Wow! I thought this was fantastic. While the writing style was different it worked for me. I thought the violence that Nick and his brother were raised with was nuts. Talk about toxic masculinity. As the story creeps on it becomes pretty clear who Emilia is. Still, I found it so clever and shocking, I can't wait to read more by this writer.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and MacMillan Audio (#MacAudio) for the ARC/ALC!

When Nick left home, he never expected his abusive father to invite him back to their Nebraskan farm. But neither Nick nor his brother, Joshua, who has been disowned for marrying an Asian woman, can ignore their father’s request, as he is dying and hoping to reconcile with his sons. Joshua quickly falls into a routine with their father, while Nick ends up earning special interest from his brother’s wife, Emilia. It doesn’t take long for Nick to wonder if Emilia’s interest is more sinister than heartfelt.

Considered supernatural horror, “Sacrificial Animals” contained everything I love in a horror book! The instant feeling of unease and darkness looming drew me in quickly. I found the use of flashbacks to Nick and Joshua’s childhood to be the perfect way to dig into their past; the use of dual timelines worked very well. I also loved learning more about Chinese mythology, and seeing how the author drew from her own experiences was really cool too. I was fascinated by the character of Emilia, and I felt the pacing always picked up when she was the focal point.

The author also tackled the dark topics of racism, homophobia and childhood trauma in such a respectful way as well. Those topics were all interwoven into the story in such a way that this also read like literary fiction to me. Overall, a deeply atmospheric and spooky read, “Sacrificial Animals” is not one to miss!

This story is out now! This review will be shared to my Instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) shortly )

I had such high hopes for this book. I love atmospheric horror. I adore when the atmosphere itself feels like a character. Like a presence. And I really enjoyed finding these devices in this story.

What didn't work for me in this story was mostly the writing style. I feel as though the prose really bogged the story down at times and the plot felt very sluggish. I found myself getting bored waiting for something to actually happen. It is well over the halfway mark that the plot actually starts to really get moving, and in my opinion, even what was meant to be the climax of the story wasn't enough for me to justify reading through so many slow points.

The author also chooses not to use quotation marks to identify dialogue which I respect as a stylistic choice, but their were instances where it was difficult to differentiate between what was dialogue and what wasn't.

Overall this book wasn't totally my cup of tea, but it did have aspects that I enjoyed, so I would say that if you enjoy atmospheric horror and are okay with a slower story, I would give this a shot.

In Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen, it is becoming more difficult for Nick Morrow to understand the truth about himself or his family.

Sometimes the enemy is not who or what you think it is. It can be hiding in plain sight, disguised by a friendly face.

Nick thought he had things figured out to some extent. Then after many years away, he returns to the family farm in Nebraska, Stag’s Crossing. It sounds like it should be a lovely reunion with his father, brother and sister-in-law.

Unfortunately, his father, Carlyle, is a racist, abusive tyrant. He is practically on his death bed with a very short time to live. Carlyle wants to make things right with both of his sons. He even makes peace with his daughter-in-law, Emilia, who he had called derogatory names and banned from the farm years ago.

Emilia is a person of Asian descent. Her heritage was the reason that the father banished his son, Joshua, from the farm. Emilia was so kind to her father-in-law which was unexpected. I don’t know if anyone that I know would have been so forgiving.

Nick begins to think about some of the harsh lessons that his father tried to teach him. One of the lessons was about killing the fox that was in the henhouse. This lesson comes back to haunt him in the present. I wish that I could tell you more but it was a surprise.

Personally, I enjoyed the mystery of what was happening at the farm. Everything is not what is seems when the sons and Emilia make their return. Nick and Emilia become involved in a romantic relationship which seems sort of strange.

The father seems so harsh about killing the fox. He is all about self-preservation, maybe to a fault. I don’t think he’s wrong about the fox. It’s just difficult to see beyond his faults to really listen to him.

If you like thrillers and mysteries, then you will love Sacrificial Animals. If you are on the foxes side, I’m not sure if you will enjoy this book. Foxes are so tricky. Who can say what they really want besides whatever hens are in the henhouse.

