Chain-smoking bisexual, Mantis, finds herself amid a demon apocalypse. With the book of Revelations unfurling before her very eyes, she recruits a reformed prostitute, a bubbly stripper, and a hopelessly smitten DJ to try to stop the biblical event in its tracks. Can the uproarious crew of misfit degenerates save the world before it’s destroyed?
Locked and loaded with sinister creatures, twisted villains, violent action, and a horny heroine with the charm of a rabid wolverine, Mantis will take you on a hilarious, blood-soaked road trip through the bowels of America’s deep south and drop you on the doorstep of the Devil.
From the demented author of Vanity Kills & Bad God’s Tower comes a profane, blood-soaked, laugh-out-loud novel full of guts, gore, and good times. A religious, comedic-horror blend of Dogma and From Dusk Til Dawn recommended for fans of Chuck Wendig and Christopher Moore.
This version is the faster-paced, re-edited, abridged version of the 2016 release, published by Rusty Ogre Publishing.
Dark bleatings, my wonderful tribe! Today I’m talking about an amazing horror comedy novel called Mantis, and I absolutely love it. It’s one of my favourite books of the year so far, easily, and I had such a great time reading it. Firstly, it has great LGBTQ+ representation. Secondly, it’s a really fun, interesting, well-written story. Thirdly, it has just about all of my favourite things in it; awesome, funny protagonist, the old gang getting back together (it helps that everyone in the gang is great in their own unique ways), extremely high stakes, humour, and a potentially apocalyptic biblical threat.
Mantis is trying to hook up with a conquest back at her place one night when a demon interrupts their sexy shenanigans, and she kills it as if it’s an annoyingly large spider she found in her bathroom, instead of a big murderous hell spawn thing. Realising that there must be a problem if demons are re-emerging, she reassembles her old gang – two exotic dancers and the club’s DJ, who just wants to be included – and off they go on a road-trip style adventure, collecting artefacts and trying to unravel just what in the gosh darn heck is going on. Also, one of the gang’s sons has been kidnapped – hence the high stakes I mentioned in the first paragraph.
This novel really strikes the perfect balance between humour and horror. Mantis’s general personality never failed to raise a smile, and though she is certainly a flawed protagonist, she’s also very relatable and easy to get behind. The pacing is great, the ante constantly being upped, and we even get a little tension in the form of an unrequited love story.
I personally think this novel has it all and it ticked all my boxes. I would definitely recommend this to general horror fans, and horror comedy fans. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, there are some links below for you:
Bleeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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