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The Glades
“Praised by early readers for its pulse-pounding suspense and unforgettable villain, The Glades is a survival horror novel for fans of The Ruins and Bird Box.”
The deeper you go, the less of you comes back.
For Paul and his teenage son Ethan, it was supposed to be a weekend of bonding and backwater adventure—an escape from the noise of the world with Paul’s closest lifelong friends. But when their airboat breaks down deep within the Florida Everglades, they’re thrust into a nightmare far beyond anything they could’ve imagined.
The Glades are no ordinary wilderness.
This swamp watches.
It waits.
It remembers.
Stalked by something ancient and predatory, the group quickly learns they are not alone. A monstrous hybrid serpent, the product of tampered science and tribal legend, rules these waters, and it’s not the only thing lurking. Whispers of an old Indian tribe echo through the cypress trees—people who vanished from history but never surrendered their land.
Cut off from civilization and with a hurricane closing in, the group must navigate a labyrinth of sawgrass, secrets, and survival. As tensions rise and sanity unravels, Paul and Ethan are forced to confront the fractured pieces of their relationship—before the swamp swallows them whole.
The Glades is a relentless survival thriller—steeped in blood, bond, and the brutal power of nature’s forgotten places.
Here, survival isn’t about who’s the strongest.
It’s about who the swamp lets go.
The deeper you go, the less of you comes back.
For Paul and his teenage son Ethan, it was supposed to be a weekend of bonding and backwater adventure—an escape from the noise of the world with Paul’s closest lifelong friends. But when their airboat breaks down deep within the Florida Everglades, they’re thrust into a nightmare far beyond anything they could’ve imagined.
The Glades are no ordinary wilderness.
This swamp watches.
It waits.
It remembers.
Stalked by something ancient and predatory, the group quickly learns they are not alone. A monstrous hybrid serpent, the product of tampered science and tribal legend, rules these waters, and it’s not the only thing lurking. Whispers of an old Indian tribe echo through the cypress trees—people who vanished from history but never surrendered their land.
Cut off from civilization and with a hurricane closing in, the group must navigate a labyrinth of sawgrass, secrets, and survival. As tensions rise and sanity unravels, Paul and Ethan are forced to confront the fractured pieces of their relationship—before the swamp swallows them whole.
The Glades is a relentless survival thriller—steeped in blood, bond, and the brutal power of nature’s forgotten places.
Here, survival isn’t about who’s the strongest.
It’s about who the swamp lets go.
296 pages, Paperback
Published May 24, 2025
116 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 7, 2025
This title was selected for IngramSpark's Indie Title Discovery Spotlight 2025!
A father-son bonding trip turns into a chilling nightmare in this cinematic and atmospheric horror adventure! A can't-miss read for fans of eco-thrillers, suspenseful survival horror, and supernatural creatures.
A father-son bonding trip turns into a chilling nightmare in this cinematic and atmospheric horror adventure! A can't-miss read for fans of eco-thrillers, suspenseful survival horror, and supernatural creatures.
October 7, 2025
I received this book from free from LibraryThing as part of its early reviewer program:
Oh man, I don’t know what to say about this one. It definitely had potential, but I’d say it sorely missed. I had a hard time believing much of anything that happened, and I’m not even taking about the giant, possibly bioengineered, monster python and her snake charmer and their cult. No, basically just about everything else that happened. The “team” as the author so often calls them takes a merciless beating by the swamp, the cult family, the hurricane and everything else, without really eating or drinking anything and just keeps on fighting. I have no idea how they managed to fight their way out of the cult compound when the cult was supposedly supplied with all these weapons and tech but somehow never used any of it. Then later, somehow the coast guard base that they are hiding in, which just lasted through a hurricane in a damp and humid swamp goes up like a fireworks factory from a few burning arrows. It should have been so wet it never would have burned, but what do I know…There was just a lot I had issues with, and I don’t think I will be seeking out anymore books in this “series” or “universe” or whatever the author is calling it.
Oh man, I don’t know what to say about this one. It definitely had potential, but I’d say it sorely missed. I had a hard time believing much of anything that happened, and I’m not even taking about the giant, possibly bioengineered, monster python and her snake charmer and their cult. No, basically just about everything else that happened. The “team” as the author so often calls them takes a merciless beating by the swamp, the cult family, the hurricane and everything else, without really eating or drinking anything and just keeps on fighting. I have no idea how they managed to fight their way out of the cult compound when the cult was supposedly supplied with all these weapons and tech but somehow never used any of it. Then later, somehow the coast guard base that they are hiding in, which just lasted through a hurricane in a damp and humid swamp goes up like a fireworks factory from a few burning arrows. It should have been so wet it never would have burned, but what do I know…There was just a lot I had issues with, and I don’t think I will be seeking out anymore books in this “series” or “universe” or whatever the author is calling it.
