

<i>My Heart is a Chainsaw</i> is easily in my top 5 favorite novels of the 21st century. I was downright giddy to learn we'll get to revisit Proofrock in February of 2023. Then I got an ARC from NetGalley for <i>Don't Fear the Reaper</i> and I'm surprised I didn't spontaneously combust with excitement. Everything else took a backseat. Who needs to eat, work, or sleep? Jade Daniels is back!!!

It's been four years since the Lake Witch Slayings and Jade has spent most of them in courtrooms and various goverment institutions. Mostly cleared of wrongdoing, she's returned to Proofrock and goes by Jennifer now. Slashers are no longer her thing. She's ditched the eyeliner. Her hair has grown and is its natural color. She just wants a normal existence... annnnnnnd then bodies start dropping all over town, brutally murdered in ways that resemble Horrorwood's greatest hits. Annnnnd a serial killer with a freakin' HOOK FOR A HAND has escaped police custody and is definitely in town. Oh, and, btw, a snowstorm has knocked out the power and cell service all over town, effectively cutting off Proofrock from the rest of the world. It's a recipe for chaos and Jade is in the middle of it all, whether she likes it or not.

Just when you think you've figured out where things are going, Jones throws a bag over your head, spins you around 50 times and leaves you in the dark. And, once you finally find your way to the end, yeah, there are some loose ends that need tying, questions that definitely need answering. But, strangely, the end is also pretty satisfying.

<i>Dont Fear the Reaper</i> does a beautiful job of both continuing the Indian Lake story and setting the stage for the third act. And I predict the next one will blow us all away.

The writing in this one was a bit harder to keep up with, which I realize was a deliberate choice on the part of the author. This title will appeal to fans of slasher movies for sure, and has some really cool parts and kills, but I think it needed to be clearer who killed who. The frenetic pacing made it harder to to parse who slashed who.

Wow.

Okay, I loved “My Heart is a Chainsaw,” thought it was fantastic and Jade a fantastic character. This sequel gives us everything Chainsaw did and more. We get Jade — now going by her birth name of Jennifer — years later, having been in prison and finally gotten released, and trying to live a normal life. Of course, that happens to be just when a serial killer named Dark Mill South escapes while being transported nearby, and things go even more horribly wrong from there.

Jones doesn’t repeat his last story, but he is absolutely exploring the trauma — on both Jade/Jennifer and the town of Proofrock as a whole — of the events of the first book. We get more POV characters than previously, and while we get the same “student explains things to a teacher” interstitials, it’s a different student, different teacher, and different set of explanations.

At risk of oversimplifying, if you liked the first book, you’ll probably like this. Similarly, if you were one of the folks who bounced off the first book or found it unsatisfying, I’m not sure this’ll be your cup of tea; I think a lot of folks wanted more of a traditional slasher, instead of an often-literary horror novel that happens to center around a slasher-obsessed character, and while we do get a few more explicit “slasher-style” scenes, that’s not what this story is about.

While this is the middle book of a trilogy, it, like the first one, tells a complete story even as it sets up elements of the next book. Absolutely fantastic.

It was great to be back with Jade/Jennifer and co with this second installment. I loved her opening scene, and what a surprise at the end of it! I wasn’t sure where things could go after the first book, which I didn’t know at the time was the first of a trilogy, but the time jump worked perfectly for the events of next storyline.
This is not my usual genre, but I like Jones so much, I just had to read it, and I’m eager already for book 3. Not being a slasher movie fan myself, I’m sure I’m missing some Easter eggs and references, but he does a nice job explaining without over-explaining, so I wasn’t lost.
Like a slasher movie, it’s extremely gory, which anyone who read the first book should know to expect. This one ramps up the gore, I think, which is maybe comparable to slasher sequels? I’m guessing at that.
As in other Jones books I’ve read, I really liked the acknowledgements at the end, where the author provides personal history that relates to his main character and literary influences, besides the standard thanks to the folks who helped and sweet notes to his family.