For me this book is very confusing. The writing style of the author is captivating and easy to read, the main problem is with the story. I cannot grasp the story line or just my mind drifts off since the topic is not really interesting. It's a very slow horror literary fiction (but this you will realize, when you are about 3/4 into the book) daddy issues are taking main part of the story, toxic masculinity, and Chinese folklore.

Sacrificial Animals is about the two brothers Joshua and Nick, twins whose mother died at childbirth. They grew up with their abusive father Carlyle on Stag's Crossing which is a farm.
There is a lot of killing of the animals in the woods going on, but so far I have no clue what this has to do with the story line.
Joshua gets married with Emily, who is not according to Carlyle's liking since she is Asian (Chinese if I understood correctly) and therefore he disinherit him and they stop talking. This relationship is renewed when Carlyle is diagnosed with the cancer and Nick askes Joshua to come back to the farm. When the family is reunited under the roof once again, Nick has an affair with Emilia and learns she isn't what she seems.

This story in no way is for me a horror story as I do not feel the eerie atmosphere, which is completely lacking. The creepy atmosphere is lacking, although parts involving animal death can be partially considered here, but they did not bring the effect on me.
Most of the book is set in parts of THEN and NOW, so the story goes from present and retells the past about the Carlyle and his childhood on the farm as well. It takes a long time until the horror starts and until then all we get is an unsettling and disgruntling literary fiction about family drama and daddy issues. Therefore this was a super slow book for me and it took me long time to read through it. Around the 80% the story picked up super quickly and it became very good (but sometimes people do not invest so much time, if they are bored for so long). The ending was crazy and it made it all worth it.

I like the revenge aspect in the story and am waiting how will that develop. I enjoyed the writing style of this author and ending was great. I would most probably never choose this book, if I wouldn't be approached via Netgalley. I am thankful for the opportunity to read this ARC.

3.5 stars.
The murder of two fox pups at the novel’s opening sets the tone for this novel: dark, visceral, vicious.

The Morrow men are repellent: one by design (the father Carlyle), taking anything he wants and beating and killing anything that defies him, the sons, Joshua and Nick, abused into pale copies of their father, though the younger Nick retains a little softness despite his father’s years of cruelty.


Carlyle calls his sons back to Stag's Crossing, the name of the rural Nebraska farm he established through hard work, and a financially useful marriage. Nick has been living and working in New York as a literary critic, while the older Joshua, and former golden boy, has been living far from home and working at a bank since he was driven away and disowned by Carlyle for marrying Emilia, an unacceptable woman, i.e., a Chinese American.

The family congregate at Stag's Crossing, with Carlyle on good behaviour, Nick's intense fascination for Emilia rekindled, and Joshua is brought back into the fold by a magnanimous patriarch. Each family interaction, however, is filled with tension, which only builds as Nick finds himself pushed back into a less important role while Carlyle and Joshua reconnect, with Joshua beginning to revert to his pre-Emilia levels of intolerance, dominance, and dismissiveness, of Nick and increasingly Emilia. Nick and Emilia also begin a clandestine, intense and intimate relationship. At the same time, author Kailee Pedersen goes back and forth in time to when Nick was a child to moments that would make him the adult he now is, and show us the constant cruelty that Carlyle dispensed to his growing children and to any and all wildlife in the area.

Pedersen lays little clues, right from the beginning of the novel, that hint at terrible things to come for the Morrows, while also touching on themes of child abuse, animal cruelty, sexuality, identity and racism. Foxes, and the eradication of them from Stag's Crossing, open the novel, and runs throughout as we see Carlyle and Nick in constant conflict about the creatures, while allusions of impending danger abound, and only escalate with the family reunited after years of isolation.

And even though I knew from the beginning what was likely to happen, I still felt a bit of a thrill when it did, and all the pain and horror that Carlyle had meted out over years came back, big time. Vicious and implacable.

This is a satisfying story, but one that is often difficult to read because of the depicted cruelty and a tendency for the author to repeat some things. The narrative, however, rewards the reader with well-drawn characters, really dysfunctional family dynamics, and much brutality. This won't be for everyone, but if you stick with it, oh that ending is delicious.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

3.5 stars
This is one of those books that left me with too many feelings. Let me preface that while the book is called Sacrificial Animals, I was not entirely prepared for the animal cruelty. There are also some other content warnings to be aware of, like child abuse and racism.

