The Hatch

Waiting Out Winter #2

by Kelli Owen

Nick Kontis and his remaining family members have survived winter--have outlived the threat of deadly infected flies--and are heading toward presumed safety. They quickly find all exit points blocked, the perimeter burned, and learn the flies were only the beginning, as Mother Nature has stepped in to correct mankind's mistakes. Her weapon of spiders. With thick webs covering the spring landscape, and lack of any communication leaving them on their own to guess whether or not the spiders are as lethal as the flies they're eating, they make a new plan. Fleeing in a new direction they run into another party of survivors. And what was once a breakdown of society becomes an exercise in rebuilding. They'll need to find common ground and bond with the others, before winter arrives again. Before the spiders declare victory...

Genres: Horror

109 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Kelli Owen writes dark fiction, thrillers, and suspense that explore characters, consequences, and the uneasy shadows of everyday life. Her novels dig into psychological tension, while her short fiction has earned her a reputation for sharp, character-driven storytelling in bite-sized doses of dread.

She has been a reviewer, editor, podcaster, and indie film producer, and has spoken at countless conventions and events, including the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA about the craft and field of writing. Her work has appeared in anthologies and magazines alongside authors such as Stephen King, Robert McCammon, F. Paul Wilson, and Josh Malerman, and in multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated collections.

Born and raised in Wisconsin, Kelli now lives in the dark woods of Pennsylvania. For news, updates, and the occasional ramble, visit www.kelliowen.com

Reviews

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spiders! I hate them! Yet I couldn't resist reading this sequel to WAITING OUT WINTER. I'm so glad I finally did!

We're following Nick and his band of survivors as the government experiment gone wrong in WINTER, has now morphed into a different problem altogether. As with the best post apocalyptic stories, this tale is more about the survivors than it is about the creatures. And even though there is a metric shit-ton of spiders around, in all of their different shapes, sizes and venomous abilities, we don't see a lot of gory spider action. In fact, we really don't see any-only the after effects. Screw you, Dennis! You got what you deserved!

This is another quiet tale from Kelli Owen that I very much enjoyed and can heartily recommend with two caveats: 1. If you're expecting a lot of creature feature romp & chomp action, you'd probably be happier with something by Hunter Shea, and 2. you probably should read WAITING OUT WINTER first.

Heartily recommended!

Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/2Ovx4Pp

*I bought my copy directly from Kelli and the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival and she was kind enough to sign it for me. That did not affect the honesty of my review.*

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had to choose between a plague of flies or spiders, I would happily endure the flies. I have arachnophobia. It's no joke. A single spider can send me into a full-blown panic attack if it's big enough and hideously ugly.
THE HATCH is a standalone sequel to WAITING OUT WINTER. In WINTER, Nick Kontis and his family barely survived nature's attack on humanity but it wasn't without its loses. An outbreak of deadly infected flies forced people into their homes in order to avoid being infected with disease.
I recommend reading that novella first, but you don't have to--if spiders are more threatening to you and you want to start with this one, you can do that but there are references back to situational horrors from the first book.
Now it's Spring and a new threat has emerged...hatching. Creeping. Crawling.
The interesting thing about Kelli Owen's nature horror is that the real focus in on the people trying to survive. THE HATCH reminded me of THE WALKING DEAD in the way that at some point, the zombies were not as threatening as the other survivors the protagonists encounter. In THE HATCH, the spiders are amassing and they are threatening but people are managing to band together, hunker down and survive.
Where WINTER focused on one family, THE HATCH has our family on the road looking for a safe place --a spider-free zone.
Kelli introduces some new characters to engage with our family--some we can love and some we love to hate. It's my feeling that with the new characters, there was more story/character development required that we just don't get because of the length of the story. WINTER zeroes in on one family surviving and while it felt concise and succinct, I didn't find it lacking.
However, in this story, I needed more time with the new characters. More engagement and situational drama/dialog/relationship.
I did love that Owen gave us a resolved ending. I feel like if she wanted to keep going and shoot for a trilogy, the ending was open enough to do that (I would love that!)
I recommend these two books to horror readers who enjoy character-driven, realistic, emotional nature horror vs. a creature-feature gorefest. I love Kelli Owen's storytelling voice and will continue reading her books in 2020.

