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Haven
“Absorbing and uncanny.” —Tracy Sierra, author of Nightwatching
A summer retreat to an elite island enclave tied to a Big Tech company becomes a mother’s worst nightmare in this gripping thriller
After months of financial strain and escalating arguments, Caroline is relieved when her husband, Adam, secures a job at Corridor, a prestigious Big Tech company. Though his long hours on top-secret projects often leave Caroline alone with their newborn son, Gabriel, the life-changing income seems worth the sacrifice.
When Adam suggests a summer retreat to Haven, the exclusive island community popular with Corridor employees, Caroline agrees, hoping the sun-soaked paradise will help Adam relax and bring their family closer. But she can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t quite right about the town. Though Adam assures her of their safety, the locals’ behavior is oddly secretive and ritualistic—even cultish. It’s clear that Corridor hasn’t resolved tensions about the way the company is transforming the island. And it doesn’t help that Adam’s colleagues seem to have a few strange beliefs of their own.
When Caroline wakes to discover that Gabriel is missing, her worst fears are confirmed. Desperate and unsure of whom to trust, she must race to find her son—and pull back the curtain on this elite enclave—before he is lost to the island forever.
Tensely plotted and terrifyingly prescient, Haven is a taut, darkly compelling exploration of the costs of innovation, the far limits of human progress, and the risks we’re willing to take for a brighter future.
A summer retreat to an elite island enclave tied to a Big Tech company becomes a mother’s worst nightmare in this gripping thriller
After months of financial strain and escalating arguments, Caroline is relieved when her husband, Adam, secures a job at Corridor, a prestigious Big Tech company. Though his long hours on top-secret projects often leave Caroline alone with their newborn son, Gabriel, the life-changing income seems worth the sacrifice.
When Adam suggests a summer retreat to Haven, the exclusive island community popular with Corridor employees, Caroline agrees, hoping the sun-soaked paradise will help Adam relax and bring their family closer. But she can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t quite right about the town. Though Adam assures her of their safety, the locals’ behavior is oddly secretive and ritualistic—even cultish. It’s clear that Corridor hasn’t resolved tensions about the way the company is transforming the island. And it doesn’t help that Adam’s colleagues seem to have a few strange beliefs of their own.
When Caroline wakes to discover that Gabriel is missing, her worst fears are confirmed. Desperate and unsure of whom to trust, she must race to find her son—and pull back the curtain on this elite enclave—before he is lost to the island forever.
Tensely plotted and terrifyingly prescient, Haven is a taut, darkly compelling exploration of the costs of innovation, the far limits of human progress, and the risks we’re willing to take for a brighter future.
252 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 10, 2026
57 people are currently reading
6535 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
April 9, 2026
An interesting book. I think the low average rating is totally unwarranted and I’m not sure what is going on there?
Thematically it touches on the excesses of power and money driving big tech to ever more outrageous actions, and the idea that the people who involve themselves always have too much and still never enough. This is used to justify even the most obviously ethically corrupt behaviour.
The story unfolds these ideas in a manner similar to The Compound, so you could use that as a kind of indicator about whether you find books like this compelling or opaque in meaning.
Thematically it touches on the excesses of power and money driving big tech to ever more outrageous actions, and the idea that the people who involve themselves always have too much and still never enough. This is used to justify even the most obviously ethically corrupt behaviour.
The story unfolds these ideas in a manner similar to The Compound, so you could use that as a kind of indicator about whether you find books like this compelling or opaque in meaning.
March 18, 2026
this was very alright. definitely was missing a lot of explanation and world building because everything was explained at the very end while the rest of the book not much happened.
thank you to netgalley for an advanced copy of this book!
thank you to netgalley for an advanced copy of this book!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Haven tells the story of Caroline and her husband taking a summer retreat to Haven, an exclusive island, with their baby. Of course, nothing goes as planned, and everything slowly goes from bad to worse. This blurb itself is very promising, especially with the mysterious yet prestigious Big Tech company Corridor, the town that isn't quite right, the odd cultish local behavior, etc. But, well ...
The blurb itself made us expect some scenes that would be truly heart pounding and thrilling, along with other mysteries that might later be solved, both about Haven and Corridor. And to uncover all of that, of course, we need a little buildup, slowly revealing what's actually strange about the town or even Caroline herself and her friend. But unfortunately, I feel it's all a bit too half-done.
There are names like Haven, Corridor, Mosaic, or HEOL thrown everywhere. Promising and giving a tiny bit of sci-fi vibes and genre. But knowing what or who exactly they are is never clear enough. The worldbuilding feels incomplete. I often wonder if this is set in the near future or modern day but with more advanced technology? Because the company seems like a very advanced company. But that's all.
And I think, what the blurb says about the 'odd locals' or 'odd town' isn't very odd to me. I didn't feel scared or even concerned about whatever Caroline sees. Nothing really weird or traumatic happens. The characters too. I didn't find them really interesting. In fact, they're all super annoying to me. Nothing really stands out about them, and this also has something to do with the writing.
I'm not saying the author's writing is bad. It's good, even. Only when it comes to narration. Because once it comes to dialogue, the writing changes from good to bad. These characters speak childishly. I rolled my eyes so many times when they spoke nonsense and completely unimportant things. I'd rather read one page paragraphs than one page of them bickering about whatever the hell it is.
So, in the end, I am not satisfied with this book.
The blurb itself made us expect some scenes that would be truly heart pounding and thrilling, along with other mysteries that might later be solved, both about Haven and Corridor. And to uncover all of that, of course, we need a little buildup, slowly revealing what's actually strange about the town or even Caroline herself and her friend. But unfortunately, I feel it's all a bit too half-done.
There are names like Haven, Corridor, Mosaic, or HEOL thrown everywhere. Promising and giving a tiny bit of sci-fi vibes and genre. But knowing what or who exactly they are is never clear enough. The worldbuilding feels incomplete. I often wonder if this is set in the near future or modern day but with more advanced technology? Because the company seems like a very advanced company. But that's all.
And I think, what the blurb says about the 'odd locals' or 'odd town' isn't very odd to me. I didn't feel scared or even concerned about whatever Caroline sees. Nothing really weird or traumatic happens. The characters too. I didn't find them really interesting. In fact, they're all super annoying to me. Nothing really stands out about them, and this also has something to do with the writing.
I'm not saying the author's writing is bad. It's good, even. Only when it comes to narration. Because once it comes to dialogue, the writing changes from good to bad. These characters speak childishly. I rolled my eyes so many times when they spoke nonsense and completely unimportant things. I'd rather read one page paragraphs than one page of them bickering about whatever the hell it is.
So, in the end, I am not satisfied with this book.
May 5, 2026
First of all it took over 50% of the way through for the plot to actually start and this book is only 230 pages… the first half was so pointless and didn’t add anything to the story. And it says on the back of the book Carolines son goes missing. Why does that happen after the 50% mark? And the last part of the book was not worth the time spent reading about these insufferable characters. It was trying to be some weird trippy book but it didn’t deliver at all
March 21, 2026
Sad to give this a rating so low, but it's unfortunately how I feel! Haven has such an intriguing concept that felt wobbly upon execution. Some parts were cool (the fever dream element of it all, some specific descriptions) but for the most part it really was just okay. It picks up near the end but I felt like we didn't get much explanation on key things in the beginning which meant the moment where everything comes together isn't as satisfying as it could be. I was reminded of The Compound, interestingly, but if we'd gotten even less description of the world outside. I read this one on someone's recommendation and I'm glad I checked it out, but ultimately it wasn't for me!
December 5, 2025
A big thank you to Viking Penguin | Penguin Books, Netgalley, and Ani Katz for providing an ARC upon request!
