Skitter

Ezekiel Boone continues his shivery and wildly entertaining homage to classic horror novels with Skitter, the second book in his The Hatching series. There's a reason we're afraid of spiders...


Ezekiel Boone's astonishingly inventive debut, The Hatching, was a terrifying account of an apocalyptic week in which an ancient breed of carnivorous spiders woke from their 10,000-year slumber and caused carnage around the world. Then suddenly they started to die in waves, leaving shattered human survivors to take a deep, relieved breath, and begin to clean up the mess and rebuild their lives. But spider expert Melanie Guyer, and the crisis team the US president and her chief of staff has assembled around her, are pretty sure that this isn't the last they've seen of these eight-legged predators. Something else is coming, something connected to the eerie stashes of glowing white eggs the spiders left in places like LA's Staples Center--something very very bad.
     Something that will test the capacity of the entire human race to survive.

Praise for The Hatching, Book 1 in The Hatching series: 

“What Peter Benchley did for sharks, James Herbert did for rats and Michael Crichton did for dinosaurs, Ezekiel Boone does for those eight-legged freaks that lurk in dark corners of our houses. The Hatching is a full-throttle pulse-pounder that will keep you up all night feverishly flipping its pages—and make you check for webs spun under your bed before you reluctantly turn off the lights.” —Nick Cutter, author of The Troop and The Deep 

“The Hatching is old school global plague horror of the freakiest sort. A deft and nasty thriller.” —Andrew Pyper, author of The Damned and The Demonologist

“Ezekiel Boone spins a terrifying yarn about the reawakening of a long-dormant race of predatory and carnivorous spiders in The Hatching.” —Quill & Quire 

“This novel should come with a warning label: The Hatching is scary as hell and addictively fun. Check your sheets, spray your basement and attic, flinch away from anything that scurries, because Ezekiel Boone has spun a globe-spanning web of terror that elevates everyone's favourite household baddie—the spider—to the level of supervillain.” —Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands, Red Moon, and The Wilding

“Monsters, mad science and meat-munching mayhem. . . . Boone weaves believable dialogue and characterizations into an apocalyptic extravaganza of doom and heroism. . . . [An] addictive literary assault.” —Publishers Weekly

“It’s been too long since someone reminded us that spiders are not just to be feared, but also may well spell doom for mankind. Fortunately, Ezekiel Boone has upped the ante on arachnophobia. This is a fresh take on classic horror, thoroughly enjoyable and guaranteed to leave your skin crawling.” —Michael Koryta, author of Those Who Wish Me Dead
 
“You know those people who claim spiders are more afraid of us than we are of them? When it comes to The Hatching, they lied. Great gory fun—and creepy, in every sense of the word.” —John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker mysteries

“[I] feel like I’m itching everywhere after reading this brilliant, creepy and thrilling first novel in Ezekiel Boone’s new trilogy. It reads like a love child between Stephen King and Michael Crichton. . . . In a rarity for this type of novel, with so many intersecting storylines and different characters, I enjoyed almost every person that Boone depicted with such elegant skill. . . . I’m eagerly awaiting the next novel in the series.” —Doves Falling

“One of [Stephen] King’s greatest talents as a writer is his ability to ground his horror in genuine human emotion, and that’s something Boone manages to achieve here. . . . I can’t wait to see what new horrors Boone conjures up for the second instalment.” —Crazy Genre Town 

“[The Hatching] is nothing like any other arachnophobic terror trip you’ve ever taken. . . . Boone bounces around from place to place and character to character with the confidence and adeptness of a major player in the horror industry. . . . He has an aptitude with character-driven story and dialogue-driven action and plot development that is unsurpassed—even unmatched—by few modern masters of the genre. Boone writes like a man possessed, his plot as twisted and tangled as the Peruvian jungle but never confusing, the storyline never falling off track as he guides you on an apocalyptic horror fest through a world being rapidly consumed by a plague unlike anyone’s ever prepared for. . . . If Boone stays on track and continues to produce this level of quality fiction, it won’t be surprising to hear his name mentioned in company with Brian Keene and Stephen King on a regular basis. . . . If you’re looking for a story that will truly scare the hell out of you and skitter around the inside of your skull long after you’ve read the last word, you’ve found it in The Hatching.” —This is Horror