Jennifer | Book Den

Southern Gods is the debut novel of John Hornor Jacobs.I wasn't sure at first how much I was going to like Southern Gods. It started out with a great, atmospheric prologue which should have been a good thing, but prologues always send off warning signals to me that the book is going to need a lot of help hooking me. Then, as I expected, it had a slow start. I didn't have a lot of confidence that the book was going to be extraordinary, but I was wrong. Really wrong.I loved Southern Gods.In the end, the build up became one of my favorite things about Southern Gods. It was like a huge crescendo. It started out small and just got bigger and better until it was downright awesome. I even grew to love the prologue which is rare for me.There are two separate story lines going on in the first half of Southern Gods. In one, Bull Ingram is hired to find a missing person, and he gets tangled up in an investigation of a really creepy blues man and a radio station that changes frequencies and plays the devil's music. In the other, Sarah and her daughter have returned to her family's home where Sarah discovers there are evils she never knew existed. Once these two story lines converge, Southern Gods moves from creepy to scary to terrifying. I'm glad I wasn't reading it in public because you could visibly see the horror on my face.If you love a well developed horror story, you will love Southern Gods. It was so unique and so surprising. I am now a big fan of John Hornor Jacobs. I cannot wait to get my hands on his next book.