This is an interesting short story that's half thriller, half current-day science fiction. It is about a new mother named Caroline who is married to a high-ranking executive in the tech sector (a la Silicon Valley and your average 'tech bro') and they go on a retreat to a mysterious island called Haven. Residing in a literal glass house with her husband and several of his friends, Caroline's life slowly begins to unravel in more ways than one, and the catalyst is the disappearance of her three month-old son, Gabriel.
Haven is one of those books that really hinges on how much you like and/or can tolerate an unreliable narrator. Caroline's POV tends to range from reliable to downright fever dream territory, and eventually the surrealism reaches Jodorowsky levels of bizarre. There's some reasons for this that can be inferred from the text in between the lines, but even that can be brought into question towards the end of the book. The characters aren't very likable by any means, but it is interesting to read about their backstories and learn where they stand in their Silicon Valley tech bro environment.
I got really into this book around the midway point. The beginning had me weary, wondering if it was going to be a 'female struggle' book with how Caroline described being a mom and a wife, but once details about Caroline are revealed it made me like her more as a morally grey protagonist. Afterwards, I couldn't stop reading because her and her friend's flaws actually made me more fascinated with her character.
However, I don't think it really sticks the landing at the end. I feel like it's a victim of its own short length, clocking in at 250 pages. This feels like a book that could have really benefitted from an extra 100 pages or so, as the last fifty pages felt like a breakneck pace compared to the rest of the book. I also wasn't crazy with how it ended, as it felt a little too much like tropey science fiction mixed with current day conspiracy theory. When I read the big reveal I couldn't help but feel like the Whoopi Goldberg "....okay." clip.
In conclusion, this is a short read that, regardless of where you fall on fever dream storytelling and unlikable characters, should keep you interested in reading more. It is not a female struggle book, rather a book about tech bro corruption and oligarchy, that slowly devolves into a dreamlike haze of events. Stick with it past the first two chapters and you may be pleasantly surprised,
This is an interesting short story that's half thriller, half current-day science fiction. It is about a new mother named Caroline who is married to a high-ranking executive in the tech sector (a la Silicon Valley and your average 'tech bro') and they go on a retreat to a mysterious island called Haven. Residing in a literal glass house with her husband and several of his friends, Caroline's life slowly begins to unravel in more ways than one, and the catalyst is the disappearance of her three month-old son, Gabriel.
Haven is one of those books that really hinges on how much you like and/or can tolerate an unreliable narrator. Caroline's POV tends to range from reliable to downright fever dream territory, and eventually the surrealism reaches Jodorowsky levels of bizarre. There's some reasons for this that can be inferred from the text in between the lines, but even that can be brought into question towards the end of the book. The characters aren't very likable by any means, but it is interesting to read about their backstories and learn where they stand in their Silicon Valley tech bro environment.
I got really into this book around the midway point. The beginning had me weary, wondering if it was going to be a 'female struggle' book with how Caroline described being a mom and a wife, but once details about Caroline are revealed it made me like her more as a morally grey protagonist. Afterwards, I couldn't stop reading because her and her friend's flaws actually made me more fascinated with her character.
However, I don't think it really sticks the landing at the end. I feel like it's a victim of its own short length, clocking in at 250 pages. This feels like a book that could have really benefitted from an extra 100 pages or so, as the last fifty pages felt like a breakneck pace compared to the rest of the book. I also wasn't crazy with how it ended, as it felt a little too much like tropey science fiction mixed with current day conspiracy theory. When I read the big reveal I couldn't help but feel like the Whoopi Goldberg "....okay." clip.
In conclusion, this is a short read that, regardless of where you fall on fever dream storytelling and unlikable characters, should keep you interested in reading more. It is not a female struggle book, rather a book about tech bro corruption and oligarchy, that slowly devolves into a dreamlike haze of events. Stick with it past the first two chapters and you may be pleasantly surprised,
March 31, 2026
Sigh. This was like having a bad dream. Dreams don’t make much sense, and neither did Haven. I was happy to wake up from it.
It saddens me because this should have been my thing. I love strange and unsettling novels. But Haven just wasn’t right at all. I hated the characters and the story was quite unpleasant long before that annoying ending. I will pass on this author in the future.
I am immensely grateful to Penguin Books and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.
It saddens me because this should have been my thing. I love strange and unsettling novels. But Haven just wasn’t right at all. I hated the characters and the story was quite unpleasant long before that annoying ending. I will pass on this author in the future.
I am immensely grateful to Penguin Books and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.
October 6, 2025
thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-arc!
when a book starts to enter fever dream territory, I’m already preparing myself for an underwhelming conclusion. nothing can be surprising because everything is too abstract and nothing is real and the characters feel like caricatures. that was my issue the back half of this book, but I really enjoyed the first half! I was so intrigued to figure out what was going on not only on the island but also with the tech company, the relationship dynamics, and to figure out everyone’s motive(s). unfortunately due to previously mentioned swan dive into fever dream vibes I didn’t get a super satisfying answer to those questions but alas. I do still recommend!
when a book starts to enter fever dream territory, I’m already preparing myself for an underwhelming conclusion. nothing can be surprising because everything is too abstract and nothing is real and the characters feel like caricatures. that was my issue the back half of this book, but I really enjoyed the first half! I was so intrigued to figure out what was going on not only on the island but also with the tech company, the relationship dynamics, and to figure out everyone’s motive(s). unfortunately due to previously mentioned swan dive into fever dream vibes I didn’t get a super satisfying answer to those questions but alas. I do still recommend!
March 6, 2026
“Haven” is a short sophomore novel (250 pages) from Ani Katz. Her previous work in 2020 was also a 220 page thriller called “A Good Man,” another story about a morally grey man. The main protagonist in “Haven” is Caroline, possibly an unreliable narrator, who is a young mother whose husband has taken a job at a Big Tech firm, named Corridor,has its own utopian retreat, Haven. Overall, this is a psychological thriller tinged with sci-fi and horror.
Caroline and her baby Gabriel have followed her workaholic husband, Adam, to his employer’s isolated island company town. This is a future world where most taxis are self driving vehicles, assisted suicide centers have storefront clinics, VR is taken in-stride, and elderly rich people wear bio-jewelry that’s improving their lifestyle. Corridor’s competitors not only also own their own towns, but half of states like north North Dakota.
They meet up with Adam’s co-workers, all working on “you-know-what,” although Caroline is clueless. And then we return to the prologue — 3 month old Gabriel is missing and absolutely everything about his disappearance is sinister. The story did seem imaginative, but it’s such a downer that you wonder if Caroline is living a fever dream. Corridor is supposedly “infrastructure-focused” but what does that mean if they’re covering up her son’s disappearance? I usually can handle dystopian fairy tales, but “Haven” left me uneasy. Almost all the characters are unlikable and my opinion of Caroline kept shifting. This turned out to be a horror story and I was glad I did not need to suffer through another 100 pages. 2.5 stars.
Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO But Caroline has impossibly colored grey eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO But in this world it’s possible everything is bio-engineered.
Thank you to Penguin Viking and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!
Caroline and her baby Gabriel have followed her workaholic husband, Adam, to his employer’s isolated island company town. This is a future world where most taxis are self driving vehicles, assisted suicide centers have storefront clinics, VR is taken in-stride, and elderly rich people wear bio-jewelry that’s improving their lifestyle. Corridor’s competitors not only also own their own towns, but half of states like north North Dakota.
They meet up with Adam’s co-workers, all working on “you-know-what,” although Caroline is clueless. And then we return to the prologue — 3 month old Gabriel is missing and absolutely everything about his disappearance is sinister. The story did seem imaginative, but it’s such a downer that you wonder if Caroline is living a fever dream. Corridor is supposedly “infrastructure-focused” but what does that mean if they’re covering up her son’s disappearance? I usually can handle dystopian fairy tales, but “Haven” left me uneasy. Almost all the characters are unlikable and my opinion of Caroline kept shifting. This turned out to be a horror story and I was glad I did not need to suffer through another 100 pages. 2.5 stars.
Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO But Caroline has impossibly colored grey eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO But in this world it’s possible everything is bio-engineered.
Thank you to Penguin Viking and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!
March 17, 2026
3.25 The author does a great job using foreboding language to describe innocuous things in order to create an eerie atmosphere. I really wanted to unravel what is happening on the island and where baby Gabriel is hidden. It’s culty and techy and treacherous.
Our FMC isn’t the most likable… and she does something in the ocean that will forever be scarred in my mind. 😬
It is Black Mirror-esque as it’s technology horror, and I would have loved a bit more about the company. I also don’t think characters reacted as dramatically as they should have considering the outcome!
Thank you very much to Penguin Books for the ARC!
Pub date was March 10, 2026
Our FMC isn’t the most likable… and she does something in the ocean that will forever be scarred in my mind. 😬
It is Black Mirror-esque as it’s technology horror, and I would have loved a bit more about the company. I also don’t think characters reacted as dramatically as they should have considering the outcome!
Thank you very much to Penguin Books for the ARC!
Pub date was March 10, 2026
Read
March 14, 2026How much i want bath my soul and heart
dive to surch what rong
poop to know many lost paper at book of my life
island got my nervs
how i dream by world full by color
island hunt my unsteady life
grey eyes full around
rain truth my sky
dream or imgation i live in
life colored nt my fav
search for truth
for y
dive to surch what rong
poop to know many lost paper at book of my life
island got my nervs
how i dream by world full by color
island hunt my unsteady life
grey eyes full around
rain truth my sky
dream or imgation i live in
life colored nt my fav
search for truth
for y
Did Not Finish
April 9, 2026I honestly can't stand this type of "nothing is what it seems" genre of storytelling in my old age. Signing up for hundreds of pages of a story that ends up being completely false is aggravating. On occasion, this trope works for me, but that is rare.
May 6, 2026
Really twisted. But also a thought-provoking fast read.
April 24, 2026
This was so odd, and I mean i enjoy a surreal horror novel, but i do think there was a little too much left unsaid at the end. I LOVED how the relationship between our MC and her loser husband was written. That element was fantastic.
April 27, 2026
High hopes, engaging start, and a bit of a fizzle. The ideas were there but it somehow felt both too all over the place and somewhat too neatly tied together.
Feels like a wild choice to me to not have a single character actually explain anything about what’s happening to Caroline until Jane near the end (only for her to be decapitated?). There was entirely too much “what’s happening” to “I think you know what’s happening” going on.
At a certain point, something has to give.
Feels like a wild choice to me to not have a single character actually explain anything about what’s happening to Caroline until Jane near the end (only for her to be decapitated?). There was entirely too much “what’s happening” to “I think you know what’s happening” going on.
At a certain point, something has to give.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 10, 2026
Super fast-paced intriguing read. I have so many questions about the ending, but that's a sign of a great novel. Wish it were longer and had gotten more of a backstory on all of the characters - otherwise very well-written and exciting/horrifying in equal amounts.
March 18, 2026
Big tech ate my baby
BWAF SINISTER SELECTION
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Haven is Rosemary’s Baby rebuilt for the age of NDAs and biohacking, a novel that starts as a missing-child thriller and mutates into something far stranger and more furious. Ani Katz writes early motherhood like a horror movie and corporate complicity like a religion. Ferociously paced, genuinely unnerving, and smart enough to earn its bleakest impulses.
Caroline, sleep-wrecked and anxious, hauls out a breast on a public bench to feed her screaming infant while a group of teenage boys watches and cheers. Her husband Adam is three feet away, face buried in his phone. It’s funny and awful and so precisely observed that it hurt my chest a little. That combination of funny, awful, and precise is the whole book’s operating frequency, and Ani Katz stays locked into it for an impressively long time before cranking the dial toward something much, much worse.
Caroline and Adam, a young Brooklyn couple still shaky from his unemployment and a near-marriage-ending affair, arrive at Haven, an exclusive island community frequented by employees of the tech megacorp where Adam now works. They’re sharing a glass-walled beach house with his colleagues for a month of sun and Sancerre. Caroline has their infant son Gabriel strapped to her body and that prickling feeling that something about this place is fundamentally wrong. Then Adam gets called back to the mainland, and Gabriel disappears.
What Katz does from there is genuinely impressive. She could have written a tight missing-baby thriller. Instead she wrote something that starts as domestic suspense and keeps mutating, pushing through genre membranes until it’s speculative body horror by way of Ira Levin and a decade of tech-bro dystopia discourse. It shouldn’t work. It works really well.
Katz writes in long, controlled sentences that accumulate detail the way anxiety accumulates in the body. Caroline is a photographer, and the book thinks like one. A severed hand burrowing into a heap of jade grapes in a grocery store, and it takes you a beat to realize the hand is Caroline’s own, that Katz is describing dissociation as casually as reaching for fruit. Three teenage girls bobbing up out of a turquoise pool like wraiths, grinning, calling the baby “Gabey,” claiming they’re “just the delivery girls.” A doe and her fawns at the water’s edge, speaking without moving their mouths, delivering the novel’s thesis in the voice of an animal parable. The texture is almost tactile. It has the warm, pressurized density of a fever dream you’re not sure you’ve woken up from.
Katz is a writer, photographer, and teacher from Long Island’s South Shore with a BA from Yale and an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. Her 2020 debut, A Good Man, was a psychological thriller narrated by a family annihilator that earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. That book was a slow-burn character study told from a monster’s perspective. Haven is structurally bolder, pivoting from realism to surrealism mid-stride, distributing its horror across an entire corporate system rather than one man’s broken psychology. In a Writer’s Digest interview, Katz described a five-year evolution from conventional locked-room thriller to speculative horror, shaped by her own difficult journey to have a child alongside what she called “the seemingly daily examples of venal elites dragging the rest of us into a techno-fascist hellscape.” Both pressures are legible on the page, and they give the novel a rawness that feels earned rather than performed.
The characters work because none are simple. Caroline is sympathetic but not saintly: judgmental, afraid of teenagers on street corners, aware she married up. Adam is infuriating the way charismatic, self-pitying men are infuriating. The supporting cast are drawn with a satirist’s precision. Blaise with his Olympic swimmer’s body and performative man-bun. Wynn delivering conspiracy lectures in a hat embroidered “Unprecedented Times.” Perry, so carefully kind to Caroline that you spend half the book wondering if he’s decent or something else entirely. Katz gives them all just enough humanity that they stay real even as the plot demands they become sinister, and that ambiguity is one of the scariest things in the novel.
The middle section is where Haven is most electrifying and occasionally most unwieldy. Each scene is individually stunning, but stacked together they occasionally slow momentum when you want it sprinting. Maybe fifteen pages where accumulation tips from dreamlike into cluttered. Minor complaint about a ferociously paced book, but it’s there.
The dread in Haven is built through social discomfort that metastasizes. The scariest thing here isn’t a cult or a corporation. It’s the feeling of being in a room full of people who all know something you don’t, who are smiling, who might love you, who are definitely lying. Katz understands that durable horror comes from complicity. It’s Rosemary’s Baby if the Castevets worked in venture capital, but that undersells how contemporary and politically furious this book is.
Haven is not perfect. It’s ambitious in ways that mostly pay off, which is rarer and more interesting. It has the courage to be genuinely weird, the craft to make that weirdness feel inevitable, and a thesis about power, motherhood, and what we’ll sacrifice for safety that will sit in your stomach like a stone. Read it, then lie face-down on the floor for twenty minutes.
BWAF SINISTER SELECTION
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Haven is Rosemary’s Baby rebuilt for the age of NDAs and biohacking, a novel that starts as a missing-child thriller and mutates into something far stranger and more furious. Ani Katz writes early motherhood like a horror movie and corporate complicity like a religion. Ferociously paced, genuinely unnerving, and smart enough to earn its bleakest impulses.
