Hi everyone! I hope you are all surviving the intense summer heat. I can barely focus most days. Anyways, I wanted to give a nice short review while I put off the longer books that I am reading currently. I promise that I’ll get there eventually. Before I begin this review, I recommend that you check out my review of the previous two books in this series, as well as the rest of my T. Kingfisher reviews. Now, let’s talk about What Stalks the Deep.

Content Warning: Distrubing Imagery, Animal Death, Violence, Gore

Former soldier Alex Easton has seen enough for a lifetime. They have no desire to venture into any more strange and mysterious places where God-only-knows-what lurks in the dark. It seems that fate has a sick sense of humor. When a good friend asks for Alex’s help finding his lost cousin, they can’t bring themself to say no. Unfortunately, that means having to go to America, of all places. Even worse, his friend’s cousin went missing deep in the mines of West Virginia. Alex is a soldier, though, and will find this missing man, even if it means facing the otherworldly once again.

T. Kingfisher’s newest entry in this horror novella series is an utterly fascinating and thrilling read in a rather quirky way. I personally think that eco-horror is an underrated genre, so getting a book like this feels like a breath of fresh air in the current literary scene. Kingfisher is great at creating distinctive character voices that feel close enough to realistic to make the characters relatable. As the narrative voice, Alex Easton is a bemusing main character with actual survival instincts (which is kind of rare in horror novels). What I love about Kingfisher’s horror novels is just how creative the actual horror is. At no point in the novel did I figure out what the twist was, which made it all the more enjoyable. With that being said, if you need a quick chilling read during these hot summer days then definitely read The Sworn Soldier series.