Beast of Burden

By: Judith Sonnet

Narrated by: Brad Grusnick

After their bassist decides to quit the band, Geriatric Genocide is low on moral. They want to be the next big thing in metal ... but the remaining members are just stuck at home. Growing old ... but not growing up.

It's decided that they will go into the forest for a photoshoot, which should lift their spirits ...

But things go wrong for the band members (Virtue, Mort, and Rufus) when they are forced into a cave. A dark place, where something evil, ancient, and hungry lurks!

From the twisted mind of Judith Sonnet, the author of NO ONE RIDES FOR FREE, comes a love letter to metal, horror, and unbreakable friendships. A coming of age story, laced with gory and demonic depravity!

©2023 Judith Sonnet (P)2023 Fright Night Audio

Metal 🤘

I have just finished Beast of Burden by Judith Sonnet. There is plenty of great things in this book. Judith is an excellent writer and I look forward to reading more from her. She has a way with words and really brought me in and kept me reading until the end.

Unfortunately, there were some things that kept bringing me back to reality instead of fully submerging myself in the story.
One instance of this is the authors constant use of listing different metal bands. The first time was cool, because I am a metalhead and seeing bands that I know being listed was awesome. But she did it a few other times, and it seemed like she was just showing off her metal knowledge.
The second thing that brought me out was the story didn't really seem to be going anywhere till the second half of the book. I wish there was more suspense and horror sooner.

Overall it was a really good book, and I definitely will be reading more by Judith.
If you are looking for a book with horror and metal, this book should be right up your alley!

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Incredible

The story starts making it seem like a fun little small town story then flips everything onto its head. An amazing story and an amazing audio performance

Death Metal Rockers VS Beast of Burden!

Scrolling through Amazon for some good splatter punk horror audiobooks to listen to, I ran across this one and am beyond glad that I did! Not only was the story superb and kept me engaged the entire time, but Mr. Grusnick's narration was top tier amazing! He outdid himself with how well he ranged his voice and attitude for all the characters! Especially with how deep and horrific he portrays the Beast of Burden! Blood chilling and yet sexy! Highly recommend tuning into this audiobook if you are in a splatter punk mood that holds nothing back! Very glad to have purchased this!

Absolutely amazing.

Judith, although this is only my second book of they, absolutely nailed it. Unfortunately for me, I stick to audio books and would love to listen to their books more.
This story was great. The narration was poetic. All in all, if you are searching for Judith's work with their dark intrigue, this was an absolutely stellar story and performance. It had me captivated from the first moment on. And considering I am huge into the black metal community, it made me appreciate it even more.
10/10.

Poor sweet Leonard

We’ve all seen the social media posts asking authors which of their works is their favorite, or which hasn’t gotten the attention they’d hoped. I make notes to read those books so that I might later shine a light on those authors. It takes courage to come from a place of vulnerability and admit publicly that something you created and love didn’t get much attention. So I make my little notes, add it to my little lists, and eventually I read the books. Today, that is Beast of Burden, by Judith Sonnet. You may know Sonnet from her more extreme (and more popular) titles No One Rides For Free or For the Sake of. Or maybe you know her from of the many short story anthologies in which she’s been featured. Maybe you just recognize her from one of the horror or splatterpunk groups on Facebook. I know I can identify her posts by the pictures before I’ve read her name. She is a staple in the community, whether you’ve read her or not.

So when I saw Sonnet’s response on the latest post asking authors to bare their souls, I grabbed it on KU and started reading it before bed. This morning I impulse bought the audiobook. Did you know that Audible companion pricing applies to your KU borrows? If you didn’t, you’re welcome. So let’s start with the audiobook. Sometimes indie horror audiobooks suffer in quality, whether it’s due to a novice narrator or less than professional sound quality. This is not the case with this audiobook, which should be a surprise to no one considering that it was produced by Joe Hempel’s audio production company, Fright Night Audio. Brad Grusnick’s narration is great. I particularly liked his beast voice.

This story follows a group of guys who are a few years out of high school and not quite ready to adult yet. They spend their days trying to make it big with their black metal band Geriatric Genocide. One of them decides that a photoshoot is what they need to push their next self produced album. The guys are on board, despite their mood being soured by their bassist’s departure from the band. Around half of the novella is background information on each character and explores their relationships with one another. It’s got this coming of age slowburn feel to it in the beginning, but really starts to take off when we meet Leonard. Poor sweet Leonard.

While there is gore and brutality, Beast of Burden is not the unrelenting gorefest for which Sonnet is known. It is complex and tugs at the heart strings in a way I didn’t expect. I absolutely understand why this is a favorite of hers. If you haven’t read Sonnet because you know she writes extreme horror and splatterpunk and you’re not into that, give Beast of Burden a shot.

Amazing story!

This by far is one of my favorite stories by Judith! She truly never disappoints! I need a sequel ASAP!

The end really got me.

I am familiar with the author as an extreme horror writer, but want to make clear this isn’t extreme. So don’t run away! Great plot build up and character development, so you really feel like you know the characters. And it is horror, so I was expecting something to happen, but when it did, I literally said “Um…what was that again?” It’s a very quick listen and the narrator did a great job. His monster voice was a little cartoonish, so that detracted from the horror some. But overall, great story.

So much fun

This was a lot of fun. Clever in parts. Great descriptors by the author. And great audio performance by Brad.