The first part of the book was a bit too slow for me. It was kind of repetitive and the switching between past and present didn't work for me the way I had hoped.

HOWEVER - the book really picks up at around 75% in and from then on it is a wild, fabulous ride. I just wish it had that energy throughout.

A big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy.

This is a difficult review to write because it's one of those times when it's probably not the book, it's me. I was very intrigued by the premise of the book, but somehow it never really grabbed me. It might've been my mood, quite possibly had I read it at another time I'd have been pulled in. But while I enjoyed the writing, and I've never been one that needs to like the characters in books as I read them, I found it especially easy to actively dislike all of these characters. It was hard to find someone to "root for", and therefore I didn't much care what happened to any of them. And since this is a slow-burn of a horror story, it just felt like it took way to long for the horror part to get going (not that there wasn't a fair bit of horror in the flashbacks to hunting scenes and abusive father scenes). In the end I can see how this would appeal to many readers, but it just wasn't for me. On the other hand, I did enjoy Kailee Pedersen's writing style (if not the subject matter) and hope she'll continue writing, I'd definitely be willing to give her future books a try.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing copies for an unbiased review.

I really wanted to love it. The premise was amazing and I was so excited...

It was slow. Like painfully slow. It felt stuffed out to me. There were some really solid elements to the book and had it been about a 1/3 shorter, it would have worked.

It didn't feel like a horror either. There wasn't any suspense building, nothing really scary about it. The characters were decent, I think a lot of the interactions were well written but I was just underwhelmed with the book as a whole.

3 stars

I LOVE books that are rooted in mythology and cultural relevance and this book really delivered for me

It was so unsettling and kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat. I will be looking for more from this author in the future!

This book was really so different from what I was expecting. I was expecting Appalachian horror but this felt a bit more memoir-esque or lit fic. Definitely not BAD just not what I was expecting.

Tense, thrilling, and atmospheric, this is the novel to read if you’re someone who loves books that fill you with a sense of dread, but you somehow can’t put them down. Set in rural Nebraska, Sacrificial Animals follows the Morrow family in two different timelines. At first, the relationship between the two timelines is unclear, but Kailee Pedersen slowly weaves the two together and reveals ghosts left unburied. Chock-full of unforgettable and unlovable characters, Sacrificial Animals is bound to make you squirm.

The hardest thing to navigate with this novel is the writing style. Designed to be stream-of-consciousness(esque), this book is dense. Luckily, the chapters are short and give you lots of stopping places! In addition, the book was just a little too long. It ended up dragging at points and could’ve benefited from being 30-50 pages shorter. Overall, Sacrificial Animals earned a 4/5 ⭐️ from me! It honestly was closer to a 3/3.5 until the very end, so take that as you will.

This book will definitely not be for everyone, so please check the content warnings before diving in. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

Rating: 1.4 leaves out of 5
-Characters: 2.5/5
-Story: 2/5
-Writing: 1.5/5
Genre: Horror, Thriller
-Horror: 0/5
-Thriller: 1/5
Type: Ebook
Worth?: Nah

Want to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.

First things first, that writing was not it. It was like someone who needed to make the word count on their essay so they spew word vomit. Pedersen could have made written this book beautifully if she had cut the book in half. She could have kept the writing style minus majority of the words. Making this into a novella or short story would have done wonders.

I didn't find this to really be horrific. I know a lot of people talked about atmosphere and I would like to ask WHERE? Was it in the woods? The house? I don't know but I sure couldn't find it. I would say the same with the thrill part but it was so minor.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand what Pedersen was trying to tell us but it got lose in the sea of useless words.

Diving from that, some aspects reminded me of The Only Good Indians. Then again mythology and folklore often do tend to meet a point every now and again.

This was a horror that was so slow that it changed its genre during reading. The feeling of fear or edge of your seat scare just is lacking. I was given so much time to ponder that I had the plot figured out.

I will not be rating this book outside of netgalley and only doing so here to protect my percentage.

