The world is not your fucking friend, and it will never be. That's why you stand up and fight for you and yours - always...
Then you fight for whatever you have left that you love. You fight for Leo, you fight for your dog, and you fight for the fucking clothes on your back..."

I enjoyed reading this. I always like me a good werewolf story and this one ticked a lot of boxes. It is well written. I loved the historical and rural setting. The description of the werewolf is detailed and vivid.
It starts out great but somewhere in the middle of the story I felt like there was too much going on. The main characters go through a lot and I was rooting for them yet I felt like I didn't know enough to either like them or hate them.
I'll be waiting for the next installment where I hope a lot will be explained.

I love a good historical horror; being able to view these historical time periods through the lense of the creepy and disturbing is a great way to trick someone into learning while they are entertained. This book doesn't disappoint in that department.

Finn does a fantastic job of laying the historical foundations of the setting and characters without causing a wall of info overload; showing the class struggles and tension of a country on the brink of a collapse in the frame of a small village town during a height of panic. He is able to weave these contexts into the scenes while keeping the reader interested. Having these histories as part of the conflicts between these characters adds a deeper layer for the reader to connect with.

The violence and gore are so visceral and horrible. I love how vivid every description is; with every goey detail included that just makes your stomach turn. And the long stretch in the middle made me almost forget what kind of book this was before it made me really regret that I forgot with it's brutality.

Absolutely incredible, thank you NetGalley and Anuci Press for this ARC!

In Obrechen, a nineteenth century rural Russian town, a vicious wolf stalks the townspeople. But this is no ordinary wolf - it is able to easily outsmart their traps, and is bigger, stronger, and more violent than any wolf the town has ever encountered before.

What I liked:
- There is some revenge horror here - the ‘bad guys’ really get what they deserve, which is very satisfying!
- I really enjoyed everything about the werewolves!
- The main characters were likable, I was really rooting for them.


What didn’t work for me:
- While I liked the characters, I didn’t feel emotionally connected to them. I prefer to feel a bit closer to characters when reading, so this is more of a personal preference than a failing of the author.
- The pacing felt off to me. A good chunk of the book felt slow. Things really picked up towards the end of the book (the last 20%ish was exciting and engaging), but it ended in a way that wasn’t satisfying. The ending isn’t BAD, it just feels incomplete, presumably because a second book is planned that will pick up after the events of the first book.

Thank you to Anuci Press and Jack Finn for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Prey Upon me Lambs is a story about a ragtag group of misfits living in a rural Russian town in the 1800s. Leo is physically disabled, Galina is a lesbian, Alexei is a Jew, Oksana is a young woman and Bogdan is a stranger and foreigner, and the locals in this quaint farming town fucking hate these odd ducks.
Depsite or because of being loathed and ostracized, this group becomes friends--the ride or die type of friends.

The story follows our aforementioned gang, but also delves into the political landscape. There's also a terrible wolf creature that is killing townsfolk. There is a turd war going up the power ladder as everyone believes they know best as how to get rid of the wolfbeast. As the wolf goes on killing spree, we wonder who is safe from the wolf?
I really had a good time reading this one. It read like a '90s creature features rented from Blockbuster on a Friday night. The characters were well developed, even for a smaller book with a larger cast. The gang I speak of were a fun bunch to tag along with, even though most of their time on the page is spent being kinda devastated by bad shit happening to them. The antagonists were fun to read as well. While their actions seemed a bit excessive given their motivations, I also reminded myself this is in Russia before 1900. So it probably makes sense.
I did finish this one and didn't realize it's the first book in a duology. The story ended abruptly, which confused me at first, but giving it some thought I ended up liking the ambiguity. Thinking the beginning was a bit vague in how it pointed the finger. So the end did the same. But then I read there's a second half coming and it made more sense. Even though I'd accepted it as a standalone book with a mysterious ending, I look forward to finding out certain aspects that remained hidden.

Jack Finn’s Prey Upon the Lambs is a chilling, beautifully rendered tale of folklore, fear, and survival set against the haunting backdrop of a crumbling Czarist Russia. Blending historical fiction with gothic horror, Finn crafts a werewolf story that feels both timeless and eerily specific, rooted in the brutal realities of 19th-century village life and the supernatural dread of an unknowable predator.

Set in the snow-draped village of Obrechen, the novel opens with a series of grisly killings not of livestock, but people — torn apart by what locals fear is no ordinary wolf. The creature’s cunning evades even the most experienced hunters, and as winter deepens, so too does the sense of collective dread. The specter of violence hangs heavy over the village, mirrored by the fading days of imperial rule and the growing shadows of societal unrest.