Caroline, sleep-wrecked and anxious, hauls out a breast on a public bench to feed her screaming infant while a group of teenage boys watches and cheers. Her husband Adam is three feet away, face buried in his phone. It’s funny and awful and so precisely observed that it hurt my chest a little. That combination of funny, awful, and precise is the whole book’s operating frequency, and Ani Katz stays locked into it for an impressively long time before cranking the dial toward something much, much worse.
Caroline and Adam, a young Brooklyn couple still shaky from his unemployment and a near-marriage-ending affair, arrive at Haven, an exclusive island community frequented by employees of the tech megacorp where Adam now works. They’re sharing a glass-walled beach house with his colleagues for a month of sun and Sancerre. Caroline has their infant son Gabriel strapped to her body and that prickling feeling that something about this place is fundamentally wrong. Then Adam gets called back to the mainland, and Gabriel disappears.
What Katz does from there is genuinely impressive. She could have written a tight missing-baby thriller. Instead she wrote something that starts as domestic suspense and keeps mutating, pushing through genre membranes until it’s speculative body horror by way of Ira Levin and a decade of tech-bro dystopia discourse. It shouldn’t work. It works really well.
Katz writes in long, controlled sentences that accumulate detail the way anxiety accumulates in the body. Caroline is a photographer, and the book thinks like one. A severed hand burrowing into a heap of jade grapes in a grocery store, and it takes you a beat to realize the hand is Caroline’s own, that Katz is describing dissociation as casually as reaching for fruit. Three teenage girls bobbing up out of a turquoise pool like wraiths, grinning, calling the baby “Gabey,” claiming they’re “just the delivery girls.” A doe and her fawns at the water’s edge, speaking without moving their mouths, delivering the novel’s thesis in the voice of an animal parable. The texture is almost tactile. It has the warm, pressurized density of a fever dream you’re not sure you’ve woken up from.
Katz is a writer, photographer, and teacher from Long Island’s South Shore with a BA from Yale and an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. Her 2020 debut, A Good Man, was a psychological thriller narrated by a family annihilator that earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. That book was a slow-burn character study told from a monster’s perspective. Haven is structurally bolder, pivoting from realism to surrealism mid-stride, distributing its horror across an entire corporate system rather than one man’s broken psychology. In a Writer’s Digest interview, Katz described a five-year evolution from conventional locked-room thriller to speculative horror, shaped by her own difficult journey to have a child alongside what she called “the seemingly daily examples of venal elites dragging the rest of us into a techno-fascist hellscape.” Both pressures are legible on the page, and they give the novel a rawness that feels earned rather than performed.
The characters work because none are simple. Caroline is sympathetic but not saintly: judgmental, afraid of teenagers on street corners, aware she married up. Adam is infuriating the way charismatic, self-pitying men are infuriating. The supporting cast are drawn with a satirist’s precision. Blaise with his Olympic swimmer’s body and performative man-bun. Wynn delivering conspiracy lectures in a hat embroidered “Unprecedented Times.” Perry, so carefully kind to Caroline that you spend half the book wondering if he’s decent or something else entirely. Katz gives them all just enough humanity that they stay real even as the plot demands they become sinister, and that ambiguity is one of the scariest things in the novel.
The middle section is where Haven is most electrifying and occasionally most unwieldy. Each scene is individually stunning, but stacked together they occasionally slow momentum when you want it sprinting. Maybe fifteen pages where accumulation tips from dreamlike into cluttered. Minor complaint about a ferociously paced book, but it’s there.
The dread in Haven is built through social discomfort that metastasizes. The scariest thing here isn’t a cult or a corporation. It’s the feeling of being in a room full of people who all know something you don’t, who are smiling, who might love you, who are definitely lying. Katz understands that durable horror comes from complicity. It’s Rosemary’s Baby if the Castevets worked in venture capital, but that undersells how contemporary and politically furious this book is.
Haven is not perfect. It’s ambitious in ways that mostly pay off, which is rarer and more interesting. It has the courage to be genuinely weird, the craft to make that weirdness feel inevitable, and a thesis about power, motherhood, and what we’ll sacrifice for safety that will sit in your stomach like a stone. Read it, then lie face-down on the floor for twenty minutes.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This was just ... bizzare. None of the characters were likeable and Caroline just seemed along for the ride and not really engaged on what was happening around her. It's almost like this story wanted to be so many things but couldn't stick to one idea.
April 23, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of
Haven.
The cover art caught my eye even though I'm not a fan of books with cult themes.
TW: miscarriage, disturbing imagery of blood and animal sacrifice, missing children
Haven is a sci-fi novel that weaves complex themes of A.I., technology, eugenics, and biohacking through the perspective of Caroline, a new mom who is struggling as a new parent.
She is an unreliable main character; at first, I thought the story was a commentary on the challenges of motherhood, which is nothing new.
The story gradually turns into a deeper exploration of social privilege and the moral complexities surrounding those who hold power and think everyone else is beneath them.
There's no one likable here, not Caroline and her engineer husband, Adam, and his tech bro friends and their partners.
There's no substance to anyone, Caroline is a stereotype, a woman who had an artistic career and sacrificed it to support her husband who needed a new job so they could start their family.
Caroline is nothing more than a trope rather than an individual with needs, desires, and ambitions of her own.
The world-building is creepy but inconsistent.
The author attempts to create a surreal atmosphere like a David Lynch movie but the strangeness seems forced, making it difficult for me to really believe what's happening.
There are so many strange things happening and Caroline is still oblivious?
OK, I get her son is missing so she's extremely distracted but once again, the main character has no idea what's happening or remains in denial of the oddities she's encountered; the people, the strange comments directed at her.
There's no tension or suspense until Caroline's son has disappeared.
Since the novel is so short, she spends half the narrative looking for him and the real reason they're on this island.
Nothing really happens except for those fever memories Caroline suddenly, conveniently recalls when the moment calls for them, all is explained in a undramatic info dump that detracts from the buildup.
While the narrative has potential, the execution falls flat in character development and world-building.
The story hints at important themes but doesn't explore them deeply enough and the anti-climatic ending is another cliche; dull acceptance because who is going to fight an all powerful tech company?
I'm left wondering - what's the point of the story?
The cover art caught my eye even though I'm not a fan of books with cult themes.
TW: miscarriage, disturbing imagery of blood and animal sacrifice, missing children
Haven is a sci-fi novel that weaves complex themes of A.I., technology, eugenics, and biohacking through the perspective of Caroline, a new mom who is struggling as a new parent.
She is an unreliable main character; at first, I thought the story was a commentary on the challenges of motherhood, which is nothing new.
The story gradually turns into a deeper exploration of social privilege and the moral complexities surrounding those who hold power and think everyone else is beneath them.
There's no one likable here, not Caroline and her engineer husband, Adam, and his tech bro friends and their partners.
There's no substance to anyone, Caroline is a stereotype, a woman who had an artistic career and sacrificed it to support her husband who needed a new job so they could start their family.
Caroline is nothing more than a trope rather than an individual with needs, desires, and ambitions of her own.
The world-building is creepy but inconsistent.
The author attempts to create a surreal atmosphere like a David Lynch movie but the strangeness seems forced, making it difficult for me to really believe what's happening.
There are so many strange things happening and Caroline is still oblivious?
OK, I get her son is missing so she's extremely distracted but once again, the main character has no idea what's happening or remains in denial of the oddities she's encountered; the people, the strange comments directed at her.
There's no tension or suspense until Caroline's son has disappeared.
Since the novel is so short, she spends half the narrative looking for him and the real reason they're on this island.
Nothing really happens except for those fever memories Caroline suddenly, conveniently recalls when the moment calls for them, all is explained in a undramatic info dump that detracts from the buildup.