⭐️⭐️/5
This one was hard for me. I read this as an ARC and it’s released now. New author to me. The cover looked interesting and so did the synopsis. I don’t like posting negative reviews, but I also have to be honest!

It’s a slow burn supernatural gothic horror that is inspired by the author’s adoption story from China and raised in Nebraska. It’s a mash-up of small town, farm life following the Morrow family (dad and 2 sons) in an abusive home filled with toxic masculinity and mixed with supernatural Chinese mythology. It explores how violence begets violence in this tale of vengeance. Each chapter goes between now and then and ends in a gruesome climax where the last meets the present.

This book did not hit the mark for me. The writing was verbose. A lot of unneeded imagery. Although there was a strong attempt at making the characters emotionally developed, the execution fell flat to me and they were all very 1 dimensional. A lot of daddy-issues. The mixing of Chinese mythology and small town Nebraska ended up being odd. But my main issue is still the prose. It was very hard to read. I almost DNF’ed and found myself skimming a lot of it and not missing much. :( sorry! 😢 just wasn’t my cup of tea.

An atmospheric
horror with a slow build to
a perfect ending.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️



I write haiku reviews but am happy to provide further feedback!

This was a very interesting and unexpected book! I wasn't entirely sure what to make of this book, but there was an interesting story at its core that kept me engaged. This is a very slow burn type of story that requires some effort to push through at times, but I think is ultimately worth it. I was really fascinated by the blend of Chinese culture and mythology with some American midwestern aspects as well. I really liked learning that some of this was inspired by the author's own experiences, as that always lends an extra layer of authenticity and realism to a story. As mentioned, this is a slow burn that at times felt hard to get through, but I think Pedersen's prose really kept me hooked on both the story and simply wanting to read more from her, and for that reason I had an overall positive experience with this book.

Sacrificial Animals is a man giving up on his children by failing them miserably but yet expects their life long respect and obedience. I live on the Nebraska border and one thing all midwesterners feel at some point in their lives is leaving and never coming back. But then as we grow we see where we come from is a part of us.
Josh and Nick are tied to eachother, the land, their family yet they never can fully cut any ties.
But don’t be fooled this is NOT contemporary literature. It is dark and twisty, explores shame and guilt, LGBTQ and how it differs from small town to city life. And just an overall eerie feeling.
When you see an old abandoned farm house on a country road and get a weird feeling just driving by it?
Yeah, that.
Stunning horror novel disguised as speculative fiction.

Sacrificial Animals is a horror story told in dual timelines, narrated throughout by the younger brother Nick. It starts slowly with the story of two brothers, Joshua and Nick, raised by their father on an isolated 1000-acre estate after the death of their mother. Their father is a brutal man, who physically and mentally abuses both boys. The first 80% of the book is devoted to this abuse of the two boys, who escape as adults, and vow never to return. It is a graphic and upsetting, and often slow read. When the two brothers and Joshua's wife, Emilia, finally return to the home when the father is dying, the true horrific purpose of the story becomes evident. It is quite a chilling ending to a book that sheds light on both an ancient myth, and the modern-day horror of child abuse and animal cruelty. This is not an easy read, with an overly long narrative, but it is definitely thought provoking. Thank you to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy. The opinions of this review are my own.

"Sacrificial Animals" by Kailee Pedersen is an astounding and chilling debut novel. I went into this book completely blind; I didn't read a thing about it beforehand. At first I thought it was a story about a father and his two sons, with a healthy dose of toxic masculinity and abuse, and it was that. But when the mysterious and incredibly beautiful wife of one son enters the story, I soon came to realize that this book was so much more than a family saga.

This book is a slow build and switches back and forth between the past and the present, adding to the suspense. The writing is cerebral and I would classify this work as 'literary horror.' The ending is very dark, gory, and definitely not for queasy readers. The mixture of Chinese mythology and good old-fashioned white America's love of violence and control made for a unique read for sure.

"Sacrificial Animals" is a creepy, atmospheric read and Kailee Pederson is definitely a writer to watch. Fans of "The Only Good Indians" by Stephen Graham Jones (one of my favorite authors) will not want to miss this one!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the privilege of reading an advanced copy of this spectacular debut!