At the heart of the narrative is Galina Sekova, the intelligent and quietly defiant mistress of a Countess, who has been exiled to the outskirts of Obrechen. Accompanied by a perceptive young servant girl and an orphaned Jewish boy cast adrift by the pogroms, Galina becomes an unlikely heroine. Their attempt to uncover the wolf’s origin is not only a hunt for survival, but a confrontation with prejudice, myth, and the traumas buried beneath the snow.

Finn’s prose is atmospheric and evocative, steeped in Russian folklore and tinged with a kind of poetic bleakness. The horror elements are slow-burning and psychological, with violence that is sudden and brutal, but never gratuitous. Like Brotherhood of the Wolf, the novel balances mystery and monster with sharp social commentary — particularly on scapegoating, power, and the dangerous human need to assign blame in times of crisis.

Prey Upon the Lambs is more than just a werewolf novel. It’s a meditation on otherness, loss, and resilience in a world where monsters come in many forms — some of them wearing human faces. Gritty, haunting, and richly atmospheric, this is a must-read for fans of literary horror and historical thrillers alike.

As the story develops you really start to build an understanding of the characters and how they play a part in each other's lives.

The description of the environment seems gothic and at times dreary but also pleasant in others really setting the mood of the context of what you are reading, very atmospheric. You can get an understanding of the beliefs and culture of the people and how they are led by suspicion and bias.

The story is interesting and has you gripped from the beginning. You really get invested in some of the characters and loath others. There are interesting developments in the story and it has you invested in knowing the outcome for the characters. I

found the ending a bit abrupt. I wished there was a bit more to how the story played out so that there was closure for some characters, but could possibly follow in in the next book.

I really enjoyed the descriptions of the beast itself. It was truly terrifying. I also just noticed it was book 1. My hope is that in book 2 there will be answers for the questions that I have. Because of this ending, the book got a lower rating. Too many things left chaotic. I love werewolves but maybe this isn't for me. I desire retribution for my beloved characters.

Amazing!! I can't wait until the continuing book is released. This story is compelling, horrifying and oh so wonderful! Come on September, arrive soon!

I would like to thank Anuci Press and Jack Finn for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
3 Stars

As winter looms, a wolf of unusual size and intelligence descends upon the rural nineteenth-century Russian village of Obrechen. Forgoing local livestock, the beast preys upon human victims, confounding the local constabulary and hunters, whose efforts to kill the beast meet with disaster.

The village priest blames the wolf's deprivations on the presence of Galina Sekova, and other unfortunates. Will they be able to change their fate or are they doomed to be at the mercy of more than wolves?

This was more a story about the town and the "wolf attacks" within it then it was about any one particular character. We get to know the gritty inside and out of Obrechen and it's colorful and often times callous and sanctimonious residents. This is a story about survival and what can happen when someone decides to take fate into their own hands. Sometimes life does not give us the grace we ask for and in this novel we see how the good try to survive the odds and the bad continuously try to subjugate those around them.

I must say I do not think this book was for me. The pacing was slow, and just when I thought it would pick up it would slow right back down again. This novel seems like it's constantly setting up for the next book, for a bigger event that just never arrives in this book, or at least arrives too late for me to feel invested.

The biggest complaint I have is there were just way too many characters. We see things from so many points of view it's hard not to get lost. (I admit as a monolingual American I had a harder time remembering the more Russian names and getting them confused with one another quite often). This is why I say the town is the main character. Everyone is slowly congregating to Obrechen on account of the wolf attacks but due to being in so many heads I found it hard to care too much about any one particular character.

It is far from a bad book, it had some great moments and a few characters I felt for genuinely, but I do not think this is a series I will personally be continuing.

[4 stars]

Near the end of Tsarist Russia, Prey Upon the Lambs brings us to the cold rural village of Obrechen. Tension is high in this superstitious land, a well taken care of woman who is assumed to be the secret consort of the nearby Count has recently moved into a secluded cabin, visited by the Count’s carriage every few weeks. Alexei, a teenager orphaned a few years ago at the hands of an antisemitic mob, is getting into more and more fights. And, there are wolves attacking the little livestock the village has.

This is the worst of it, until the wolves begin to solely attack humans. Until the bodies of these humans are desecrated in ways that do not resemble the average wolf attack. Until the villagers realize that it’s actually only one wolf.

This book is haunting. We experience the story through rotating point of views, often sitting with one character for only a single chapter and never again (though, mostly, we stay with our central few characters). Through the eyes of the protagonists, antagonists, and the wolf itself, we feel the growing sense of horror in the air. This format works well, as it lets the reader learn things that some of the other characters are not yet aware of. The tension is raised in these moments, with the same feeling of “get out of there!” that a good horror movie invokes when we see the killer over a character’s shoulder.

The atmosphere of this book is wonderful. It is dark, dangerous, and bitingly cold. The diversity in everyone’s relationships with each other are believable and well-integrated into the story. Descriptions are done extremely well and paint a vivid picture of the scenes in my mind as I read. This is a superstitious rural village under attack by something. Reading the story and how everyone interacts with each other, It feels like that at every moment.

