This exquisite, horrifying, unconventional story about the fear, anger, violence, racism, hate, inequality, poverty, class differences is exemplary masterpiece ! This book is different from any other mash up of horror and thriller stories you’ve read before! This is not just a typical scary story makes you check the monster under your beds. This is about real life monsters hiding behind shadows, feeding by people’s own fears, their good hearts, their insecurities to become a part of the community!

Once upon a time, Liz Rocher was a young black girl, outcast, unique, introvert, looking at the stars to find her way at the darkest time of the night. She looked in the eyes of the real monster and let him attack her. She couldn’t save her friend from becoming another victim of the monster’s massacre. So she finds the easiest way for herself: running away, trying to build a new life in big city.

Now at the age of thirty, Liz is coming to her home, invited to her best friend Mel’s wedding party. Mel who is banned from her family for choosing a black man, getting pregnant from him. But now her family seems like get used the marriage idea with Garrett, building a relationship with their granddaughter Caroline.

Liz is train wreck, breaking up with her fiancée after tragic incident, gained weight, cut her hair, wearing a wig, swore not to take a step into the woods. But now she’s forced to attend the ceremony take place in the center of the woods. That means she has to face her fears.

But she has every right to stay away from the woods because there’s something sinister hiding to hunt black little girls on every summer of solstice since 1985! Now little Caroline is missing! The officers take the DNA and fingerprints of Liz to pin violent incidents occurring in town on her!

She has to face her fears, looking in the mirror to see her true self: she has a target on her back but she has to fight against the biased opinions of townies to help the black mothers who has been grieving for their daughters!

But what if there’s something more terrifying hiding in the darkness that she cannot have enough power to fight against!

The epic, heart throbbing, jaw dropping ending, the thought provoking, mind numbing storytelling blew my mind away!

I’m giving my five stay away from the woods unless you want to deal with a monster with big teeth stars!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/ Ballantine- Bantam for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

This wasnt my typical type of book but i am so glad i read it! What a story! I finished in 2 days. Highly recommend this book.

Wow.

Just. Wow.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and I am so thankful I had an early opportunity to read it. The world needed this book and Erin delivered.

The story follows Liz, who is back in her hometown for her best friend’s Melissa’s wedding. She’s filled with regret and anxiety because home doesn’t bring her peace. It brings back memories of a tragic event that happened in the woods as a teenager. The woods aren’t safe for a black girl and it proves to be true when Mel’s daughter Caroline goes missing.

The search to find Caroline uncovers a deep, dark secret about the woods and young black girls that Liz must uncover to find Caroline.

Mystery, thriller, gore, mixed with the reality of black girls in America. She told our story. The story that doesn’t make tye news. The fears we have to live with. How we have to be extra careful. How shining too bright could put a target on our backs. It’s all reality in our world that the world needs to be aware of.

In a little place called Johnstown black girls go missing and everyone blames it on an unseen monster in the woods. One girl who is now a grown woman named Liz comes back for her friend Melissa‘s wedding. She isn’t excited about coming home again, but she loves her best friend Melissa Melissa‘s little girl Caroline. Melissa is white and Caroline is mixed and her mommy and daddy are getting married. When Liz finds out they’re having the wedding smack dab in the woods she was a little leery. Since it the wedding will be in a big clearing she results herself to see it through and after all it’s for her best friend Mel who she loves like a sister. When Liz tells Mel’s brother Nick that she will keep an eye on Caroline who they call care Bear, she does until she leaves her to run and get them something to drink. Being distracted by Nick the bartender she stays longer than she wanted to and when she arrives back where they were playing the game Caroline is gone. This sets off and already strange visit home for Liz. Not only is she crushed that Caroline is gone but her initial feelings about the family she grew up knowing is getting stronger. She knew Mel’s brother was racist and other people in town were racist, but something keeps nibbling at her brain trying to clue Marin she thinks she finds allies in the whole time or allies were enemies. If she thought Mel’s dad and brother being racist was our biggest issue that will be bigger wants to come before it’s over. I love a good mystery and thriller and this is both of those. I never would’ve guessed the ending not in 1 million years and that makes for a good mystery. There were other things I didn’t like about the book but I’m a let that lie because the goodness overrides all that. I was given this book by Net Galley but I am leaving this review voluntarily. Please forgive any mistakes because I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are definitely my own.

A masterpiece of horror! A woman, Liz, reluctantly returns to her small hometown for her best friends wedding. The woods where the wedding is held holds bad memories for Liz. During the reception her friend’s daughter, Liz’s goddaughter, disappears into the woods and she is not the first black girl to be taken! Not your typical who done it! Themes of small town life, racism, the haves and have nots, and scary local folklore. Rich complex characters drive a well crafted tale. A perfect read for fans of early Stephen King or Joe Hill.

I was drawn to Jackal because I am familiar with Johnstown, PA and with the racial divide in small Pennsylvania towns. The book does give a good description of the setting and atmosphere of Johnstown.

I wanted to be more involved with the story, but I didn't connect to the characters well and the horror twist felt out of place as I was expecting a realistic reason for the missing women. That said, the book brings the important topics of racism and the lack of society's interest in missing Black women to light.

