Nat Cassidy is at his razor-sharp best again with his horror novel Nestlings, which harnesses the creeping paranoia of Rosemary’s Baby and the urban horror of ‘Salem’s Lot, set in an exclusive New York City residential building.

Ana and Reid need a break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling―with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia, but he can’t explain the needle-like bite marks on their baby.

I consider myself a horror fan, but what I consider horror is child’s play to horror connoisseurs. I like creepy killers, inventive kills, jump scares, and tension that keeps building and building until I can’t breathe. What I don’t enjoy is body horror or detailed gore, and I must admit that this one bordered on being a bit much for me when it came to some of the descriptions, though overall, I really enjoyed the plot, and the characters are great.

The book focuses on a married couple, Ana and Reid. They are new parents and live in a small apartment, renting from a horrible slum lord. To make matters worse, Ana was paralyzed while giving birth to her daughter and now requires a wheelchair to get around. She’s stressed, doing her best to adjust to wheelchair use, a new baby, and physical therapy. When Ana and Reid find out that they’ve won a housing lottery and have been chosen to move into a very upscale apartment, they jump at the chance. Sure, the apartment is on an upper floor, and there are things that will be difficult for Ana, but it’s a beautiful apartment, and it will get them away from the scumbag they’re currently renting from, so they jump at the chance.

Things seem great initially, but then Ana meets a neighbor who feels strongly that her baby is out to get her. Ana tosses it off as exhaustion, but then she notices tiny bites on her own baby and weird noises in their apartment at night. What’s really happening? Is it all in Ana’s head, or is there something sinister happening in their building?

First of all, the characters in this book are amazing. I really felt for Ana, and I was 100% on her side. I really wanted to like Reid, but he was such a manchild that I couldn’t trust him – and that’s precisely what the author was going for. I would like him, and then he would do something or make a decision that was so awful that I would immediately go back to wanting to smack him in the head. I also have to say that their previous landlord was an awful POS, and I loved to hate him.

This book is very well-written and perfectly paced. The eerie atmosphere of the building is palpable, reminiscent of the classic ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’ I also loved how the author constructed the villains in the story and made them vampiric but also made them his own.

This one is definitely dark, bleak and unhinged, and I had a great time reading it. As I mentioned earlier, there are some really gross descriptions surrounding the villains, but I wasn’t mad at it. While I found myself skipping ahead because I’m a wuss, it was necessary to the plot in that it illustrated how nasty these creatures are. That said, I appreciated that it wasn’t gratuitous and that the author didn’t overuse the gore or nastiness as filler.

I listened to the audiobook of this one and it was a great experience. It took me a bit to settle into the narrator’s style, but once I did, it was smooth sailing. The narrator did a fantastic job of capturing the various characters and maintaining the pacing of the novel.

If you’re looking for a dark, unsettling, and tense tale, I recommend you add this to your TBR. It was quite the experience, and I’ll be checking out more of this author’s work.

Reading Challenge(s):