Action scenes are terrifying and visceral with how easily the wolf overpowers its victims. Most of the fights are from the point of view of one of the victims, and we feel with them how absolutely hopeless it is to fight this thing. They are just the right amount of drawn out without going into torture territoy. This is definitely not an extreme horror novel, but the scenes of the wolf attacks are gory (though not excessively so or drawn out unnecessarily - it’s the perfect amount for this type of story I feel). Just the right amount of total action scenes so that they keep you on your toes, but never too many that it becomes predictable.

I really like the mentions of real history (fact and rumor) and folklore mentioned throughout this book. The mention of assassinations of Tsars of the near past, the presence of the Cossacks, and the tale of Prince Vseslav are all instances of this that really help stick to the time period and pastoral location of the story. Good for the atmosphere and reinforcing the superstition of the characters. It also was not something I expected in this story, but really appreciated and enjoyed as a second layer underneath the rest of it.

I feel that this story was missing a true emotional core. Yes, many characters are attacked/die throughout, including those that I did not expect to be, but most of them are not characters that you grow attached to. Most are memorable, yes, but obsessing over those beyond the main few is not expected. What we have of a core is the relationship between Galina and Mali (the Countess), Galina and Oshkana, Alexei and Leo, and Alexei and Oshkana. Though all of their dynamics are interesting, I never felt as though any of these relationships were the emotional core of the novel. Maybe the second in this duology will rectify that by building further off of what we have, but at this point it’s not quite there for me.

Building off of this further, all characters are either immediately good or bad. The good characters are such good people and the bad ones immediately are horrible. Some characters are allowed to be slightly more in the grey area (including those we know little about such as the Romonov’s huntsman and his ensemble). Alexei is supposed to be one of those, I feel, but really he’s not. He gets into fights, yes, but the reasons for fights of his we learn are all noble (to protect Oshkana, etc.). Even his choice regarding the tavern is honestly justified all things considered. Maybe slightly nitpicky, but it was something that I noticed pretty early on and never quite shook.

This one is definitely nitpicky and more of just a comment, so it doesn’t affect my review, but there are some weird, out of place descriptions used:

“bring its balled fist down on his forearm, splintering the bone as the /compound fracture/ tore through the skin,” “The bullet severely damaged [character’s] /brachial plexus/, the bundle of nerves that carry signals…”and “the massive, well-padded paw, with its complex series of /mechanoreceptor cells/, could sense delicate changes in pressure as the creature's heartbeat ceased.”

The phrases between "//" feel overly specific and, to me, took me out of the otherwise excellent action scenes. I had to pause at them for a second or two before moving on. I didn’t hate them as a stylistic choice, but every time they made me pause.

Set up and execution is done well. So many little things brought up early on come to a head in some form in this book. A fine example of Chekhov's Gun being executed so well. Nothing comes completely out of the blue. While there are a few things that are left unresolved (the dynamite charges are still set up!) I imagine that we will get our comeuppance in the sequel.

I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would. I don’t think I have ever read a true werewolf book before, barely any movies either now that I think about it, and this was a fine introduction to them beyond the basics of popular culture that I grew up with. A very strong first half to a story that I’m not so sure needed to be split into two separate books, though we will see with the release of the second later this year! Definitely a very tense, atmospheric, violent, and entertaining book that I greatly recommend.

Eerie, poetic, and deeply atmospheric, Prey Upon the Lambs is a haunting descent into the frostbitten heart of 19th-century rural Russia. As a brutal winter settles over the isolated village of Obrechen, a predator unlike any other begins to stalk the land—not a mere animal, but something uncanny. A wolf of startling intelligence and size targets human victims, and the townspeople’s efforts to stop it spiral into chaos and bloodshed.

At the story’s emotional center is Galina Sekova, a woman of grace and mystery, shunned for her status as the Countess of Kalinin’s mistress. She is blamed by the local priest for the wolf’s horrors. With only a sharp-witted village girl and an orphaned boy by her side, Galina races to unearth the truth behind the beast’s origins before it devours everything.

Every sentence demanded attention. The writing is lush and immersive, soaked in snow and shadow. I found myself pausing to reread passages just to linger in the mood the author had conjured. If you’re drawn to the folkloric dread of books like The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, or the bleak mythic tension of The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid, this will speak to you.

The ending left me breathless and hungry for more. The author has crafted something special here—eerie, elegant, and unforgettable.

Highly recommended for readers who like their fantasy rooted in history, with a touch of horror and a strong emotional core.

*Note: I received the book as an ARC from Netgalley & leaving this review voluntarily

I enjoyed the mystery and the historical aspect. The characters were well-written and I felt immersed in the setting. I’ll definitely read the second book.