Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book early. I finished the book but it felt like a rushed version of a book/idea you've already read.

Definitely not what I expected going into it.
Liz, our main character, goes back home to small town Johnstown. A predominantly white town that seems to be home to missing, runaway girls. Girls who just happen to be black like Liz. She only returns for her best friends wedding. During the wedding her God-daughter, Caroline goes missing into the woods.
Everyone knows the woods are not to be in alone, even if it calls to you.
Liz feels responsible for looking away while on duty to keep an eye on Caroline. Liz can't leave until she finds Caroline, in doing so she becomes a target.

I enjoyed reading from the perspective of a character that I can not relate to. Meaning, I can not relate to treatment she receives and feels being black. I hope to read more from this author in the future.

Liz has reluctantly returned to her hometown for the wedding of her best friend Mel. When she takes her eye off Mel's daughter, Caroline goes missing and Liz is wracked with remorse. Determined to do what the police seem incapable of, Liz starts her own search and uncovers many disturbing facts about this town along the way. For too many years, every summer one black girl has gone missing. Sometimes bodies are found, and sometimes families get absolutely no closure. Terrible accidents and runaway girls have been law enforcement's only contribution, but Liz knows that there is more going on here.
This is not a straightforward missing girl story. Liz is, well, broken in many ways. Some date back to when she was a child, and some are much more recent. She discovers the very dark history of this town, things that she never knew, or somehow forgot. But everything is coming to the surface now, but will it be enough to find Caroline?
Most of the story is told from Liz's perspective, with some chapters providing additional background from some of the missing girls. There is mystery, abduction, murder, racism, history, and a bit of supernatural/sci-fi overtures in this book. The more I got to know Liz, the more I wondered if she was an unreliable narrator or the only one who could fit the puzzle pieces together to get to the truth.
I haven't had much time to read lately, but I found myself squeezing in a chapter or two whenever I could. I didn't love the ending, but the journey was quite good.

Jackal defies genre. Part horror, part thriller, part mystery, part fantasy - and fully engrossing.

Liz Rocher returns to her small Pennsylvania town for her best friend's wedding, but when her goddaughter goes missing during the ceremony she’s thrust into the folklore of the woods and the mystery of the Black girls who have gone missing in them for the last 30 years.

I really loved the first 70% of this book and struggled to put it down. As the threads started coming together at the end, it lost me a little, but I think that has more to do with it being outside my usual, preferred genres. For me, the metaphor of the monster was interesting, but the literal manifestations of the monster were confusing.
Still, it's an impressive debut and if you’re someone who regularly reads horror, I highly recommend it!

2.5 stars, rounded down
This mystery about black girls going missing in Johnstown, a small mostly white city in western Pennsylvania started strong. But it went off the tracks for me, maybe because I expected one thing and got another. This started off as a four star book and ended at two stars.
Liz Rocher is returning home to Johnstown for the wedding of a friend. One of the few black girls in her class, she had fled Johnstown and rarely returned. Something had happened to her in the woods as well, leaving her leery of the forest. When her friend’s mixed race daughter goes missing at the wedding, Liz begins her own investigation. And finds that young black girls have been going missing for a while.
Adams creates a dark, tension filled background. She paints a vivid picture of the racism embedded in the town’s culture. Half way through the story, it begins to veer towards a horror vibe. And then the ending was so over the top for me, I lost all interest. This might work for fans of Stephen King, but it just didn’t work for me. I hate horror stories. I expected this to just be a mystery, but it’s a supernatural convoluted nightmare. I was totally confused by the ending.
Warning - there are graphic scenes of violence.
My thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for an advance copy of this book.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

***

I find it difficult to pin this book down. It doesn't fit neatly into any one genre. What happens is horrifying, a string of missing and/or murdered young black girls.

Liz, our main character, comes home for the wedding of her best friend. Her hometown holds the memory of a school mate who went missing and almost immediately after she's returned, her friend's daughter also goes missing.

What follows is a mystery/thriller which brushes the edge of the speculative and is deeply rooted in trauma and systemic race and class issues.

