The Uninvited: Reviewed by author Shelley Workinger

by Shelley Workinger author of The Solid Series

I’m half-woken in the middle of the night by a light itch on the back of my legs. Without fully leaving dream-world, I reach back to scratch my thigh and find my skin strangely smooth as my nails trail down. Once my hand reaches the back of my knee and begins its return trip upward, my nails catch under the shells of what I suddenly realize is a leg-sleeve of literally thousands of cockroaches.

That’s a recurring nightmare that’s plagued me since college (along with the one where it’s finals week and I suddenly realize that I haven’t gone to my classes all semester so now I can’t graduate).Anyway, I always assumed the source of this deeply-rooted fear was my (thankfully little) experience with the nasty little critters while I lived in New Orleans.

Until I signed up for this Zompacolypse Hop, that is.

I don’t read a lot of horror - not because I’m against it; I just have an enormous TBR mountain that no horror novels have reached the summit of in a long time :) So when I sat down to write a post on a scary book, I had to think way back* until my mind finally landed on The Uninvited.

I remembered, of course, that it was a horror novel about killer cockroaches, but it wasn’t until I had the actual book in my hands and felt the slick, raised cover creatures that I realized it was the exact same terrifying texture that’d crept into my dreams.

Just in case you ‘re thinking, “Come on; it’s just a book!” let me give you a better description of these vicious buggers:

These creatures were mutants, five inches longer and much heavier than even the largest of their species. And in a very primitive fashion, due to the change in their body chemistry from N-A-N-1-D, these mutants could reason and organize. And they had teeth.

That’s right – teeth. As in, all the better to eat you with. And they’re swarming by the thousands over two rural Louisiana parishes, devouring everything in their path. Since I’m not sure I can do justice to the horror of the hungry hordes, I’ll let you read a mini-munchfest for yourselves:

Then she screamed as creatures poured in through the open windows, thousands of them, crawling over the boy and girl, completely covering them in a feeding frenzy. The shrieking of the young people ripped through the soft night as they sought vainly to escape. But all avenues were blocked as the mutants fought with each other for the opportunity to feed, to appease their rapacious appetites. The screaming of the kids ceased abruptly as their mouths filled with mutants.

Now, you can pretend that image didn’t just burrow deep into your subconscious, but just wait until the next warm summer night you go for a ride with your boyfriend, turn down a private, rarely-traveled road, park and roll down the windows to let in the soft breeze…

And not help but hear an ominous click, click, clicking.

*So far back that this 1988 book is no longer in print. And no, I didn’t read it in 1988, but I did read it in junior high, which of course leaves me wondering: Where were my parents when I was buying stuff like this???*



You can catch Shelly on her blog @ But What Are They Eating?
Or find out more about her series on her website The Solid Series

Solid
By Shelley Workinger

Syonpsis:

Clio Kaid may be 17 and just beginning the last summer before her senior year, but her life is anything but typical.

She's just discovered she was genetically altered before birth and is now headed to a top-secret Army campus to explore the surprising results of the experiment.

Follow Clio and the other teens as they develop fantastic super-abilities, forge new friendships, find love, and uncover a conspiracy along the way.