While the narrative has potential, the execution falls flat in character development and world-building.
The story hints at important themes but doesn't explore them deeply enough and the anti-climatic ending is another cliche; dull acceptance because who is going to fight an all powerful tech company?
I'm left wondering - what's the point of the story?
April 21, 2026
hmm..... thanks to netgalley & the publisher for letting me read this in exchange for my honest review.
A speculative type of fictional story that focuses on the relationships of strangers, motherhood, traditions, the lengths people go for longevity of life & technology’s relationships with our future.
Caroline is a relatively new mom, she’s been doing the heavy lifting in the couple when it comes to taking care of her son Gabriel since her husband Adam got his job at big tech company Corridor. Despite the company being a major pillar of society, all of his work is shadowed in the elusiveness of NDA’s that keep Adam from actually telling Caroline what he does. He convinces her to go on a trip to Haven, an island that was once a mystery of traditions but is now a big tech vacation spot. They’re grouped up with Adam’s friends & colleagues, a group that Caroline isn’t super close with but has met. Once they’re on the island, things start to become a little more than anyone signed up for.
When I read the description of this book I thought I would be in for a treat that would combine the average horrors mothers have in new places with a little baby & the way big tech has its hands on everything around us. Unfortunately, the story could not live up to that hype. Almost immediately Adam proved himself to be a fucking dick, telling his wife he ‘love[s] it when you’re a little bitchy’ & that nearly sent me, I mean this was the first chapter!!!
Poor Caroline is trying to enjoy some semblance of a vacation & instead she’s trapped on an island surrounded by adults who are mixing their substances & a whole island population making weird allusions she simply can’t keep up with. In the first few chapters we’re treated to an absent father, a group of late 20-somethings doing droppers of some synthetic drug & lots of partner swapping. I’m not opposed to any of these things mind you, I love a fucked up tale. But unfortunately, this was not good. Throughout the story we’re treated to glimpses of Caroline’s true self, spotting photographs she would be taking & how she would tell those stories but the reality of life is too much to ignore. When her husband breaks the news that he’s not going to be with the group during the week because of “work”, she’s left with even more to pay attention to but luckily some of the friends are sympathetic trying to assist in their own type of ways. When Gabriel goes missing, I was almost glad of it at least something was moving along but that joy was a short lived creature. We’re led to believe that this is a huge plot point of the story, with Caroline slowly but surely losing all traces of her sanity while she’s being gaslit by nearly every person around her. Then finally, when the answers arrived it negated any of her growth & made for a lackluster story in all.
By the last 20% of the book I just wanted to be done, I wanted her to either find her son or not but I needed her to get to that conclusion. Since I’ve already DNF’d a few books this year I stuck through & felt confident enough to write some kind of review on it. I think the idea is there but, unfortunately it fell off pretty hard.
A speculative type of fictional story that focuses on the relationships of strangers, motherhood, traditions, the lengths people go for longevity of life & technology’s relationships with our future.
Caroline is a relatively new mom, she’s been doing the heavy lifting in the couple when it comes to taking care of her son Gabriel since her husband Adam got his job at big tech company Corridor. Despite the company being a major pillar of society, all of his work is shadowed in the elusiveness of NDA’s that keep Adam from actually telling Caroline what he does. He convinces her to go on a trip to Haven, an island that was once a mystery of traditions but is now a big tech vacation spot. They’re grouped up with Adam’s friends & colleagues, a group that Caroline isn’t super close with but has met. Once they’re on the island, things start to become a little more than anyone signed up for.
When I read the description of this book I thought I would be in for a treat that would combine the average horrors mothers have in new places with a little baby & the way big tech has its hands on everything around us. Unfortunately, the story could not live up to that hype. Almost immediately Adam proved himself to be a fucking dick, telling his wife he ‘love[s] it when you’re a little bitchy’ & that nearly sent me, I mean this was the first chapter!!!
Poor Caroline is trying to enjoy some semblance of a vacation & instead she’s trapped on an island surrounded by adults who are mixing their substances & a whole island population making weird allusions she simply can’t keep up with. In the first few chapters we’re treated to an absent father, a group of late 20-somethings doing droppers of some synthetic drug & lots of partner swapping. I’m not opposed to any of these things mind you, I love a fucked up tale. But unfortunately, this was not good. Throughout the story we’re treated to glimpses of Caroline’s true self, spotting photographs she would be taking & how she would tell those stories but the reality of life is too much to ignore. When her husband breaks the news that he’s not going to be with the group during the week because of “work”, she’s left with even more to pay attention to but luckily some of the friends are sympathetic trying to assist in their own type of ways. When Gabriel goes missing, I was almost glad of it at least something was moving along but that joy was a short lived creature. We’re led to believe that this is a huge plot point of the story, with Caroline slowly but surely losing all traces of her sanity while she’s being gaslit by nearly every person around her. Then finally, when the answers arrived it negated any of her growth & made for a lackluster story in all.
By the last 20% of the book I just wanted to be done, I wanted her to either find her son or not but I needed her to get to that conclusion. Since I’ve already DNF’d a few books this year I stuck through & felt confident enough to write some kind of review on it. I think the idea is there but, unfortunately it fell off pretty hard.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Oh no, I really didn't like this book.
Nothing really happens for more than the first half of the book. By the time the baby finally went missing and there was a hint of excitement to come, I was pretty much over it and didn't care much about whether or not they found Gabriel. Even the "thrilling" bits missed the mark for me, leaving me feeling like calling Haven a thriller is a bit of a stretch.
Upon discovering the baby is missing, Caroline and the other grownass adults in this book immediately decide his abduction is all a part of a conspiracy and then run around the island like the gang from Scooby Doo trying to solve a mystery. It was... weird.
I didn't like or care about any of the characters. With the exception of Caroline and one other character, all of the people she was staying with blurred together. There were too many of them.
There was one scene where many of them share a past trauma that should have humanized them in a way that made me care, but it didn't work. None of them were especially likeable or unlikeable - they just existed.
The book takes place in the near future and there was a vague sci-fi element that felt only partially formed and a lot of it was bogged down by too many company names and phrases. It's possible we are meant to be as confused about the tech world Caroline's husband and friends are a part of as she is, but if that's true, I don't like the way it was done.
I don't know, I always try to say something positive about a book when I didn't absolutely hate it, but I feel like this book is just... there. It's a book! There are some bits about motherhood I am sure some parents could relate to, but I don't know if that small part makes it worth the read.
I'm looking forward to reading positive reviews of this book though because maybe they can shed some light on something I missed.
I received an ARC from Viking Books.
Nothing really happens for more than the first half of the book. By the time the baby finally went missing and there was a hint of excitement to come, I was pretty much over it and didn't care much about whether or not they found Gabriel. Even the "thrilling" bits missed the mark for me, leaving me feeling like calling Haven a thriller is a bit of a stretch.
Upon discovering the baby is missing, Caroline and the other grownass adults in this book immediately decide his abduction is all a part of a conspiracy and then run around the island like the gang from Scooby Doo trying to solve a mystery. It was... weird.
I didn't like or care about any of the characters. With the exception of Caroline and one other character, all of the people she was staying with blurred together. There were too many of them.
There was one scene where many of them share a past trauma that should have humanized them in a way that made me care, but it didn't work. None of them were especially likeable or unlikeable - they just existed.
The book takes place in the near future and there was a vague sci-fi element that felt only partially formed and a lot of it was bogged down by too many company names and phrases. It's possible we are meant to be as confused about the tech world Caroline's husband and friends are a part of as she is, but if that's true, I don't like the way it was done.
I don't know, I always try to say something positive about a book when I didn't absolutely hate it, but I feel like this book is just... there. It's a book! There are some bits about motherhood I am sure some parents could relate to, but I don't know if that small part makes it worth the read.
