Kin

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On a scorching hot summer day in Elkwood, Alabama, Claire Lambert staggers naked, wounded, and half-blind away from the scene of an atrocity. She is the sole survivor of a nightmare that claimed her friends, and even as she prays for rescue, the killers — a family of cannibalistic lunatics — are closing in. A soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder returns from Iraq to the news that his brother is among the murdered in Elkwood. In snowbound Detroit, a waitress trapped in an abusive relationship gets an unexpected visit that will lead to bloodshed and send her back on the road to a past she has spent years trying to outrun. And Claire, the only survivor of the Elkwood Massacre, haunted by her dead friends, dreams of vengeance... a dream which will be realized as grief and rage turn good people into cold-blooded murderers and force alliances among strangers. It's time to return to Elkwood. In the spirit of such iconic horror classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deliverance, Kin begins at the end and studies the possible aftermath for the survivors of such traumas upon their return to the real world — the guilt, the grief, the thirst for revenge — and sets them on an unthinkable journey... back into the heart of darkness. ** Review "I am in awe of his talent." - Bentley Little , Bram Stoker Award-winning author of THE STORE and THE CONSULTANT "If you're a fan of Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, or movies like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and DELIVERANCE , don't miss KIN . Burke's novel not only re-imagines the classic slasher tropes, but it invents new ones. This is a modern classic, and I cannot recommend it highly enough." - FEARNET "If you took the moral quandaries about revenge, justice and violence against evil from Dennis Lehane's Patrick Kenzie novels , spread it over the sprawling cast of a Stephen King thriller , and mixed it with the Southern Gothic grotesques of Eudora Welty , you might end up with something like Kealan Patrick Burke's new novel, KIN ." - LITSTACK "From the first chapter I found myself comparing KIN to the absolute best work of Jack Ketchum, James White Wrath, and Richard Laymon . You might be thinking that I've listed an awful lot of great authors here and mentioned more than a few classics in this review and that there's no way this book could live up to that hype. You'd be wrong. KIN is not only the best novel I've read all year, it is one of the most horrifying ones I've ever read. I hope you give it a shot." - HORROR WORLD "It's odd that an Irish transplant to the Northern US has written one of the best Southern Gothic novels in recent memory . I'll look forward to Burke's next work just as much as I hated to see this one end. I would highly recommend KIN to lovers of old fashioned horror fiction with a twist. If you're going to read just one noir cannibal revenge novel this year, KIN should fit the bill." - DARK DISCOVERIES "THIS is serious horror fiction that has set a high standard for future stories in this subgenre. Don't miss it." - THE CROW'S CAW From the Author I've been asked many times about the inspiration for this book. Up until I wrote it, I was known for more subtle supernatural fare. I rarely entered the arena of explicit violence, not for any particular reason other than that it just didn't really interest me. Then, one night, I found myself engaged in an online discussion about the merits of films like TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, WRONG TURN, etc., and while I liked these films just fine, I suggested that they would be a lot more interesting if we knew who the characters were, if heroes and villains both had more dimension to them. Because if the characters are strangers, why should you care about them? And when it comes to villains, especially, I find myself drawn to those for whom evil isn't evil at all. They honestly believe what they're doing is right. Some of the people with whom I was discussing the aforementioned films were nonplussed, and challenged me to "do