BOOK REVIEW | BUNKER DOGS | GAGE GREENWOOD

 

BOOK REVIEW

 

BUNKER DOGS

 

BY GAGE GREENWOOD

 

COVER: LUKE SPOONER / CARRION HOUSE

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

 

Don't just fear what you're hiding from—fear what you're hiding with.

Cassie's night of babysitting goes to hell when bombs explode in the distance, planes fly overhead at low altitudes, and alerts on her phone tell her to seek shelter. Luckily, the boy she babysits tells her his father has a bunker in the yard.

When they make their way to this underground shelter, they soon discover they aren't alone. Something is living in the bunker, lurking in the walls, and it's hungry.

What started as a simple night of babysitting will descend into a psychological and claustrophobic nightmare Cassie couldn't have prepared for. 

REVIEW

Overworked student Cassie is set to do some emergency baby sitting duties at a local family, the Renard’s, when her whole world goes to shit. Well! Everyone’s does really as bombs explode and rogue militias start to roam the countryside.

When strangers set off the alarm in the house that she is baby sitting in, Cassie and James take shelter in the bunker that is at the bottom of the Renard’s garden.

Thinking that they have escaped the carnage outside, they soon discover that there is worse on the inside in the form of shackled blood thirsty creatures.

Bunker Dogs is a tense horror novel that for the most part takes place in the confined claustrophobic space of the bunker.

Throughout the book, Greenwood effectively manages to maintain the tension using a slasher ethos as Cassie and James firstly attempt to make sense of what is happening outside, whilst dealing with the horrors of their situation on the inside.

As the story moves on, we delve deeper into Cassie’s background in the form of flashbacks. This works effectively as in essence, there are only two characters in the book for a large portion of the book, so we need some background on the two. As Cassie’s desperation mounts we learn the reason for her brother’s suicide which opens the book (please note, this is a trigger warning for those that have been affected by suicide). Not only that, we also learn the reason that Cassie has experienced numerous sources of trauma throughout her short life, with the incarceration of her mother to a mental institution, and the reason for her father’s despondency throughout her childhood.

The plot itself is taut and tense as the two children work out how to survive the monsters both inside and out and as the book unfolds secrets emerge that shed light on the current situation.

In conclusion, this is a real fun edge of the seat book that manages to surprise as the story progresses.