When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into horror writer Nat Cassidy’s creepy and hard-to-put-down book, When the Wolf Comes Home. While not the first of his reads I have picked up, I really enjoyed this one and found it to be unique, scary, and riveting. It made me really look forward to checking out more of his books in the future.

Main Characters

Jess: Our main girl and, honestly, one of my favourite parts of this book, she’s messy, flawed, and emotional. Her empathy drives a lot of her decisions, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. When Jess meets the boy, she is brought into a horror scene she never expected. In an attempt to save him, she is pushed to intense limits and is forced to put herself in danger to try and help save the day.

The boy: Running away from a monster, the boy crosses paths with Jess, and is forced to face his fears in no way a child ever should, but he also has much more control than we may suspect.

Cookie: Jess’s mother, who, while maybe not always the best mom, pulls through for her daughter when it’s needed the most.

The man:  The boy’s father, who follows Jess and him in an attempt to get him back, however, follows at a distance due to the danger that follows his son.

My Review

As mentioned before, I’ve checked out some of Nat Cassidy’s other books and found them to be scary, but extremely enjoyable. When the Wolf Comes Home is an action-filled, thrilling novel, filled with horror and some people’s worst nightmares. The characters are enjoyable (and sometimes aggravating), but the plot itself is unique, and unlike anything I’ve ever dived into before. I gave it an 8/10 rating overall and am looking forward to diving into more of Cassidy’s spooky tales in the future.

The story follows Jess as she gets pulled into a deeply unsettling and increasingly terrifying situation involving a young boy and something not quite right. What starts as concern quickly turns into something much darker, with reality bending in ways that feel both surreal and way too real at the same time. As things escalate, the book leans hard into fear, what it does to us, how it changes us, and the choices we make when we’re pushed to our limits. Jess is forced to fight her greatest fears to protect the boy, but she also questions if she can really protect him from himself, or the realities of his world. The boy must question if he can fight off the monsters that haunt him, or crumble to the fear of his reality and what is chasing him.

As mentioned before, I’ve checked out other books of Cassidy’s, and when When the Wolf Comes Home came across my way, I knew I had to check it out. I saw lots of positive reviews and felt like it lived up to the hype for sure. This book is so unique. Like, genuinely nothing I’ve read before. The plot is wild in a way that somehow still works and makes sense, and I was completely locked in watching it unfold. The creativity here is insane, and the way everything comes together? So satisfying. It’s heartbreaking at different points, intense in others, but also loving and sweet in others. It has its gory parts, and some areas are a bit harder to stomach, but if you read lots of horror like I do, it’s really nothing crazy.

It’s fast-paced, emotional, and straight-up creepy. Not just surface-level scary, either, it gets under your skin. The kind of book where you feel uneasy even when nothing is technically happening because you are just waiting for that other shoe to drop. What really stood out to me is how much it focuses on fear. Not just the classic there’s something scary chasing you theme, but how fear actually changes people. The decisions, the reactions, the spiral, it all felt very intentional and honestly a little too real at times.

Jess carried this book for me. I loved her. She’s not perfect, and that’s exactly why she works so well. Her empathy, even when it complicates things, made everything hit harder emotionally. And yeah, the kid can be annoying, but in a way that makes sense. He’s a child dealing with trauma, and the book doesn’t shy away from that. If anything, it adds to the emotional weight.

This is not a feel-good book. Like, at all. My heart hurt more than once. But it’s a damn good one.

I had such a good time with this, and it definitely solidified that I need to keep reading more from Nat Cassidy.

Has anyone else checked out When the Wolf Comes Home, or any other of Nat Cassidy’s reads? What did you think, and what others would you recommend?

Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to subscribe to the page on the bottom of the site to be one of the first to know when I post a new review.

