Will I love The Hunger?

A meticulously researched retelling of the Donner Party tragedy, Katsu's book is a slow-spooled tragedy and creeping horror of intense claustrophobia and distrust.

And that's before the supernatural elements take hold! This book is meaty, with a lot to chew on and a ton of character drama packed into its relatively brief word count, but you'll leave it thinking quite differently about the forces that shaped our American frontier...

Alma Katsu is a brilliant writer of historical horror, and in The Hunger, she focuses on the tragedy that befell the group of pioneers known as the Donner Party in the mid-1800s. History is a bit of a spoiler here because if you’re familiar with the real-life story, you already know things aren’t going to end well for the majority of the characters. But Katsu’s imaginative take on what happened to them is still gripping and chilling. She balances multiple points of view extremely well and manages to make a familiar tale so compelling that I missed subway stops while… show more.

I love the work of Alma Katsu, in part because I love historical horror, but also because nobody does it better than Alma when it comes to crafting atmospheric stories set in a very real and distant past. I loved this one so much my wife and I took a trip to visit Donner Pass, just to get a feel for where The Hunger is set. It’s a cold, terrifying journey into the heart of one of America’s greatest—and most terrible—mysteries.