I'm looking forward to reading positive reviews of this book though because maybe they can shed some light on something I missed.
I received an ARC from Viking Books.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley, author Ani Katz, and Viking Penguin for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!
2.5 rounded up? I think? Oof, this one was really heavy. I'm all about weird books, but this might have been a step too far for me. This will not be for everyone; I would definitely check some reviews and maybe content flags before reading. However, I will say, this book has EXCELLENT pacing. Katz drew me in immediately to the story and world-building. Once the book hit the halfway point, this is where things really started picking up speed, and it literally felt like a car crash I couldn't look away from. This is set in a near-future, and while I do wish some aspects of the time period were better fleshed out, the sense of not-knowing almost made it eerier. The setting of Haven is unsettling, and even from the start, there was a pulsing discomfort throughout each of the characters. There are some shocking conversations and scenes peppered throughout, and I do wish we got more of a sense of who these people (besides from Caroline) actually are. I liked Caroline as a protagonist, her flaws and all. The reveal at the end was pretty shocking to me, and although I was confused in certain ways at first, I think it did straighten out by the closing. This was a book that left me feeling unsettled and grim, which is not my preferred when reading a book. In ways, I think the tone and quite frankly violence of this near future book reminded me in ways of The Compound by Aisling Rawle last year. That book didn't quite work for me, and I do think I enjoyed this read more, but I feel like if you're fans of one, I would recommend the other to at least try.
2.5 rounded up? I think? Oof, this one was really heavy. I'm all about weird books, but this might have been a step too far for me. This will not be for everyone; I would definitely check some reviews and maybe content flags before reading. However, I will say, this book has EXCELLENT pacing. Katz drew me in immediately to the story and world-building. Once the book hit the halfway point, this is where things really started picking up speed, and it literally felt like a car crash I couldn't look away from. This is set in a near-future, and while I do wish some aspects of the time period were better fleshed out, the sense of not-knowing almost made it eerier. The setting of Haven is unsettling, and even from the start, there was a pulsing discomfort throughout each of the characters. There are some shocking conversations and scenes peppered throughout, and I do wish we got more of a sense of who these people (besides from Caroline) actually are. I liked Caroline as a protagonist, her flaws and all. The reveal at the end was pretty shocking to me, and although I was confused in certain ways at first, I think it did straighten out by the closing. This was a book that left me feeling unsettled and grim, which is not my preferred when reading a book. In ways, I think the tone and quite frankly violence of this near future book reminded me in ways of The Compound by Aisling Rawle last year. That book didn't quite work for me, and I do think I enjoyed this read more, but I feel like if you're fans of one, I would recommend the other to at least try.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions!
I had to sleep on this one before I could review it or even decide on a rating. I'm going with 3.5 stars rounded up.
The first part of this book reads like a mom suffering from postpartum psychosis, with a touch of drinking while taking what I assumed to be benzos. The second half is an abrupt shift into a mystery novel while Caroline tries to find out what's happened to her son.
Both halves are weird. This may actually be the most unreliable narrator I have ever encountered, and nothing is explained. Bizarre things happen and are breezed past, the tertiary characters behave insanely, technology is introduced with no real understanding of what it does.
To be clear: I love unreliable narrators. That instantly makes any book more intriguing for me. My main reason for rating this book 3.5 stars is because the two halves of the book are so disparate. It's like someone stitched two different stories together and the abrupt change of pace is jarring. I found it odd how some of the themes so heavily portrayed in the first half are completely abandoned in the second half. And even though the ending does pan out, it's still just a little bit under explained. I think I understand what I read? But I wouldn't want to try to write an English essay about it!
Overall worth reading if you're like me and into weird books with unreliable narrators. It definitely got into my head a few times despite being so short.
I had to sleep on this one before I could review it or even decide on a rating. I'm going with 3.5 stars rounded up.
The first part of this book reads like a mom suffering from postpartum psychosis, with a touch of drinking while taking what I assumed to be benzos. The second half is an abrupt shift into a mystery novel while Caroline tries to find out what's happened to her son.
Both halves are weird. This may actually be the most unreliable narrator I have ever encountered, and nothing is explained. Bizarre things happen and are breezed past, the tertiary characters behave insanely, technology is introduced with no real understanding of what it does.
To be clear: I love unreliable narrators. That instantly makes any book more intriguing for me. My main reason for rating this book 3.5 stars is because the two halves of the book are so disparate. It's like someone stitched two different stories together and the abrupt change of pace is jarring. I found it odd how some of the themes so heavily portrayed in the first half are completely abandoned in the second half. And even though the ending does pan out, it's still just a little bit under explained. I think I understand what I read? But I wouldn't want to try to write an English essay about it!
Overall worth reading if you're like me and into weird books with unreliable narrators. It definitely got into my head a few times despite being so short.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
3.75 / 5 stars -
Thank you Netgalley and Ani Katz for the advanced copy! If you know me, you know I'm all for weird, eccentric novels (It's by far my favorite genre).
For 40% of the book, I had no clue what was going on - other than our main character, Caroline, and her husband decide to go on a mini retreat to Haven for their summer holidays. Towards the first half of the novel, we get backstory on the start of their marriage, Adam's job at Corridor (rather vaguely), then their time at Haven with Adam's friends. The main bit of knowledge I've retained from this part of the book is that their version of monogamy is different from mine, and all of Adam's friends are strange.
The plot begins to pick up at the 52% mark where a series of unfortunate events unfold - Caroline bringing her baby to a yacht, giving said baby to a group of young girls, proceeding to makeout with Adam's friend, and forgetting everything that occurred that evening. At this point, Adam is temporarily away due to work-related reasons. Unfortunately, Caroline is gaslighted by the police and we start to feel the unease of this cultish island, Haven.
Without spoiling much of this story, Adam reveals significant information about his work that illuminates why their baby could be gone. Am I shocked here? Not really. It felt like it came out of a Black Mirror episode, in a good way. I'm here for a futuristic plot that edges on the border of fantasy and reality.
I'll end with this note - I knew something was shifty with her husband, it's just not what I thought it was originally lol.
Thank you Netgalley and Ani Katz for the advanced copy! If you know me, you know I'm all for weird, eccentric novels (It's by far my favorite genre).
For 40% of the book, I had no clue what was going on - other than our main character, Caroline, and her husband decide to go on a mini retreat to Haven for their summer holidays. Towards the first half of the novel, we get backstory on the start of their marriage, Adam's job at Corridor (rather vaguely), then their time at Haven with Adam's friends. The main bit of knowledge I've retained from this part of the book is that their version of monogamy is different from mine, and all of Adam's friends are strange.
The plot begins to pick up at the 52% mark where a series of unfortunate events unfold - Caroline bringing her baby to a yacht, giving said baby to a group of young girls, proceeding to makeout with Adam's friend, and forgetting everything that occurred that evening. At this point, Adam is temporarily away due to work-related reasons. Unfortunately, Caroline is gaslighted by the police and we start to feel the unease of this cultish island, Haven.
Without spoiling much of this story, Adam reveals significant information about his work that illuminates why their baby could be gone. Am I shocked here? Not really. It felt like it came out of a Black Mirror episode, in a good way. I'm here for a futuristic plot that edges on the border of fantasy and reality.
I'll end with this note - I knew something was shifty with her husband, it's just not what I thought it was originally lol.