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📚Wrap Up de Febrero 📚

🧌Frankenstein, la versión original de 1818 en inglés, que podéis conseguir en el Proyecto Gutenberg:
¿Qué decir de una novela que conoce casi todo el mundo y trata tan diversos temas? La disfruté muchísimo en su idioma original y al poder comentarla con mi novio mientras la íbamos leyendo 💜, así como con el Club de Lectura que dirige mi amiga @tineta13 🖤 Añadir que admiro lo bien que escribía Mary siendo tan joven 😲

🧛🏻 Muertos de Segunda, de @buehlmeister , publicado por @hermidaeditores : Reseña en mi perfil

😼Odiolitos, webcómic de @carloscdart : Divertido cómic que narra las aventuras de Litos y sus dos gatas, Nina y Musi y ganó el premio Subcultura 2010 al mejor guión en un webcómic de habla hispana.
A lo largo de las diferentes tiras podemos ver que el autor cambia el tipo de ilustración, pasando de viñetas en blanco y negro y más sencillas a otras más complejas y llenas de color.
Me ha encantado descubrir la historia oculta de estos tres personajes y acompañarles en sus peripecias 💜

💬 ¿Qué habéis leído últimamente?

#booktodon #literaverso #literaverse #books #lectura #leoautoras #bookworm #goth #gothicgirl #horror #terror #scifi #fantasy #libros #fantasia #cienciaficcion #cifi #bookstodon #bookstodonespañol #bookstodonenespañol #wrapup #diadelcomic #yoleoautorasfantásticas #spooky #books #booklover #bookaddict #bookcommunity #bookrecommendations #booklove #bookpost #bookrecs #booknerd #bookish #bibliophile #LGBTQIA #literatura #lectura #bookworm #ireadhorror #horrorbooks #horrorliterature #horrorgeek #LeoAutorasOct
📚Wrap Up de Enero 📚

En enero no hubo temática para la iniciativa #leeIndieEnEspañol , creada por @scriptlibros , pero seguí leyendo a editoriales independientes:

🪐🚀Fuga en Luz Mayor, la última novela de @dalayn_sierpe , publicada en @cronocifi , me encantó, como todo lo que ella escribe y, cuando pueda, subo un post hablando con detalle. Si os gustan las historias con crítica social y religiosa, anticolonialismo, dramas familiares y relaciones sáficas, es para vosotres 😉

📚También he leído varios relatos, gracias a @asociacion_portico y su antología Premio Domingo Santos y la antología Visiones, a la web de Marcheto (Flores para Algernon), que tradujo un relato de Gemma Files, y a que aún tengo algún relato pendiente que descargué del desaparecido Lektu (Alambradas, de Santiago Eximeno me pareció brutal 🖤).

💜Mi amiga @tineta13 ha montado un pequeño club de lectura de Literatura Gótica y, gracias a ello y a mi novio @carloscdart , estoy animándome a leerlos en inglés (aunque con mi Burnout vaya despacio y me cueste).

🏰El castillo de Otranto fue relectura (lo leí hace años en castellano) y lo mejor esta vez fue criticar a Manfred, entender que algunas mujeres preferían hacerse monjas o morirse, antes que casarse con semejantes gañanes del libro 🤣 y criticar al autor 🤭

💬 ¿Qué habéis leído últimamente?
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#wrapup #yoleoautorasfantásticas
#spooky #books #booklover #bookaddict #bookcommunity #bookrecommendations #booklove #bookpost #bookrecs #booknerd #bookish #bibliophile #LGBTQIA #literatura #lectura #bookworm #ireadhorror #horrorbooks #horrorliterature #LeoAutorasOct
🧛🏻 Muertos de Segunda🧛🏻‍♀️
Ésta ha sido mi última lectura (ahora estoy leyendo Frankenstein, la versión de 1818) y os diré que es uno de los mejores libros de vampiros que he leído🖤 (y que quiero leer "The Suicide Motor Club", que tiene lugar en el mismo universo).

🗽 Joey, que era adolescente cuando fue convertido en vampiro, nos relata su historia dando saltos temporales entre su pasado y el momento actual, 1978 en Nueva York.
🚇 De esta manera, nos habla de los componentes principales de su colonia vampírica (que vive en los túneles del metro en desuso) y del problema con el que se encuentran: niños vampiros que cazan en el metro y ponen al grupo en peligro de ser descubierto por los humanos...

