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Book Review: Fiend by Alma Katsu

cover art for Fiend by Alma Katsu

Fiend by Alma Katsu

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2025

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593714348

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com 

 

Not being wealthy or influential myself (though I would be somewhat, if you pick up this book based on this review), it’s fun to read about wealthy, ruthless families getting their comeuppance. The only reason why I am not on a superyacht right now is because I have not made a pact with any supernatural force to acquire immense wealth beyond what I can spend in my lifetime, oppress the working class, and wreak havoc on the environment.

 

Fiend centers around the Berisha dynasty. The clan has existed for over a thousand years, and through arranged marriages and corrupt business practices, has kept the Albanian bloodline and family fortune flourishing. Zef is the cruel and unscrupulous head of household and your stereotypical super-powerful rich guy. Then there’s Olga, his beautiful, unassuming wife, a Melania Trump figure, who stays out of her husband’s politics but is complicit in what she does know. Dardan, the eldest, is weak and ineffectual, but has been primed to take over the family business. He is probably the most empathetic character in the family because he wants to break away from the hold the family has on him, but at the same time,  he won’t totally give up his money and privilege. Next there is Maris, the ambitious daughter who has all the horrible characteristics of her father, Zef, and seems to be the most logical replacement. But Maris can’t compete with Dardan since Dardan’s crowning achievement is being born with a Y chromosome, and she is expected to follow in the Berisha female tradition of keeping house and siring more Berisha babies. Finally, there is Nora, the unstable emo socialite who would rather party than have anything to do with the Berisha empire.

 

The novel goes back and forth (“Then” and “Now”) of memories the Berisha children have of growing up in a house seemingly possessed by a supernatural force, a fiend known as The Protector, which keeps the Berisha clan rich and powerful while their competitors are suspiciously afflicted with horrible diseases and accidents. 

 

Under strange and mysterious circumstances, Maris is finally given the chance to break away from her Jan Brady status and the “Dardan, Dardan, Dardan” shadow to take over the business, and, in effect, the whole Berisha legacy. Little does she know that there are responsibilities that she will inherit that are not in her official job description. 

 

Fiend is a deliciously fun book to devour after a day of business meetings, synergizing, estimating bandwidth and defining deliverables, doing deep dives but still picking low hanging fruit, and talking about circling back to things that you know will never be addressed. Alma Katsu is known for her historical fiction novels such as The Hunger (based on The Donner Party) and The Deep (based on the sinking of the Titanic). Fiend is instead inspired by the television series Succession, about Logan Roy, the patriarch of the powerful and dysfunctional Roy family and owner of a NYC based global media conglomerate and the power struggle by his four children to take over as his health declines. Katsu reimagines the characters and their background and throws in a splash of her signature supernatural, horror talents to create an entertaining novel that will make readers forget all the tech debt that their company has pushed aside until it’s all hands on deck when the whole system comes crashing down. I think I have been working too much because a book about corporate greed and demonic possession makes perfect sense. Recommended. 

 

Reviewed by Lucy Molloy

Posted on November 8, 2025 by , Reply

Book Review: The Fervor by Alma Katsu

Cover art for The Fervor by Alma Katsu

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593328330

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

( Amazon.com | Bookshop.org )

 

 

The Fervor takes place during World War 2 and alternates between five points of view. Meiko Briggs is a Japanese immigrant married to a white man, Jamie Briggs, a pilot in the army. She and their daughter Meiko are living in the Japanese internment camp Camp Minidoka, where residents are becoming infected with an illness that makes them violent and murderous. Archie Mitchell is a pastor who saw his pregnant wife and several children killed in an explosion thought to have been a Japanese bomb, who was friends with Jamie and has now gotten entangled with local white nationalists. Fran Gurstwold is a Jewish woman reporter who witnessed a similar explosion and decides to investigate locations where she suspects other explosions have happened. These alternate with journal entries from 1927 by Mieko’s father, Japanese scientist Wasaburo Oishi, who discovered poisonous spiders related to the yokai jorogumo, that cause the illness now spreading through the camps and nearby towns. The story follows Mieko, Aiko, Archie, and Fran as their stories intersect and begin to make sense in the context of Oisho’s writings, while dealing with a coverup by the government.

 

Katsu notes that this book differs from her previous ones because rather than portraying a specific historical event she was using a wider lens to explore the bigotry and violence against Asian-Americans in the past as a way to deal with it in the present, so while period details are correct , events and places may have been moved around for plot purposes.

 

This was a fascinating book, and better than The Deep. I am a fan of yokai whenever I see them, and I enjoyed the way Katsu incorporated this into the book. The portrayal of Archie as a person who is drawn into a white nationalist group due to weak character rather than malice, was accurate and well-written. Unfortunately, there continue to be too many people like him today.

 

Contains: racial slurs and violence

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on January 26, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: The Deep by Alma Katsu

cover art for The Deep by Alma Katsu

The Deep by Alma Katsu

G.P. Putnam, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-0525537908

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Those who enjoy historical horror devoured Alma Katsu’s The Hunger, which should have taken home the major awards last year, will take the plunge into The Deep, a cross-genre tale that is beautifully disturbing and might even top her previous novel. Perfect timing, as it’s up for top honors at the Stokers this year.

Whereas her last novel mined the ill-fated travels of the pioneers who traversed the Donner Pass, this one dives into the mystique of the Titanic, with a twist. The ship had a sister – the Britannic. This ship was retrofitted to be a hospital to be used during the war.

The story is told by Annie Hebley, a young woman who takes a job as a maid on the Titanic, alternating chapters between the time prior to the sinking and after the disaster. Annie meets the enigmatic Mark Fletcher, a father of a infant and husband to an even stranger character, Caroline, and finds her fate forever intertwined with theirs. As the chapters alternate between her time on both ships. Annie left her  home to see a strange one on the high seas, but is quickly drawn to Mark, who holds a dark secret.

When Annie takes a job on the Britannic after recovering from the sinking of the sister ship, her life turns from serving as a maid to serving as a nurse, where she learns the horrors of war firsthand. Her mind has yet to heal, though, a fact that rears its ugly head when she encounters a man in one of the beds of the wounded. She is convinced it is Mark. Yet, why won’t he admit it to her? Her sanity begins to further unravel as readers are treated to the unreliable narrator motif… or are they?

In the part of the story told prior to the sinking of the Titanic, horror soon creeps in as other passengers, the rich Madeline Astor and her husband, are convinced something sinister has boarded the ship with them – or was built into the hull of the Titanic. After a tragic death, the passengers sense this presence growing, something that Annie seeks to explain while attempting to help Mark and his daughter, who may be facing a much more heinous foe. By the time the ship hits the iceberg, Annie realizes the scope of the disaster matches her own cracking psyche.

The Britannic is supposedly built to be safer and sturdier than the predecessor. Lightning can’t strike twice, can it? Annie’s relentless quest to convince Mark of what truly happened spirals into the dark currents of the Atlantic as it seems the forces that plagued the first ship may have followed her there as well.

What sets this novel apart from other disaster stories is the research Katsu has imbued between the pages. She nails every detail of the period, the ship itself, and the events that occurred on both ships, in a manner that could be exhausting in lesser hands. Instead, The Deep envelops the reader in its setting and drags them down until the final page. Her characters breathe and bleed through the chapters in both stories here, with minor players carving out roles which further both the mystery and the horror.

Highly recommended as both a horror novel and a suspense tale that should widen Alma Katsu’s audience even further.

 

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Editor’s Note: The Deep is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Novel. 

 

Posted on March 21, 2021 by , Reply
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