Morsel by Carter Keane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Morsel, debut novella from Carter Keane, is the kind of horrific fun you can only have in the isolated mountains with an unknown evil, insane thoughts in your head, and a loyal pup by your side. It doesn’t hurt that the dog is also a pitbull rescue, just like my own puppy boy. (And don’t worry while there is lots of death and gore in this, the dog technically survives, as guaranteed in the introduction by the author).
A quick little romp that looks at the evil of capitalism, soul sucking jobs (bosses and coworkers) and spins it all together before spitting it out in the middle of the mountains with a cult on the side. I don’t want to give too much away, so let’s just say this folk horror story wallops a big punch in the end and has a divine twist.
I mostly enjoyed it, especially the narration of the audiobook. The pacing varies as the story does, and the narrator does a beautiful job of making it clear who is speaking and when.
The part of this novel that didn’t work so well, especially in audio, are the little interludes and snippets of backstory in phone text or podcast format. Normally I love that (see Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie for an amazing use of this kind of found footage approach), in Morsel it felt like an unnecessary addition and a late stage evil monologue could have easily summarized the key points in the end. Maybe if the story was longer it might have worked, but at only 187 pages it felt unnecessary.
That said, at the end of the day, this is a good gory horror fest with fun use of horror tropes, a creative twist, and a super sweet dog. Most important, of course, is the dog a lovely pitty named Riley who isn’t vicious or mean (thank you to Keane for not perpetuating the stereotype of our poor pit bulls who are made out to be menaces that almost none are!).
Pick Morsel up for a quick romp in blood and guts.
Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.
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