🩸 La historia, que en ocasiones tiene un tono gamberro, nos presenta vampiros de verdad: monstruos sanguinarios que están más allá de las normas morales (nada de "gusiluces" que brillan con el sol 🤣), además de mostrarnos las diferencias entre algunos de ellos.

🎵🕺🏻Todo esto con el añadido de referencias culturales y musicales de distintas épocas, intriga, acción y unos giros que seguramente os sorprenderán y que disfruté enormemente (a pesar de olerme que algo no encajaba en algún momento puntual).

Quienes me conocen saben que brujas y vampiros me obsesionan desde niña, así que
💬 ¿Qué libros de vampiros me recomendáis?

🔖P.D.: El marcapáginas fue un regalo de mi hermana y sí, es de Peter Rabitt, nos encanta Beatrix Potter desde niñas también 💜

💎Otra cosa: si no has pillado la referencia a los "gusiluces", pregúntame y te cuento 😉

#vampiros #vampire #spooky #books #booktodon #booklover #bookaddict #bookcommunity #bookrecommendations #booklove #bookpost #bookrecs #booknerd #bookish #bookworm #literatura #lectura #ireadhorror #horrorbooks #horrorbooktodon #horrorliterature #horrorgeek'#horrorfreak
Yesterday’s #bookpost and the reason I overslept this morning. Currently halfway through and loving it so far #thefirsttimeisawhim by @lauradaveauthor.
A deep investigative book revealing hidden truths, identity conflicts, and media manipulation.
#NewBook #InvestigativeJournalism #TruthBehindTheVeil #MediaTruth #HiddenReality #BookPost #AuthorLife #DrNaimTahirBaig
📚Book Haul📚

I decided that I needed a mental health purchase from Bookshop.org - allowing me to use up my book token, and I also picked up another Alice Oseman offering for the Teen.

📖The Broken Dragon by Karen McCombie
📖Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
📖What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition by Emma Dabiri
📖This Can't Be Happening by George Monbiot

I picked up ‘What White People Can Do Next’ because it was recommended by Olivia-Savannah, and ‘This Can’t Be Happening’ by George Monbiot because I admire his journalism. I added ‘The Broken Dragon’ because I like to read books aimed at children from time to time (and it looks like a good story).

Hopefully I will read some of these next month, though April is going to be pretty busy.

#books #bookrecommendations #bookhaul #bookpost #bookcollection #bookishcommunity #bookishcommunityuk
Entre Libros Editorial on Instagram: "Te dejamos cinco motivos por los que tienes que leer «El prostituto», de @pedrogonzalezlibros. ¡Hay muchos más, pero te dejamos algunos! ¿Te convence? Bajo nuestro sello digital Cuarzo rosa. ¿Nos vemos en el Nighties? #Entrelibroseditorial #pedrogonzález #elprostituto #spicy #amor #noche #club #digital #lecturadigital #romance #bookaddict #cuarzorosa #love #lovestory #instapost #instablog #instagram #instabooks #instalibros #bookpost #bookblogger #bookmania #book #bookblog #booktagram #booklover #bookaesthetic #bookslover #booktok #enero"

entrelibroseditorial on January 21, 2025: "Te dejamos cinco motivos por los que tienes que leer «El prostituto», de @pedrogonzalezlibros. ¡Hay muchos más, pero te dejamos algunos! ¿Te convence? Bajo nuestro sello digital Cuarzo rosa. ¿Nos vemos en el Nighties? #Entrelibroseditorial #pedrogonzález #elprostituto #spicy #amor #noche #club #digital #lecturadigital #romance #bookaddict #cuarzorosa #love #lovestory #instapost #instablog #instagram #instabooks #instalibros #bookpost #bookblogger #bookmania #book #bookblog #booktagram #booklover #bookaesthetic #bookslover #booktok #enero".

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