Tomahawk Hollow has a huge problem. Slaughtered livestock. Disappearing townsfolk. And something in the woods hungry for blood. When a young reporter and her boss investigate, they discover a band of giant mutant ticks have made the rural Wisconsin tourist town their feeding ground.
Now, with the annual Harvest Moon Jubilee about to begin, Emmaline and Jackson must race to find the queen tick and her nest before a massive clutch of monster eggs hatch…and thousands more terrifying ticks are unleashed into the world!
Bursting with cinematic action, horror, fun, and suspense, TICK TOWN is an old-school, pulse-pounding pulp horror adventure. If you like classic creature feature horror fiction like JAWS and NIGHT OF THE CRABS or b-movie monster mayhem like THEM! and STARSHIP TROOPERS, you’ll love TICK TOWN!
Dark bleatings, my ticked-off tribe! The book I’m talking about today is a whole lot of fun. After reading it, I learned that the author is also a filmmaker and fellow horror nerd, which makes a lot of sense because I kept thinking that it would make a great monster movie.
In true horror movie fashion, our opening scenes are the best kind of carnage, featuring characters that you immediately know are here for a bad time, not a long time. They’re fodder, and the first few chapters were like a cross between every good slasher film and every good cryptic film. Hapless young people in a wrong place, wrong time scenario, in the woods, no less. It made for a great cinematic reading experience.
Once the threat – unnaturally enormous, aggressive, blood-thirsty ticks – has been established in all its carnage, we get to meet the characters that will take us through a perfect B-movie plot. And I mean that as a compliment. This isn’t the kind of story that would have Hollywood money thrown behind it, only to ruin its core with crappy CGI. It’s the kind of story that someone with a smaller budget but much bigger heart for horror would make. The kind of person that would insist on practical effects and puppeteers instead of weird AI shenanigans.
Anyway, one of our central characters is Emmaline, a journalist with a hankering for the latest small town scoop and the kind of tenacity that will really become a bother to those who oppose her. We also have Elmer, who I swear would be played by William Sadler in the movie I keep imagining this as. He might seem a bit rough around the edges but god-diddily-damnit you better not talk down to him. It did take me a little while to fully connect to the characters (a lot are introduced at various times, many of which are immediately tick’d to death, so you don’t have to remember them all well), but they were painted fully enough for me to see them.
In terms of plot, this hits all the marks for what is essentially a very fun monster story. We have the small town, the vivid characters – some of which turn out to be no better than the vermin that now threaten them – a great creature, and once again, a perfect B-movie explanation for them. It comes in at around 180 pages, which feels right, and the pacing is fairly fast and consistent.
If you’re a fan of monster stories, killer animals, and small towns under a scifi-horror threat, I think this will be right up your street. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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