I loved that the book drew you in and had you guessing. There are some surprises, but I'm not sure how I feel about some of the latter events or reveals.

I found the random inclusion of articles/stories a bit distracting as a whole.

Erin E. Adams writes skilled prose. I would certainly pick up another of her books.

At one point I was reading this in my bed, in the dark, and I got kind of freaked out. Thinking about a dark forest, with shadows moving around and following you got to me. This is what I want from a horror story, to be creeped out and a bit afraid of the dark. In that way, this was a good horror book. The mystery of what happened to Caroline and who was responsible was also interesting and kept me spinning in circles as I tried to puzzle out who could be trusted.

The main character Liz was the only part I didn't fully enjoy. The author made a choice to give us a lead that was a borderline alcoholic, didn't care much about other people (except Caroline), and seemed to get herself deeper in trouble as the story went on. I don't mind an imperfect character because it's more realistic, but I just didn't connect with Liz. As a white person, I'll never know Liz's struggles with racism and being treated horribly because she's Black and that's a big part of why I couldn't identify with her. I did admire her a few times when she pushed back against those hurting her and the lengths she went to in her search. Liz is a pretty great godmother to Caroline for sure.

This was easy to fall into and I enjoyed being scared yet compelled to go on. This is a great fall read!

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Bantam and NetGalley for the copy

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read a such an incredible story! The different perspectives tied with the story's intricate layers of different genres are perfection.

Get Out meets Sawkill Girls. The verse hits you like a punch in the gut. The best horror book I’ve read this year. Phenomenal.

When Liz returns to her hometown for a friend's wedding, she expects microaggressions and awkward reunions. She definitely isn’t prepared for her friend’s mixed-race daughter, Caroline, to vanish into the woods. Liz soon discovers that Caroline is one of many Black girls in town who have disappeared under strange circumstances. Adams’ debut novel delivers an incisive gut-punch with elements of horror and suspense. Fans of Jordan Peele will love this!

This story began with such promise, but I cannot say the same for the ending.

But what about everything in between?

I love novels that make statements about social issues, such as race and class, as Jackal aimed to do, but those statements need to be carefully illustrated within the story. In this, the narrator consistently informs the reader of the issues, never allowing us to discern anything for ourselves. I feel this is an ineffective way to communicate what should be a powerful message.

What really did the story in for me, however, was the ending. I do wish this book had been either a serial killer story or a supernatural one, not both. Even so, neither aspect worked very well for me, but I suppose I could have lived with the serial killer conclusion. The rest was, in my opinion, wholly absurd. And after an entire book of telling, rather than showing, it’s especially odd to me that symbolism was suddenly inserted. It was all very strange and while strange isn’t always equivalent to bad, this was certainly not a good strange.

I do not want to go without mentioning how much I appreciated the backstory for each missing girl, as I do think it was important for the reader to get to know each young lady. I think the author did well developing these characters without spending so much time on them that it robbed from the suspense of the current day mystery.

Erin E. Adams has a keen understanding of prejudice and injustice. I am sure this story will prove more meaningful for some readers, even if it’s not quite how I like to see social commentary carried out. It’s certainly a creative novel that took me by surprise and I’m curious to see what the author puts out next into this world.

I am immensely grateful to Bantam Books and NetGalley for my digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

There's something rancid in Liz's hometown. The wedding of her dear friend Mel drags her back there, but when she sees the ceremony is at the wood's edge, she almost flees. When she was a teenager, the only other Black girl in school got snatched from a party in the forest. They found her with her heart cut out. Liz's terror of the woods redoubles when Mel's daughter Caroline vanishes into it after the ceremony. No one else wants to see the pattern of missing Black girls, so Liz must face this horror on her own. Urgent and deftly terrifying.

Wow, I was blown away by this story!

Quick summary: Liz Rocher returns to her very white hometown of Johnstown, PA only because her best friend is getting married and only for 48 hours. When a child disappears in the woods, Liz realizes she knows more about what's happening than she's ready to admit. She decides to stop escaping the past and take some hard looks at her former town discovering that there are many more missing girls whose disappearances and murders were never solved because they were Black and therefore allowed to be discarded.