I was provided a copy of the book by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I've been trying to find the right words to describe how I feel about this book, but I feel like anything I might say will fall short. Erin E. Adams is nothing short of a genius, and Jackal is nothing short of a masterpiece. Liz Rocher is the type of character that you'll root for until the very end. You might get frustrated at her sometimes, but you'll know where she comes from and hope that she makes it. I've said it before but small towns are some of my favorite settings for horrors and Johnstown delivered. The author manages to explore themes of racism, classism and more while introducing us to the supernatural forces that live in the woods. There are so many twists and turns, and I honestly didn't expect the plot twist. I'm usually good at calling plot twists but didn't suspect it, not even once.

If you're going to pre-order a book this year and you're interested in the horror genre, let it be this one. Jackal seriously won't disappoint.

This book was different that I expected it to be. I'm not sure if it was the synopsis or my expectations but it was definitely not the book for me.

While I did find the social commentary very compelling and enjoyed the idea of the story, the execution didn't work for me. The writing felt very distant and cold - almost curt. The characters never really felt fully developed and they all fell pretty flat.

The cover of this book is absolutely beautiful though!

Wonderful book! A very unique concept and point of view and beautiful writing. I will be looking for this author’s future books and adding them to our “auto purchase” list.

Wow. This book was an incredible debut novel. I was trying to rush through it to get to the conclusion, but trying to pay attention to all the beautiful writing. It was so good I couldn’t figure out how it was going to end. All the characters were so well written and the story was beautiful and horrific at the same time. On top of a mystery, it tackled real life issues. Such as the lack of attention of missing women of color. I can’t get over how fantastic this is.

This book can be read and enjoyed at one level as a suspenseful horror novel.

But it's so much more.

It's dealing with racism and what it is to live as a Black person, especially a Black woman, in the US in the present day and throughout the past century and more and it is not afraid to refer to the impact of Trump's election on how visible and prevalent racism is in America and touches on all of the injustices we've witnessed being done to Black Americans in recent years and historically.

It deals with the very real phenomenon of the lack of interest in or scrutiny of the disappearance of women of color in America. The book deals specifically with the disappearance of young Black girls and women but could easily be applied to the decades-long situation whereby North American indigenous women disappear in alarming numbers without any serious attempt by law enforcement to investigate or find them and very little interest from the media. Missing white woman syndrome is a real thing and it's put under the microscope in this novel.

It addresses poverty and class and uses the Johnstown Flood of 1889 as a lens through which it's viewed - both the event itself (what caused it and who it impacted) and its century-long consequences on the town.

It touches on the #metoo movement as the main character is a survivor of abuse but is afraid to expose that experience because she know that people - including family - will doubt her word.

As a suspenseful horror novel it's terrific. We're teased throughout the book with a range of potential perpetrators in a child abduction and we're constantly wondering if this is human or supernatural evil at work. Or both. The structure worked very well for me - historic disappearances are introduced and they're accompanied by a narrator who feeds into the overall suspense as we wonder who/what it is and how it'll all play out. In tone and approach these sections remind me of some of Stephen King's novels, especially 'The Outsider' where ancient and unknowable evil inserts itself into modern everyday lives. In between, the story of the most recent disappearance plays out.

This is a multi-layered horror novel that can, if you like, be read at a surface level but offers up so much depth and context which makes it so much more valuable.

Stunning jacket, by the way.

This book had me until the end. It was more of the horror genre which sort of lost me. The writing is engaging and kept me reading. Definitely a talented author, just not my cup of tea for content.

Content warning: kidnapping, gore, child death, alcoholism, domestic violence, partner abuse, fatphobia (challenged), anxiety, racism

Liz Rocher returns to her predominantly white town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania to attend her best friend’s wedding. She thought the worst she would have to deal with are micro-aggressions and passive-aggressive reunions with people she hasn’t seen, in some cases, since high school. But when the couple’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing in the world, what unfolds is a race against time and a horrific history of Black girls going missing in the woods every summer for years.

It’s a little bit The Ritual meets Hereditary on a community level, and a lot bit about a divided past that haunts not only the town as a whole but also the characters driving the story.

Liz is going on the unofficial list of my favorite horror protagonists. She’s resourceful and determined. She’s gone through so much but it hasn’t hardened her. The way her struggles with mental health are depicted, especially in the context of being one of the only Black girls in school and having a difficult parent, are so compelling. The relationship with her mother—fraught with perfectionism and cultural and generational gaps—really resonated with me. The love is tough and not simple in the slightest. There’s also the complication of having recently been broken up with while going to celebrate a relationship at a wedding. The emotions are fraught and thorny, though there are moments of tenderness, especially between Liz and Caroline.

I can’t talk specifically about the horror without ruining surprises, but the fears are very real. A Black girl goes missing, our main character becomes a suspect, the police aren’t doing all they can to find the child, and someone starts sending Liz threats the closer she gets to the truth. That being said, the woods around Johnstown are terrifying. The atmosphere is impeccable and the use of onomatopoeia and attention to what’s on the periphery had me tense. Listening to The Hereditary soundtrack while reading probably did not make me feel more relaxed.

It’s a book about emptiness, lack, and desire and how that can lead to destruction, either of self or others. Liz has a void in her that’s dealt with via running away to New York City and alcoholism. There are the gaps left behind each missing and murdered girl. But the book also addresses gaps in the form of differences. Adams deftly handles not only the racial divide in Johnstown but also the class divide. There are layers in each of the scenes where Liz talks to the mothers of the other missing girls. The focus, however, never lets off who and what she is, despite her overall perception of who she isn’t. There’s a self-awareness that not only permeates her characterization, but also addresses Johnstown the town as a character with a fraught backstory.

Overall, if you want to be terrified of the woods while feeling really hard for a community, this is not one to miss.