Book Review | Don’t Fear The Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels’s conviction is overturned and she is released from prison right before Christmas. However, life outside of prison proved to be just as challenging when she returned to her hometown of Proofrock. Convicted serial killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer during a blizzard just outside of Proofrock. Is Jade set to be the Final Girl once again?

She’s still in there, all right. Somewhere. Under everything that’s happened to her, everything that’s been piled onto her. Everything she’s still carrying, or trying to. 

My Heart Is A Chainsaw was one of my favourite horror books of 2021 so this is a highly anticipated sequel that delightfully delivered. Returning to Proofrock after four years of facing a trial after the events in the first book, we meet a changed Jade. Not just physically – her hair is long, her nails are neat, gone are the combat boots and dark clothes. But she has also left her love for horror behind, believing that real life is all that matters. She wants nothing more than to go home and try to move past the brutal massacre that she took the fall for. But to her dismay, that plan is disrupted by the escape of a convicted serial killer called Dark Mill South. He has a long line of blood and brutality in his past, and he has set his sights on Proofrock.

I had a blast meeting Jade again, who has become one of my favourite characters in horror. But I was sad to read about what she went through during the trial and how the process had dimmed her spirit and demeanour. Stories about Final Girls end when the monster is defeated. But what happens after? What happens when people don’t believe in Final Girls? Jade has to face the aftermath of a carnage that’s not her fault – and yet how could it not be, when she believes she called for it? I love how the book portrays Jade’s softening edge and her hesitation to fall back into her old life. Yet her big heart doesn’t stop her from fighting to save everyone once again.

The frozen winter setting is the perfect backdrop to a gut-chilling bloodbath by a dangerous boogeyman. Dark Mill South is a real person with an important history and motivation. Yet his looming presence brings a mythical aura. His kills get wilder and wilder and the characters can’t tell what is real. There is no doubt that he is a dangerous and capable force to be reckoned with. Every encounter between him and other characters is violent and suspenseful. The supporting characters – like Jade’s best friend Letha, the former town sheriff Hardy, and massacre survivors Cinnamon and Ginger – bring their own perspectives to the horrors. What I liked is the book always gives space to the victims. They aren’t just empty sacks of bloody flesh but real people with desires, feelings and personalities. And like any great slasher horror, there are surprises along the way.

Don’t Fear The Reaper proves that sequels can be just as good – if not better than the original. Horror fans, you’re in for a treat.

About the author: Stephen Graham Jones

Photo by Michael Förtsch