May 8, 2026
Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Sigh. I was sadly disappointed by this one! I don't know if part of it was I had such excited expectations by the blurb and the cool cover, but I just felt like this story did not hit. Every single character is dislikeable (some people love this and I'm saying this as a caveat to my somewhat negative review, that I personally do not like for every single character to be terrible people). I found the book lacking in setting the stage and it was confusing as a result. Like I read the blurb to mean there would be weird cultish behavior, but honestly nothing the island people did seemed THAT weird? I would call it "world building" but it's a real world I guess, it's more of a sci-fi situation, similar to The Compound, but I felt like by the time I figured out what was going on (the end) I just didn't care anymore because I was not invested in any of the characters (except of course for the poor baby). Everyone in this book is terrible and lacking in any sort of morals. Which CAN be fun if done in a more whimsical/satirical way I feel, but really I just found the whole story to be off-putting (and not in a fun horror way, just kind of like "why am I reading this?" way). I feel so bad because I really really wanted to love this one but I just couldn't connect to it in any way. Glad I tried it, but if I wasn't reviewing for NG, I might have DNFd.
Sigh. I was sadly disappointed by this one! I don't know if part of it was I had such excited expectations by the blurb and the cool cover, but I just felt like this story did not hit. Every single character is dislikeable (some people love this and I'm saying this as a caveat to my somewhat negative review, that I personally do not like for every single character to be terrible people). I found the book lacking in setting the stage and it was confusing as a result. Like I read the blurb to mean there would be weird cultish behavior, but honestly nothing the island people did seemed THAT weird? I would call it "world building" but it's a real world I guess, it's more of a sci-fi situation, similar to The Compound, but I felt like by the time I figured out what was going on (the end) I just didn't care anymore because I was not invested in any of the characters (except of course for the poor baby). Everyone in this book is terrible and lacking in any sort of morals. Which CAN be fun if done in a more whimsical/satirical way I feel, but really I just found the whole story to be off-putting (and not in a fun horror way, just kind of like "why am I reading this?" way). I feel so bad because I really really wanted to love this one but I just couldn't connect to it in any way. Glad I tried it, but if I wasn't reviewing for NG, I might have DNFd.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, for which I thank them.
“Haven” is by Any Katz. For me, this book was a difficult one to get into. I felt like the atmosphere/culture was so over the top (think frat house combined with money) that it almost seemed like a parody of the “tech bro” culture. I couldn’t ever really understand Caroline - was she really passive, did she just not care, was she unreliable, was she losing it? The other characters all seemed to blur together for me - from the people in the house to the people on the beach - and it was difficult for me to keep track of who was doing what (I’m not sure I ever figured out a “why”). This book has science fiction elements yet was set in the near future and while things were off and odd, it became a bit too bewildering (maybe that was the point?). For me, this book didn’t work - the locals weren’t as “odd” as I imagined … nothing weird seem to happen (abstract, yes, weird, not really). Also, the first chapter, where Caroline discovers her son missing, was well done - it was gripping, but then the book took its sweet time getting back to that point, which put me off - yet at the same time, the ending felt super rushed … so pacing was a huge issue for me. Would I recommend this book - maybe, if you like abstract stories mixed with unreliable narrators.
“Haven” is by Any Katz. For me, this book was a difficult one to get into. I felt like the atmosphere/culture was so over the top (think frat house combined with money) that it almost seemed like a parody of the “tech bro” culture. I couldn’t ever really understand Caroline - was she really passive, did she just not care, was she unreliable, was she losing it? The other characters all seemed to blur together for me - from the people in the house to the people on the beach - and it was difficult for me to keep track of who was doing what (I’m not sure I ever figured out a “why”). This book has science fiction elements yet was set in the near future and while things were off and odd, it became a bit too bewildering (maybe that was the point?). For me, this book didn’t work - the locals weren’t as “odd” as I imagined … nothing weird seem to happen (abstract, yes, weird, not really). Also, the first chapter, where Caroline discovers her son missing, was well done - it was gripping, but then the book took its sweet time getting back to that point, which put me off - yet at the same time, the ending felt super rushed … so pacing was a huge issue for me. Would I recommend this book - maybe, if you like abstract stories mixed with unreliable narrators.
February 15, 2026
As always, thank you PRH audio, for this INCREDIBLE ALC.
This story begins with Caro (Caroline) and Adam arriving late to the ferry with their infant son Gabriel. They’re set to stay in the “space” house on the island, Haven with a group of Adam’s coworkers.
Caroline is reasonably nervous, and her social anxieties and first time mom frustration while everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves is so relatable it hurts. When Adam is called back to work, all Caro wants is a break. Instead, she has to poop on a beach. (I’m not kidding lmao)
As she settles in with the group, we’re shown vivid imagery of a cult like island with age old rituals they’re not ready to retire. Today’s climate makes this all the more relevant, and I enjoyed the shared disgust. But is that the real problem on this island, or is it all a show? We take a long journey when Gabriel is snatched, and Caro scours the island for her son. Who can she trust? Can she even trust herself?
This was a five star read and the end, while not what I hoped, still packed a realistic wtf. Somewhere between horror and a thriller, I fell in love with this author.
This story begins with Caro (Caroline) and Adam arriving late to the ferry with their infant son Gabriel. They’re set to stay in the “space” house on the island, Haven with a group of Adam’s coworkers.
Caroline is reasonably nervous, and her social anxieties and first time mom frustration while everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves is so relatable it hurts. When Adam is called back to work, all Caro wants is a break. Instead, she has to poop on a beach. (I’m not kidding lmao)
As she settles in with the group, we’re shown vivid imagery of a cult like island with age old rituals they’re not ready to retire. Today’s climate makes this all the more relevant, and I enjoyed the shared disgust. But is that the real problem on this island, or is it all a show? We take a long journey when Gabriel is snatched, and Caro scours the island for her son. Who can she trust? Can she even trust herself?
This was a five star read and the end, while not what I hoped, still packed a realistic wtf. Somewhere between horror and a thriller, I fell in love with this author.
April 24, 2026
3 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2026/03/26/...
Haven by Ani Katz was interesting and a little weird, in both good and slightly frustrating ways. It has the sort of premise I’m usually drawn to, kind of a mix of near-future science fiction and thriller elements, but at the same time, the story leans heavily into an uncanny, surreal atmosphere that leaves you with the nagging sense that something is off, even if you can’t quite put your finger on what.
The novel follows Caroline, who arrives at the island community of Haven with her husband, Adam, and their infant son, Gabriel. The past few months have been challenging, marked by the stresses of new parenthood and financial uncertainty while Adam searched for work. Things finally seem to turn around when he lands a position at a powerful tech company called Corridor. Though it means long hours and time away from his family, the promise of stability and security makes it all worth it. And with Haven serving both as the company’s base of operations and a summer retreat for its employees, the couple decides to take advantage of the opportunity to unwind and strengthen their bond. Besides, Caroline is curious about Adam’s new friends and colleagues, hoping to gradually integrate into their world.
But Haven quickly proves to be anything but relaxing. The community feels overly curated, the residents polite yet distant, and there’s something about the island’s culture that seems a little too polished to be genuine. Adam’s new colleagues are friendly enough on the surface, but beneath that geniality runs an undercurrent of detachment, their relationships both exclusive and vaguely performative. Caroline senses the tension, and even though she can’t fully make sense of it, she feels an odd pull toward these social dynamics. When Adam leaves for work, leaving her alone to take care of Gabriel, that temptation only grows. Then one morning, she wakes up to find the baby missing, and that lingering sense of unease suddenly snaps into something far more immediate and terrifying.
I want to reiterate how much I really liked the book’s concept here. However, the execution had a way of stumbling all over itself. The combination of tech culture, the seemingly idyllic isolation, and an almost cult-like elitism among the characters was compelling, but at times, it was like the plot was circling itself without knowing what it wanted to say. Something about control? Influence? Complicity? Caroline’s perspective adds to this haziness, because in a way, she is an unreliable narrator, filtering everything through her own anxiety, isolation, and fear that she might be missing something just out of reach. I will say this works wonders for the atmosphere, but when it comes to clarity? Nope, I am still very confused.