October 11, 2025
I received an ARC of this via a different site.
The Glades appears to have been entirely self-published. I think that may have been a misstep as it definitely could have benefited from a good editor. Not for layout and basic errors, which there are few of, but rather to help reign in the author and give some more focus to the story.
The Glades starts to tell the story of a group of 4 friends since childhood (and one of their teen kids) going on a vacation to the Everglades. Why the everglades? Its never precisely clear. Who's footing the bill (including for the one percenter resort they stay in the first night) when most of them are working class dudes? Also unclear. I won't criticize the unlikelihood of their skillsets and professional lives as a group because, sometimes, childhood friend groups persisting to adulthood are weird like that. There's also an older-dad-trying-to-connect-with-young-son subplot that sort of feels like it should have been its own story instead of the Hangover ensemble story (they also literally get wasted in a restort casino while the teen boy just sort of...is there?). Certainly since we start losing people from our main cast of four pretty quickly once we get into the swamps, I'm not sure why we had them (or a picture of more people on an airboat on the cover than are ever on the airboat).
Hence my comment about lack of focus...there's actually some good writing scattered through here (less good other times and I have some comments on that later)...but the story is all over the place.
Are we telling an adventure/survival man against nature story (our tradesman on his own subplot)? Are we telling something similar but how an aging and out of touch father (who honestly feels more like a step-dad trying connect with a too old step-son) trying to rebuild his relationship with his son while they go through some tribulations story? Are we trying to tell an ensemble adventure/survival horror story with this group of old friends and explore how those lifelong dynamics change in the face of adversity? And then we get to the really odd stuff...
So is just man v. nature (bad enough, stranded in a swamp)? Is it a monster of the week movie story ala Anaconda....because it seems so at first, until the alligators, panthers, even bees and mosquitos (plus quicksand!) all seems hell bent on targeting and killing our protagonists. In which case, were we trying for a 'the horror and majesty of nature' like the Willows? Then we get the living in isolation in the swamps for generations cannibals...except they aren't really that isolated because they have like modern paramilitary gear? And maybe magic controlling...the swamp?...and everything in it? And finally...are we telling some sort of biohorror, government or corporate, genetic manipulation and creation of monsters story...because that's here too. At sub-300 pages, that's a lot of different possible stories we're telling, and they all suffer for that lack of focus.
Finally, the writing. As said, there is some good writing in places. I think there was a real possibility that the author could have gone for either creeping, unsettling dread or adventure story and pulled them off successfully. But there are also places, and I hate to say this (and never would if I knew it had gone through a reliable small or indie press instead), it almost feels like AI was being used. Maybe that also accounts for the story itself being all over the place. But we have characters who's names regularly switch spellings. Characters that are aware of events they were not present for. Passages where the same adjective is used to describe something multiple times in single sentences and across passages. Those parts are clunky enough to feel maybe machine generated.
All in all, *if* it was legitimately written on his own, I think the author has some potential and just needs to team up with a small press and a good editor to get future work pulled in tighter and cleaner. But this one is kind of a dud.
The Glades appears to have been entirely self-published. I think that may have been a misstep as it definitely could have benefited from a good editor. Not for layout and basic errors, which there are few of, but rather to help reign in the author and give some more focus to the story.
The Glades starts to tell the story of a group of 4 friends since childhood (and one of their teen kids) going on a vacation to the Everglades. Why the everglades? Its never precisely clear. Who's footing the bill (including for the one percenter resort they stay in the first night) when most of them are working class dudes? Also unclear. I won't criticize the unlikelihood of their skillsets and professional lives as a group because, sometimes, childhood friend groups persisting to adulthood are weird like that. There's also an older-dad-trying-to-connect-with-young-son subplot that sort of feels like it should have been its own story instead of the Hangover ensemble story (they also literally get wasted in a restort casino while the teen boy just sort of...is there?). Certainly since we start losing people from our main cast of four pretty quickly once we get into the swamps, I'm not sure why we had them (or a picture of more people on an airboat on the cover than are ever on the airboat).
Hence my comment about lack of focus...there's actually some good writing scattered through here (less good other times and I have some comments on that later)...but the story is all over the place.
Are we telling an adventure/survival man against nature story (our tradesman on his own subplot)? Are we telling something similar but how an aging and out of touch father (who honestly feels more like a step-dad trying connect with a too old step-son) trying to rebuild his relationship with his son while they go through some tribulations story? Are we trying to tell an ensemble adventure/survival horror story with this group of old friends and explore how those lifelong dynamics change in the face of adversity? And then we get to the really odd stuff...
