Claw: A Canadian Thriller

Claw, Book 1

By: Katie Berry

Narrated by: Alex Knox

Lawless, British Columbia is on edge after a powerful earthquake jolts the region, quickly followed by a string of savage animal attacks. Newly stationed to the area after her predecessor mysteriously disappears, Conservation Officer Christine Moon needs to calm the jangled nerves of the small mountain town.

Awakened from ancient slumber, something stalks the swirling, grey mists that surround Lawless. A beast with a gnawing hunger that grows stronger by the minute - its only thought, to satisfy its ravenous appetite.

Rampant corruption at the highest level has targeted Christine to be the next mysterious disappearance. Now, she's in a fight for her life while trying to track and contain the creature threatening to decimate the local population.

©2019 Katie Berry (P)2020 Tantor

horrid voice

the book is probably OK, but the readers voice should have been for a dictionary, not a thriller.

Terrible Dialogue

The dialogue is painful. The attempts at humor are even more painful. But the narrator is good.

Don't bother.

This book is filled with exceedingly corny and unrealistic dialog, in both characters and narration. It's rather unoriginal in its story structure and quite predictable.

The characters can't even say a curse word in a way that sounds like a real human being.

The narrator sounds like he's just reading a script for a basic, dull documentary and lacks flexibility in his character portrayals.

How this book won any awards at all is beyond belief!

Definitely a Canadian product I would NOT recommend.

Ehh

Unless you’ve read all the creature features audible has to offer, I’d save my credits for something other than this. The best way to describe this book is time-filler. If you need something to listen to on you way to or while you work this will do. If you’re looking for an entertaining book with witty banter and little to no annoying tangents about food choices before someone is killed then run far away from this one. The author seems to have a grudge against people over a certain weight forgetting thin people can be out of shape too. She wrote their deaths as if a salad can save you from a 10 ft apex predator known for out-running the fastest athletes.

Good story, from a promising author

I get the feeling that this may be a first published novel from this author. Great story, great premise, very well thought out and it holds together well. The writing has the feel of somebody in love with words. The descriptions are wonderful, and the feel and description of the fog throughout makes it feel like a character itself. Creepy, hiding the monster, almost sentient. The reactions of the characters felt real - denying the monster until they had no choice. Very, very well done.

My feeling of this being an early novel comes from an overuse of the language. If one word is good, then five are better. Some of the best writers pen their books with an almost sparse style. The author here gives us far more detail than needed. I don't mind that, but three paragraphs can be made into one and say the same thing. This is just experience, and I expect future works will tighten up.

The main irritation I had was with small things, that irritated like a small barb that kept pricking at me. In describing Alex, the author kept referring to him as 'the boy'. After a time or two, I kept wanting to say 'he has a name!'. It took me out of the story. And some characters were over described - such as Trip and Alex. Trip isn't a naïve idiot and Alex isn't an angel. I got a little tired of the descriptions making them out as if they were.

In the future, I hope the author keeps their eye on the tale that they are telling, and less on the minutia surrounding the world they have built. It will make for a cleaner story. If Alex has a story to tell, write a separate story about it. Don't try to do too much in one book.

Overall a great, enthralling story, and I will definitely be following this author, hoping for more.

Flawed but Very Solid Monster Novel

In all honesty, I really did enjoy this. I love creature feature fair and I did like the scientific approach to it, as this genre usually takes a more speculative narrative. I have 3 major complaints. 1. the frequent info dumps dragged the story making me lose my concentration a lot. 2. Which may not have been so bad if the narrator wasn't so dull at these points. Good overall but these parts weren't his strong point. 3. I have to admit the dialogue wasn't very good. it didn't sound like how regular people talked. Too long winded and stilted, and sometimes just downright cringe inducing. However the story was a good one. I recommend it.

less is more

I sometimes wonder if authors get paid by the word. This would have been a much better book if there wasn't so much information about people who are just passing through the story.

Yawn

very long winded and predictable. Not very entertaining. I won't be continuing the series.

the bad narration

The narration was bad. Story was long and drawn out. And it just seemed to be crazy descriptive for no reason.

Wild, Whimsical, and Very Wordy

Pros:

- Vivid Worldbuilding and Quirky Personality
- Enjoyable Characters (albeit fairly stereotypical)
- Well Executed Monster Mayhem with grisly gore and legitimate tension

Cons:

- Frequently goes off on long tangents overexplaining the lives and histories of Lawless and its people (30 minutes of book devoted to 2 characters that get eaten at the end of the same chapter their introduced)
- Underdeveloped explanation of the mystery and reasoning behind the horror
- Somewhat anticlimactic ending

Overall I saw great potential here for this author to make some truly great horror creature features. When the monster and it's rampage is focused on its some of the best stuff I've read or seen in recent monster memory. Unfortunately the book gets more than a little buried by extensive detail and world building that begins to feel rather repetitive by the end. When the balance is found it's a great read/listen but you just have to be forgiving of LOTS of detail and explanation in between. Looking forward to see what this author does next...but hopefully honey crullers and magnificent beards don't play as big of a role.