I absolutely loved Don't Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones' follow up to 2021's My Heart is a Chainsaw.

The book brings Jade Daniels back to Proofrock, Idaho. She's been in some legal trouble following the events of Chainsaw and is finally released into the world on the weekend of the winter's biggest snowstorm. Coincidentally, the nation's deadliest serial killer, Dark Mill South is being transported across state lines for trial. The inclement weather impacts the caravan and he escapes into Proofrock . . .

This is the premise of the 2nd book in the Lake Witch Trilogy, and the bodies hit the floor from the beginning. Like Randy Meeks in Scream 2, Stephen Graham Jones knows the rules for surviving a horror sequel, and he employs them to great effect in this book.

What are Randy's rules?

1. The body count is always bigger.
2. The death scenes are much more elaborate. More blood, more gore. Carnage candy.
3. Never assume the killer is dead.

The first best thing about this book is that the body count is bigger and the death scenes are more elaborate. The slow pace of Chainsaw (which I absolutely loved) kept some readers from fully enjoying the book. If they come back for round 2, they'll find the pace faster, and the kills coming in frequently. Overall, more bodies give fans of the slasher genre what they want.

Gruesome deaths.

The second thing I loved about this book is the character development of multiple characters in the book. Stephen Graham Jones uses multiple points of view to not only draw the reader into the narrative, but also to help the reader understand the motivations of many of Proofrock's townies. This allows the reader to root for, fear, or understand those people Jade interacts with. It gives the story a different kind of depth than Chainsaw, which was mainly told from Jade's point of view. Now the reader gets to gaze on the ramifications of the Independence Day Massacre from the townsfolk, people who now understand the trauma of being a survivor--they relate to Jade in more ways than they did in the first book.

The third thing I loved about the book is how the kills in this book correspond to kills in the movies he references. I also loved that he updates the movie references with movies that have come out in the last 4-5 years. This adds a nice flavor to the book for those readers who also love slasher films.

The fourth thing I loved in the books is Jade's character development. She's changed, and finds herself wary of slashers. She becomes the experienced leader some of these townsfolk need in a time of crisis.

The fifth thing I loved about the book is how we have a new student writing history papers. In Chainsaw, the Slasher 101 papers from Jade gave us insight into who she was and how she viewed the world. The Slasher 102 papers from the student (no spoilers as to who it is), keeps the reader grounded in all the local lore so you can have a compass as to what's happening in the book.

This book, for the most part, is more accessible than Chainsaw.

This leads me to a few drawbacks of the book. Like his other work, Stephen Graham Jones writes with a nuance that makes the reader work to understand some of the narrative. This nuance is less straightforward than some readers like and might keep them from moving on. It's literary at times, and you have to work to understand what's happening.

Second. The book also suffers from so much going on (this was a drawback in Chainsaw as well). You have to remember so many characters, events, local urban legends and more that it becomes difficult to keep the story straight.

However, for those willing to put in the effort, you will be rewarded. Stephen Graham Jones has created a masterful book to explore the nature of survival. In Chainsaw it was Jade's survival from the trauma of abuse and derelict family he explored. In this narrative, he explores the survival of grief, loss, guilt, and other facets of being human.

Overall I absolutely loved the book and don't have to worry about Randy Meeks' opinion of sequels. According to him, "Sequels suck! By definition alone, they're inferior films."

Good thing this isn't a sequel. It's a trilogy.

I personally can't wait for the third installment.