[Karl]

This hardcover book is copy V of 36 signed and lettered copies, signed by Kelli Owen.

[Frank Errington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelli Owen was born and raised in Wisconsin and now resides in Pennsylvania where she's written a number of novellas and a few of my favorite books, including Live Specimens, Six Days, and White Picket Prisons.

Her latest effort is a novella called, The Hatch. It's a stand-alone sequel to Waiting Out Winter, a wonderfully creepy story of killer flies. In the sequel, a family of survivors is doing their best to find a safe place away from a new infestation of spiders. They are literally everywhere, but it's unknown whether they are as deadly as the flies, and no one wants to volunteer to find out.

If I have any complaint about this piece, it's the length. I would have loved this to have gone on for more than its 136 pages. However, Kelli did manage to put a lot into the story. A handful of wonderfully diverse characters, some that light up a room and one in particular who could single-handedly bring about a total eclipse on a bright, sunny day.

Just having the story feature spiders was enough to ratchet up the creepiness factor above 100%. I despise these eight-legged pests.

Both Waiting Out Winter and The Hatch are available, in paperback and e-book formats, at Amazon.com. Although The Hatch can be read without reading Waiting Out Winter, I really think you'll like them better together.

Recommended.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Waiting Out Winter I was so invested in the characters that I bought this immediately. The story of Nick and his band of survivors continues as they face a new threat in a world devastated by an apocalyptic plague. While this is a survival story that mostly takes place in one location without many dramatic events, I was never bored. Kelli Owen makes both the threat and her characters real, which makes the entire work even scarier. I also liked that while the story could continue there is a definitive ending. 5 stars and especially recommended for apocalyptic fiction fans.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the direct sequel to WAITING OUT WINTER, Owen returns to the Kontis family, and friends, who flee their boarded up home besieged by the deadly flies, to find a better place to survive. But what they soon discover is worse than imagined. What really works for me in this very realistic and plausible horror novella is how believable it is, the plot and characters. How real. Owen is a master of that.

The ending of this survival horror novella seemed like there could be more to the story in the future...let's hope so!

Highly recommended!

[Kate Victoria RescueandReading · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Nature reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests.” ~Thornton Wilder

This was book 2 in the series, and it started out strong and then nose dived.

Instead of flies, spiders are now a threat. However, instead of fighting off mutated arachnids, our characters basically just sit around perseverating on what COULD happen. The dialogue between characters felt stilted, and the new folks in this tale felt awkward and underdeveloped as well.

[Russell Coy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plague of virus-carrying flies that forced Nick, Jamie, and Jerry indoors for a whole winter has been replaced by a new threat from further up the food chain. Now, the spiders have taken over. Not knowing if the arachnids carry the disease, the trio and their children must once again take shelter and keep their heads together, this time with another group of survivors.

The Hatch is an excellent sequel to Owen's Waiting Out Winter, and the superior work in my opinion, more fleshed-out and visceral than it's predecessor, with the same excellent writing and characterization. I read both back-to-back, and would recommend this approach to others.

5 stars, highly recommended!

[Thomas Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fast paced with no bullshit

Well written and fast paced, this sequel to Waiting Out Winter is the first book I've read by Owen. Now I can't wait to go back and see how it began. Owen's characters are rich, fully formed persons. Her prose is terse, a commonality shared with the Brian Keene camp of writers she subscribes herself to, and that's a good thing. The style leaves much to the imagination to make you think without the burden of nonessential details. Well recommended for a good summer's read at the beach. That is if you don't suffer from arachnophobia...

[Waheela · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I found the first one entertaining I found this one boring and somewhat a repeat of the first story. I probably wouldnt have finished it if not for the lenght.

The author is glossing over so many details regarding the monsters which could have been interesting.

This is NOT a horror/monster book. If you read it with that intention you will get disappointed like me. If you like post apocalyptic human interaction you might like it.

That being said, nothing wrong with the writing style.

[Cara Poggi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This and Waiting Out Winter... Get ready to sit around with your heart in your throat.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are terrified of spiders, this is the book for you. This book was very slow to start, I got really tired of the spiders but got more intriguing near the end.

[Seline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed. I really was hoping this would be more about the spiders...

[Misty Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fast read. I really loved following the family’s journey of survival against deadly flies and creepy spiders

[Mommacat · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE HATCH is the direct sequel to WAITING OUT WINTER and Kelli Owen totally nails this novella. WINTER ends and readers literally look around saying, "Yeah, and then what?" Owen tells us. Well, humans must battle the whole food chain. Flies, frogs, spiders...

And the family has to figure out how to survive. What I loved most about this book was the unexpected change in the middle a la Robert Heinlein. He made those sudden left turns a lot in his books. She made that turn about halfway through and took the story in a slightly different direction that I think showed a new maturity to her writing.

THE HATCH is a must read to all lovers of horror and science fiction. i highly recommend you buy a copy today.

[Coral · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was fine.

[Robert Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed Kelli Owen's Waiting Out Winter, the novella to which this book is a sequel. I thought it was an excellent read and did a great job of condensing the widespread horror of apocalyptic literature into a relatively short form. I also wanted more. I wanted to know more about the characters and the strange world they inhabit. This sequel provides exactly what I wanted, and I would argue it even surpasses the first book.

The cover informs the reader that this is a "stand-alone" sequel to Waiting Out Winter. Technically, I suppose that's true. Though it picks up directly where the first book left off, the story here is largely self-contained and the prologue will bring the reader up to speed enough to understand what's going on. However, I don't recommend reading this one without having read Waiting Out Winter first. A bit part of the reason it succeeds and even surpasses the first book is that much of the heavy lifting in terms of character development and world building have already been done, allowing this book to provide newer and deeper insights without having to set up the entire premise from scratch.

That having been said, the premise actually shifts for this sequel. The contagion-carrying flies from the first book have largely given way to a newer threat: spiders. Lots of spiders. For most people, that alone would be enough to ratchet up the fear factor because I think most people are more afraid of spiders than of flies--and even if they intellectually understand contagions to be more of a threat, they probably have more of a visceral reaction to spiders than those, too. I'm not the average reader. I like spiders more than I like flies. I'm not really afraid of spiders at all. I know which ones are dangerous in my region and I enjoy the company of the rest of them. So when I say that the switch from flies to spiders actually does manage to increase the horror, you know I'm not just blowing smoke.

This is one of the best books I've read this year, and I highly recommend it (but if you're new to this world, get Waiting Out Winter first).

[Lisa Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Hatch by Kelli Owen is full of tension, scares, and pervasive dread. It is the follow-up to Waiting Out Winter, and you really need to read that one first to get the full effect of the story and characters. I found this story to be part creature feature and part post-apocalyptic survival horror, with all the best traits of both.

The Hatch is an evocative, full-speed-ahead tale, with no fluff to slow things down. The characters are vivid and diverse, paralleling the horror formula without falling into stereotypes. The character driven dark comic relief and horrors are, as always, well done by Owen, and contribute to the tension and unpredictability. Owen pokes at many phobias during the course of this story, so be prepared to be creeped out by any given sentence.

This was a fun and quick read and is a must for Kelli Owen fans!

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This sequel to "Waiting out Winter" picked up on the fear, paranoia, and the sense of isolation that was so prevalent in WoW. A new terror has been added - nature is trying to correct herself, and now spiders are taking over. Not knowing if the spiders carry the same deadly poisons carried by the flies, the Kontis family is seeking a refuge, a place to hunker down and survive. But does such a place exist in this new wasteland of Wisconsin?
In this novella, we are met with some new characters, and find out once again that humans are the most terrifying danger of all.

[Michael Louis Dixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had so much trouble feeling any empathy for these characters. It never jelled.