Nestlings

De: Nat Cassidy

Narrado por: Cassandra Campbell, Nat Cassidy

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author.

Nat Cassidy is at his razor-sharp best again with his horror novel Nestlings, which harnesses the creeping paranoia of Rosemary's Baby and the urban horror of Salem's Lot, set in an exclusive New York City residential building.

“This is the horror book of the year.”—Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse

Most Anticipated Horror Books of 2023—Paste Magazine

Ana and Reid needed a lucky break.

The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling: with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. That's about to change with the words any New Yorker would love to hear—affordable housing lottery.

They've won an apartment in the Deptford, one of Manhattan's most revered buildings with beautiful vistas of Central Park and stunning architecture.

Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia as the price of living in New York—people are odd—but he can't explain the needle-like bite marks on the baby.


Other Books by Nat Cassidy:
Mary: An Awakening of Terror

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.

Great take on the classic vampire story!

I loved this book. I’m a sucker for a good vampire novel… no pun intended.

It was okay.

I think I may be the only one that had to trudge through the book. I loved Mary so I was so excited for this book. However, it just didn't do it for me. I didn't find it scary or interesting. It was predictable. Sorry Nat. Loved your first book but this one was just a meh for me.

Nat Cassidy is my new favorite !

after reading Mary and loving it,, I immediately grabbed Nestling, keeping a note to myself that the second one isn't always as good as the first. I was overjoyed at how wrong I was. This book had me from start to finish. I can't tell you how many times I gasped and shivered all by myself while listening to this in the car. His take on vampires and how the story unfolds had me guessing and wanting to hide under the covers, (which was inconvenient since I was always in the car ). I highly recommend this audiobook - and maybe listening to it during the day if you're a scaredy cat like me

Not Bad

Overall I enjoyed this. I will say the main characters annoyed me a lot of the time but the story was well written

Entertaining horror

I enjoyed this book, creepy at times but good narration, it definitely held my interest

Good Story, Frustrating Characters

This is a good horror book, with an intriguing story, but the characters are so frustrating they take away from the plot. Is there a good guy in this book? Annoyingly, no?

Plot

I judge a horror novel by its ability to make me cry. Scary is easy but the ability to take a scary theme and weave the human experience into it with such thought provoking prose, is truly a talent. Nat Cassidy has that talent. I loved Mary as well. I’m even more impressed with a man’s ability to capture the woman’s perspective. Well done, Nat.
My heart goes out to you for your horrible year that inspired the book.
I sympathize. My husband and I lived in a similar state shortly after we were married. His father and my brother both terminally ill. After their deaths and my father’s repeated health scares, we lost 5 pets. All of these occurred over 3 years. I still look back and ponder how we survived.
Novels, like yours, have been my therapy.
Thank you

Nat Cassidy does it again!

Scary, creepy, skin-crawling and also heartbreakingly beautiful and inspiring. The epilogue alone is worth a listen. Love him!!!

Excellent story and so well told!

I read Mary a month or so ago and instantly pre-ordered this book when I read it’s description because I loved Nat Cassidy so much from just that one exposure to him. Now, after reading two books from him I would gladly put him up with Stephen King in his writing style, though I don’t think he has quite the complexity to him that Stephen King has had after a gigantic career of writing.
Nat Cassidy writes REAL PEOPLE. He does his research and he brings to life real people in all of their complexities, pleasant and otherwise and then he puts them into interesting stories.

Story- I might not have liked the characters, but that’s because I would not have liked them if I met them I person. They were very well written and completely relatable. He AGAIN killed it in writing a female character not just from a female perspective, but also in a way that even women have a hard time pinpointing, but when you read it (as a woman)…it’s like “Yes! That! That’s exactly how we’re treated!” I was constantly left wondering what was going to happen and where the story was going to go. Every time I thought I had a grasp of what was going on something new was added and I’d be like “Oh…interesting”.
The end of the story was very original and did not take the same format most books take, it was very refreshing.
I didn’t think his epilogue for this story was as interesting as it had been for Mary, which made me a little sad because I REALLY wanted to know how he came up with some of the concepts in the book, but I still really like his epilogues.

Narrator- she did great. I don’t think she really stood out very much… or necessarily added to the story, but she told it adequately and didn’t detract from it.

Big idea horror that stays scary and taut

Like his first book, Mary- that I also really enjoyed- Nestlings feels like it started out as a much bigger book, abundant with ideas and themes, and then got tightened to this book- where there are all these layers, but never at the expense of keeping things moving, and keeping the focus on a scary story. Not a short book, but feels lean. And goes fast.

I don't want to say too much because part of the joy of this book is the way that whenever you think you know what kind of horror story you are in, or even what the 'monster' is, you might not actually know it yet. There are surprises ahead, twists and really smart takes on some familiar monsters and lore, as well as fresh ideas, and, again, none of it is at the expense of a story that feels like it moves forward fast, often at the speed of survival.

The book acknowledges and celebrates its influences- as you might have seen in the description, the log line is basically 'Rosemary's Baby meets Salem's Lot' (though it is more than just that combination).

What I love about this book is not only the ways that it escalates the horror of its influences. As a parent, I can say that it feels higher stakes and more vulnerable to have a nearly 1 year old baby under threat than around a pregnancy; and the longtime New Yorker in me loved the concept of a residential building as its own small town, as well as the family's move from the outer boroughs to this building via a housing lottery as an idea in the tradition of most horror having its roots in economic anxiety. In the same way Jack Torrance moving his family into a clearly haunted hotel is the thing you do when there are no other prospects. I also loved the way that the main characters were flawed and messy. Not perfect people. Not always making the right choices. But they rang true. And always feel like they were handled with empathy.

Okay, this review is too long. Look, it's an excellent book, and wonderfully narrated by Cassandra Campbell. I hope there is a new Nat Cassidy book next year. Let's keep up this new book every year pace. I'm on board.

-David D. (my wife and I share this old account, which I think still has her name on it. If she wrote a review it would have been more concise. She's like that.)