P.S. Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC.

if you liked My Heart is a Chainsaw I can almost guarantee that you're gonna love this book too. tbh, I liked it more than the first one (which actually surprised me, because I really really liked the first one).

some quick notes to whet your appetite but give zero spoilers;
- the pacing of this book is brutal. there is no meandering opening like in Chainsaw; action happens fast and it happens continuously. the slower sections that allowed for longer conversations felt like much-needed breathing room
- the vibe of December in Proofrock, ID was absolutely frigid and I am living for it. I finished reading this ARC during a heatwave in August and I spent a good portion of the book curled up in front of my portable heater. the atmospheric winter writing was just amazing
- the wearied surprise!final girl in Chainsaw is back with a sort of cult following now. "Jennifer" remains a phenomenal and fascinating protagonist. I never got sick of hearing from her and actually I quite enjoyed that the newer horror movie references went right over her head
- speaking of, if you like horror movies but you haven't sat through the classic 80s backlog, rest assured that this book has it all. the chapters are named after horror movies and let me tell you what, I cheered when there were references to It Follows and Happy Death Day
- the elk !!!! I will say nothing else about them but w o w
- do identical twins kind of weird you out? this book is definitely for you. the Ginger and Cinnamon show was done so well I genuinely didn't know which twin was which about 90% of the time they were on scene

imo, this felt more like a slasher than Chainsaw did. I think bc in Chainsaw there's such a long build-up, and it's good, but the huge massacre at the end wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Reaper has more of the vibe I wanted; high school seniors are dropping left and right and half of Proofrock doesn't even know because there's a bad winter storm blowing through. the mystery, the isolation, the confusion -- chef's kiss. this was just a great book and I am so so excited for it to be published so more people can read it and I can ask which twin they think was where.

small ps; I can't imagine squeamish people will be reading Reaper if they couldn't get through Chainsaw but please stay aware of the trigger warnings, there's quite a list. this book is brutal and no punches are pulled

thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC, it made my friends very very jealous 😇

I was excited to read this sequel. I've read several of the authors books and novellas. My heart is a chainsaw was one of my favorite books last year. Jade makes a great antihero, someone I naturally want to root for. The story was a slow burn, but a good burn. All of the mystery of who was behind the murders and returning characters did make the story a challenge to follow, but I had it sorted out by the middle. I can't wait to see where book 3 takes us!

I re-read My Heart is a Chainsaw right before digging into Don't Fear the Reaper and I'm glad I did! This is the second book in the series and while I'm sure you could read it on its own, I will be recommending reading them chronologically to my patrons. It's virtually impossible for me not to compare the two books, but I'm going to try my best.

Jade is back, this time a few years older and wiser. No more slasher references for Jade (who now goes by Jennifer) as she's tried to put the past behind her. But that's hard to do when she returns to her small town of Proofrock, years after the Fourth of July massacre. There, she reconnects with some of her old friends and acquaintances, observing how the town is doing after the mass traumatic event (spoiler alert: no one is doing well). When the bodies of high school students start turning up, and a serial killer is reportedly on the loose, it's up to Jade to figure out how to stop it from happening again.

My Heart is a Chainsaw was my #1 favorite horror title last year, and Reaper was a near-perfect sequel. For those who adore Stephen Graham Jones' ability to capture the interior lives of his characters, you won't be disappointed. Recommended to fans of slashers (duh) especially the Scream franchise.

Both absolutely creepy and exhilarating at the same time. I had so much fun reading this. I had so much fun going along the journey. I was spooked out and creeped out on multiple occasions or course! But I also feel like that was a given and was absolutely going to happen. Stephen graham Jones simply never lets me down in the spook factor. 5/5 stars!

After a disappointing first novel, I thought the premise of Don't Fear the Reaper held some promise that it might be better than the first, but it was a let down for me. I struggled to get through the first novel, and the same goes for this one. The writing is sluggish, forcing you to read pages and pages of inner thought that hinges itself on so many movie references that it's easy to get lost. I think the story itself, without all the extra add-ins, was fantastic and unique, but I could see many people giving up long before the story gets moving.

This is the perfect sequel to My Heart is a Chainsaw! i can hardly wait to get this one into my library. Our patrons love this kind of book and I often donate books that I like. I'll make sure to get a review done for goodreads.