There's a lot going on in Jackal. The narrative changes perspectives, it shifts genres, and there's perhaps slightly more misdirection than necessary. I thought the ending was very clever although I certainly feel like I need to reread it to fully understand what happened in just a few pages. There's one character who manages to slip away twice in the story, and I'm not sure why either time, especially at the end.

Still, it's a page turner with social commentary that's not to be missed. And I appreciated the Author's Note at the end because Johnstown has a difficult history when it comes to race and class that's a horror all too familiar.

This was an ambitious novel. Part mystery, part sci-fi, part history, partly political. Its a lot for one story line with not many characters. It was interesting, even if it wasn't my favorite. I am not sure on the end. The first 85% reads mostly like a historical mystery. But the end. Is just bizarre and also a little too quick . Felt a bit like 2 or 3 book ideas smooshed into 1.

While attending a high school party in the woods, Liz Rocher’s friend, Keisha disappeared and was found days later ripped apart with her heart removed. Something attacked Liz that night, she has the scars to prove it. Unsure what really happened that night, her memories are a bit hazy. Hesitant Liz returns home as a bridesmaid in her friend’s wedding. At the reception, she’s put in charge to watch her friend’s child who disappears. Now everyone becomes a suspect. Liz discovers that at every summer’s solstice, a Black girl goes missing. Stay away from the woods. You won’t like what you find. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC.

Jackal was great! In this mystery thriller, Liz Rocher's best friends daughter goes missing. As Liz searches for Caroline, she learns of a thirty year history of young Black girls going missing in her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. I loved how Adams combines history, fiction, and the supernatural. It was so hard to put down and kept me up at night.

Thank you to Random House - Ballantine and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Jackal by Erin E. Adams is an adult thriller and horror novel focused on Black characters. The story revolves around Liz, a Black woman who is returning to her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. When a Black girl goes missing, Liz realizes that there's a pattern that no one else is noticing. Black girls and women are going missing and dying. Can she figure out what is going on?

Here is an enchanting excerpt from the opening chapter:

"Tanisha Walker loved the stars. She didn't memorize the paths of the cosmos or their patterns. She just loved the look of them. The fact that she could see them so clearly was the only part she liked about moving to a town as small as Johnstown. Her husband told her their daughter would be safe. After all, the only place safer than the suburbs was the middle of nowhere. They'd moved because he'd gotten a job at the steel mill. With the finite resource running low, he was brought in to help put the place to rest...
Upon arriving, Tanisha didn't trust the place. If pressed, she couldn't say why. The best answer she could give was: It felt too safe."

Overall, Jackal is an adult novel that will appeal to fans of thrillers who enjoy a horror twist. One highlight of this book is that it is an #ownvoices novel focused on Black characters. I think that it's so important to support Black authors, especially during this time. I did take off 1 star, because I totally didn't understand the ending. I had to look up other reviews to see if I was the only one or if others had this problem also. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of horror in general, I recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in October!

The Jackal (Erin E. Adams) is a multi-layered story about a serial killer but also about friendships and trust. The Jackal takes place in a small town, so many girls missing for so many years should have set off all kinds of alarms. Some of the missing were classified as runaways and because no body was found it stayed that way. At the end the tale kind of goes off the rails, but still a good story. I want to thank NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an early copy to review.

Excellent read!

Erin E. Adams really delivers the creep factor with this book. The suspense and buildup kept me on the edge of my seat while reading. I loved the timelines switching between past and present as the secret behind why girls go missing in the woods during Summer Solstice is revealed.

There are a lot of intense, scary moments in this book. Being set in the woods, Adams does a fantastic job of making the reader feel like they too are trapped in the woods, in the dark, hearing things all around them and not knowing what to trust with their own senses.

Horror fans will be delighted with this read.

Well written and fast paced. Poignant perspectives on racism and the fallout in small town America across generations.