That same quality extends to the world-building. There are a lot of interesting ideas baked into Haven as a setting, this polished and almost artificial community shaped by Big Tech. Again, the vibes are spot on. There’s just enough strangeness in the residents’ behaviors, the manicured landscapes, the absurd commercials on the television, etc. to be appropriately creepy and off-putting. But at the same time, the details never fully coalesce, leaving you with questions about why some of these eccentricities even exist or how this world actually functions.
As an example, the inclusion of medically assisted suicide is another element that feels like it’s reaching for something weighty and provocative, but in reality, it is already something happening in some parts of the world, and the book’s presentation of it as shocking or ethnically extreme comes across as a bit overdramatized, adding to the sense that the story is gesturing toward themes that are big and profound without fully grounding them. Characters fall into a similar pattern. Caroline’s motivations are solid in theory, being a new mother who is navigating an unfamiliar environment. But as the story progresses, she drifts further from us, so that by the end her reactions feel increasingly untethered and harder to understand.
Even so, there was something about Haven that kept me reading. There are moments, especially after Gabriel goes missing, where the suspense is sharpened and the story starts to come together in a more satisfying way. However, the final sections deliver a resolution that, while tense and dramatic, feels a little rushed and leaves several of the novel’s bigger questions only partially answered.
All in all, Haven is one of those books that lingers in your mind more for its atmosphere and ideas than for a fully coherent story. It’s uneven, occasionally frustrating, and doesn’t quite deliver on all its promises, but at the same time, there’s a certain magnetism that made it hard to put down. If you’re drawn to stories that blur the lines between thriller and speculative fiction, there’s a lot here to enjoy, but don’t expect everything to be neatly tied up by the final page.
Haven by Ani Katz was interesting and a little weird, in both good and slightly frustrating ways. It has the sort of premise I’m usually drawn to, kind of a mix of near-future science fiction and thriller elements, but at the same time, the story leans heavily into an uncanny, surreal atmosphere that leaves you with the nagging sense that something is off, even if you can’t quite put your finger on what.
The novel follows Caroline, who arrives at the island community of Haven with her husband, Adam, and their infant son, Gabriel. The past few months have been challenging, marked by the stresses of new parenthood and financial uncertainty while Adam searched for work. Things finally seem to turn around when he lands a position at a powerful tech company called Corridor. Though it means long hours and time away from his family, the promise of stability and security makes it all worth it. And with Haven serving both as the company’s base of operations and a summer retreat for its employees, the couple decides to take advantage of the opportunity to unwind and strengthen their bond. Besides, Caroline is curious about Adam’s new friends and colleagues, hoping to gradually integrate into their world.
But Haven quickly proves to be anything but relaxing. The community feels overly curated, the residents polite yet distant, and there’s something about the island’s culture that seems a little too polished to be genuine. Adam’s new colleagues are friendly enough on the surface, but beneath that geniality runs an undercurrent of detachment, their relationships both exclusive and vaguely performative. Caroline senses the tension, and even though she can’t fully make sense of it, she feels an odd pull toward these social dynamics. When Adam leaves for work, leaving her alone to take care of Gabriel, that temptation only grows. Then one morning, she wakes up to find the baby missing, and that lingering sense of unease suddenly snaps into something far more immediate and terrifying.
I want to reiterate how much I really liked the book’s concept here. However, the execution had a way of stumbling all over itself. The combination of tech culture, the seemingly idyllic isolation, and an almost cult-like elitism among the characters was compelling, but at times, it was like the plot was circling itself without knowing what it wanted to say. Something about control? Influence? Complicity? Caroline’s perspective adds to this haziness, because in a way, she is an unreliable narrator, filtering everything through her own anxiety, isolation, and fear that she might be missing something just out of reach. I will say this works wonders for the atmosphere, but when it comes to clarity? Nope, I am still very confused.
That same quality extends to the world-building. There are a lot of interesting ideas baked into Haven as a setting, this polished and almost artificial community shaped by Big Tech. Again, the vibes are spot on. There’s just enough strangeness in the residents’ behaviors, the manicured landscapes, the absurd commercials on the television, etc. to be appropriately creepy and off-putting. But at the same time, the details never fully coalesce, leaving you with questions about why some of these eccentricities even exist or how this world actually functions.
As an example, the inclusion of medically assisted suicide is another element that feels like it’s reaching for something weighty and provocative, but in reality, it is already something happening in some parts of the world, and the book’s presentation of it as shocking or ethnically extreme comes across as a bit overdramatized, adding to the sense that the story is gesturing toward themes that are big and profound without fully grounding them. Characters fall into a similar pattern. Caroline’s motivations are solid in theory, being a new mother who is navigating an unfamiliar environment. But as the story progresses, she drifts further from us, so that by the end her reactions feel increasingly untethered and harder to understand.
Even so, there was something about Haven that kept me reading. There are moments, especially after Gabriel goes missing, where the suspense is sharpened and the story starts to come together in a more satisfying way. However, the final sections deliver a resolution that, while tense and dramatic, feels a little rushed and leaves several of the novel’s bigger questions only partially answered.
All in all, Haven is one of those books that lingers in your mind more for its atmosphere and ideas than for a fully coherent story. It’s uneven, occasionally frustrating, and doesn’t quite deliver on all its promises, but at the same time, there’s a certain magnetism that made it hard to put down. If you’re drawn to stories that blur the lines between thriller and speculative fiction, there’s a lot here to enjoy, but don’t expect everything to be neatly tied up by the final page.
April 24, 2026
I went into this read blind.
I still felt blind halfway through, then the shift came, and everything got crazy trippy after that.
Caroline is a new mother. Her husband Adam works for a big tech company. When he suggests summering at Haven, a retreat his company provides, she thinks it might be just the thing they need. But everything is not as it seems in Haven, and Caroline quickly realizes she can’t discern what is reality. When her baby goes missing, her world turns upside down, and the sinister plot of the island is brought to light.
This reminded me of the twighlight zone or something like it. I love stories like this. And I’m so happy I didn’t read too much about it before jumping in.
The themes of this book are disturbing, and Some of the visuals are graphic. I felt like there were some horror vibes, but more psychological horror.
This story is darkkkkkk.
Thank you netgalley for this arc!
I still felt blind halfway through, then the shift came, and everything got crazy trippy after that.
Caroline is a new mother. Her husband Adam works for a big tech company. When he suggests summering at Haven, a retreat his company provides, she thinks it might be just the thing they need. But everything is not as it seems in Haven, and Caroline quickly realizes she can’t discern what is reality. When her baby goes missing, her world turns upside down, and the sinister plot of the island is brought to light.
This reminded me of the twighlight zone or something like it. I love stories like this. And I’m so happy I didn’t read too much about it before jumping in.
The themes of this book are disturbing, and Some of the visuals are graphic. I felt like there were some horror vibes, but more psychological horror.
This story is darkkkkkk.
Thank you netgalley for this arc!
November 3, 2025
this one was so fun. I was instantly absorbed and intrigued by the weirdness of Haven, of Adam's work and his weird rich tech-bro friend group. it was all very up my alley.
when shit started getting really weird I was also very on board. I thought it escalated at a really great pace and I couldn't put it down!!! that said, I found the ending a bit disappointing. it felt like there were some loose ends that didn't get tied up - not in a fun, intentional-feeling way, more like maybe Katz was trying to do too much with it at once and lost track. still, this was a creepy one that I enjoyed very much, was definitely the kind of read I was looking for.
thanks for the arc! excited for this one to hit the shelves
when shit started getting really weird I was also very on board. I thought it escalated at a really great pace and I couldn't put it down!!! that said, I found the ending a bit disappointing. it felt like there were some loose ends that didn't get tied up - not in a fun, intentional-feeling way, more like maybe Katz was trying to do too much with it at once and lost track. still, this was a creepy one that I enjoyed very much, was definitely the kind of read I was looking for.
thanks for the arc! excited for this one to hit the shelves
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