Native Fear is centred around a cult- family living in a place called Coyote Village, and the people who encounter them.

Our main character is Olly, a Japanese-American on the run (but I won't give too much away there).
And our cult friends? The Elkhournes, your typical redneck types...at least until you start to dig a little deeper.

Page manages to weave together strong undercurrents of cosmic horror, cult situations, splashes of sci-fi, and even some slasher flavours. There are creatures, mysteries, and creepy characters aplenty.

Page has spoken about how Resident Evil is a major influence on his work, and I definitely saw the DNA in this book. However, he has formed something original and engaging, with nuanced characters that aren’t caricatures (and, in fact, mock the stereotypes). In a couple of places, maybe, the story recycled old tropes without subverting them, but that's going to happen in any story.

This is truly a tense and suspenseful ride. There are twists and turns throughout that keep you guessing, and it builds up to a truly mind-blowing finale.

It took me a long time to read this book, but that was nothing to do with the quality. I read it on ebook, which I struggle with. But I definitely enjoyed this book immensely. Page has a deep understanding of language, providing detailed descriptions and a great variety of word choices that always feel appropriate and not forced in.

There is an experimental style to this book that I struggled with at times. Tenses change, structures can sometimes be unconventional, and I didn't always get along with that, but overall I definitely enjoyed this book.

Thank you to the author for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. This review is based on a pre-release versions and so some comments may now be irrelevant.5 s Alana K. DrexAuthor 9 books82

I'm all about scanning first lines in books to see if I jive with the author's style. SO when this came in from the author himself, thank you, C.F. Page, I eagerly glanced at the first two, and, well, I did not want to stop there! Responsibilities out the window, I delved in and got lost in the vivid imagery. I mean, when the PROLOGUE gives you the creeps in horror, you know you're in for a treat!

So what's this about? It's about the dark and deadly mysteries surrounding the Elkhourne Ranch in Coyote Village, Michigan. People have seen wild animals behave very oddly here. And Michael, sheriff of the town has been haunted over the years by his father's mysterious death. It was before he was born, but was it really a bear...or something else?

The family at the Elkhourne Ranch are no help in the mystery. But why do they keep to themselves. Then one night when a runaway blows into town, everything will change...

This plot is so intricate, so well done, you will not believe this is a debut novel!! I highly recommend this one to any horror fan.6 s Kiera ?193 70

This has a lot of moving parts. Part cannibals, part cult, part sci fi, part remote horror. I won’t lie my ADHD struggled to keep up but overall this was a very creative and interesting read.4 s1 comment Godwyn1 review

[Imitations & Transmogrification]:// a review

It took me several chapters after the sensory-deprived, atmosphere-suffocating prologue until I finally placed a finger on Native Fear’s pulse. Or at least... I thought I had. The initial conclusion (which isn’t bad, all things considered) was that Page had tried his damned hardest to elevate, through considerate prose and unconventional story structure, what is a B-horror, popcorn-munching blockbuster—or, as the author has alluded to in several IG posts, a Resident Evil-esque survival horror video game in novel-form. I mean, a young man [socially, circumstantially, then literally] imprisoned by an eccentric family on an unsettling farm in very rural Michigan, in which we know, because of the prologue, that there’s something a lot more charnel and sinister under their seemingly innocent facades; it’s not a groundbreaking premise by any stretch of the imagination (although I’d say it’s a necessarily familiar one: more on that later).

And no matter how you dissect it, all of that is true. Sort of. Superficially, at least.

A lackadaisical reader, genre fiction junkie, or a page-skimmer may get turned off by Page’s incremental worldbuilding, because by all means it takes about 3 or 4 chapters to 'formally' meet our protagonist, who, via Page’s disciplined limited third-person perspective, is initially called 'the Runaway.' But for me, the consistent prose and polish were too obvious to assume a haphazard nonlinearity, nor to assume that breaking the Golden Rule of introducing the MC later than the first chapter was an indicator of amateur writing.

Which belatedly brings us to the character story threads, of which there are effectively 3 and 3/4. 1) The Runaway’s stay with the Elkhournes while literally and figuratively haunted by Anxiety (with a capital A, sometimes all-caps); 2) A local sheriff who speculates the Elkhournes may have had a role in his father’s death; 3) a woman searching for her missing husband; ¼) miscellaneous Elkhourne family members and the town locals; ¼) a mystery character called “The Astronaut”; and the final ¼) The somewhat technothriller-y nonlinear subplot of Sam Elkhourne, who may or may not be dead prior to our protagonist’s arrival at the Elkhourne Ranch.

But don’t worry. There’s a reason why this book is 500 pages. All these threads are weaved into their appropriate places throughout the narrative and are unravelled precisely when they should.

Similar to how I felt about John Langan’s The Fisherman, various Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon novels, and some of King’s earlier works The Shining (which has been cited by the author as an influences, and you can tell), Native Fear is a Literary Horror novel. Sure, it’s got some hallmark tropes of the aforementioned 'B-horror', monsters, and murder, and visceral gore, oh my, but it’s elevated not by prose and structure as I’d prematurely theorised. Instead, it's elevated by themes.

The Elkhourne’s are an imitation of a family, their house an imitation of a house, and the novel’s genre an imitation of loud and flashy 'camp'. These are the novel’s early façades: but over time these faces slip and Page’s intentions (although not blatantly) transmogrify at the same rate as the genre weaves from the psychological to folk then finally something wedged between occult supernaturalism and cosmic.

Perhaps what impressed me most, as I’ve had a few days now to digest this chunky debut novel, is that almost all the characters’ emotional conflict are rooted to their worldviews. Their struggling with faith. Their existential anxieties. This hit harder than characters merely being motivated by money—or survival for survival’s sake. At its core, Native Fear is cleverly and perhaps necessarily disguised religious horror. As Nine Inch Nails once sang, 'Bow down before the one you serve, you’re going to get what you deserve...'

One last point. While I certainly don’t follow contemporary horror as much as I do with classic horror, and contemporary and classic science fiction and fantasy, I don’t think I’d have discovered Native Fear if I hadn’t stumbled across Anterior Skies’ open submissions, and had Page not accepted not just one but two of my stories, I’m not so sure I’d have read the book.

Which is a shame, because it seems to me the only thing holding Native Fear, not to mention C. F. Page himself, is a weird sort of unjustified lack of exposure. Someone get this man an agent. Or something.

A lot of reviewers have compared Native Fear to Nick Cutter, whom I haven’t read but apparently need to. Otherwise, recommend it to fans of Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon, especially their earlier works. And even though it doesn’t read Lovecraft necessarily, fans of his may appreciate where the stories go, and how he gets there.3 s Literary4 5

Bookstagram's own @cfpage_author's debut novel, originally pitched as Get Out meets The Thing, but for bookstagram's sake I'd more compare it to The Deep meets Kin.
Teenager Olly Torrance is on the run from something bad and ends up in the little nowhere town of Coyote Village where he finds himself in the care of the Elkhourne family. They bring him back to health and put him to work. But Olly soon begins to realize he is in over his head.... because something is *very* wrong with the Elkhournes and there are powers involved- ancient, malevolent powers and more that are conspiring to keep him there. Will Olly be able to face his past to save his future?
Page was influenced by many different writers and forms of media. I definitely felt King and Resident Evil (Big RE7 and RE2 vibes) but I was struck by how much the writing reminded me of Nick Cutter (but Nick Cutter with a thesaurus
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