So is just man v. nature (bad enough, stranded in a swamp)? Is it a monster of the week movie story ala Anaconda....because it seems so at first, until the alligators, panthers, even bees and mosquitos (plus quicksand!) all seems hell bent on targeting and killing our protagonists. In which case, were we trying for a 'the horror and majesty of nature' like the Willows? Then we get the living in isolation in the swamps for generations cannibals...except they aren't really that isolated because they have like modern paramilitary gear? And maybe magic controlling...the swamp?...and everything in it? And finally...are we telling some sort of biohorror, government or corporate, genetic manipulation and creation of monsters story...because that's here too. At sub-300 pages, that's a lot of different possible stories we're telling, and they all suffer for that lack of focus.
Finally, the writing. As said, there is some good writing in places. I think there was a real possibility that the author could have gone for either creeping, unsettling dread or adventure story and pulled them off successfully. But there are also places, and I hate to say this (and never would if I knew it had gone through a reliable small or indie press instead), it almost feels like AI was being used. Maybe that also accounts for the story itself being all over the place. But we have characters who's names regularly switch spellings. Characters that are aware of events they were not present for. Passages where the same adjective is used to describe something multiple times in single sentences and across passages. Those parts are clunky enough to feel maybe machine generated.
All in all, *if* it was legitimately written on his own, I think the author has some potential and just needs to team up with a small press and a good editor to get future work pulled in tighter and cleaner. But this one is kind of a dud.
November 12, 2025
I received this ARC from LibraryThing, although, admittedly, by the time I actually got it, it'd already been out for quite some time. I was disappointed since I'd intended to have it in my spooky season line up, but I digress.
This book is the epitome of trying too hard. Within the first 20 some odd pages, we have not ONE, but TWO harbingers trying to warn our characters of the dangers that lie ahead in the swamp. One is even named Old Man Jessup. Heck, how more stereotypical can you get? It's something straight out of a Scooby-Doo episode. All we're missing is someone pulling off a rubber mask.
On top of that, here's a shocker, these city boys get themselves into trouble, not only with nature and weather, but also with a crazy, cannibalistic group of swamp-people whose family roots go back generations. Obviously, not all of them make it and they go through some pretty terrible trails before finally escaping. Probably the worst part is that all this starts up before you make any sort of attachments to any of the characters, so, sadly, you almost don't really care what happens to them. That obviously changes as you get further into the book since you get to spend more time with these people, but if I'm being completely honest, I can't say I was that much more attached to them by the end.
If I had to summarize this book simply, I'd call it a cheesy, B horror movie that is trying way too hard and I can't say I'd recommend it.
This book is the epitome of trying too hard. Within the first 20 some odd pages, we have not ONE, but TWO harbingers trying to warn our characters of the dangers that lie ahead in the swamp. One is even named Old Man Jessup. Heck, how more stereotypical can you get? It's something straight out of a Scooby-Doo episode. All we're missing is someone pulling off a rubber mask.
On top of that, here's a shocker, these city boys get themselves into trouble, not only with nature and weather, but also with a crazy, cannibalistic group of swamp-people whose family roots go back generations. Obviously, not all of them make it and they go through some pretty terrible trails before finally escaping. Probably the worst part is that all this starts up before you make any sort of attachments to any of the characters, so, sadly, you almost don't really care what happens to them. That obviously changes as you get further into the book since you get to spend more time with these people, but if I'm being completely honest, I can't say I was that much more attached to them by the end.
If I had to summarize this book simply, I'd call it a cheesy, B horror movie that is trying way too hard and I can't say I'd recommend it.
July 26, 2025
Great read
This book is a great read. Despite the fact that it is unbelievable for so many reasons.
It does not detract from the fast-paced horror and drama. It only makes you think of all the little things that should have been done.
This book is a great read. Despite the fact that it is unbelievable for so many reasons.
It does not detract from the fast-paced horror and drama. It only makes you think of all the little things that should have been done.
September 29, 2025
This is entertaining if you can suspend disbelief. However it needed better editing in several places including firelight glinting off a snake’s scales when there was no fire, and the wrong character’s name. But my biggest problem is that this book ends in a cliffhanger which is a big no for me.
August 9, 2025
Great Book But….
This was a good book but it was a usless cliff hanger. A cliff hanger is lucky to get a 2 star from me. I will never read another book from this author.
This was a good book but it was a usless cliff hanger. A cliff hanger is lucky to get a 2 star from me. I will never read another book from this author.
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November 14, 2025No stars DNF.
The simplest thing I can say about this book is all gore and no story. Big fat NOPE for me.
For the rest of the review, visit my Vlog at:
https://youtu.be/zfKC3SJmSZ4
Enjoy!
The simplest thing I can say about this book is all gore and no story. Big fat NOPE for me.
For the rest of the review, visit my Vlog at:
https://youtu.be/zfKC3SJmSZ4
Enjoy!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews