Beast of Sorrows

by James Watts

The small Alabama town of Jericho Hills is one with many dark secrets born from the turmoil residing within its history. Some of those secrets, as bloody and heinous as they are, were never meant to surface, but were to remain in the shadows forevermore.


When Benjamin Belvedere, a young wanderer with a troubled past of his own comes to town, he’s followed by an evil little imp with a severe grudge against Ben. When a few of the townspeople are murdered, Ben becomes the prime suspect. As he begins to regret coming to Jericho Hills, and even starts to doubt himself, an even bigger threat from the town's past rears its head and shows its teeth. A conflict arises that will have Ben battling two evils. The prize for winning this battle? His sanity.

Genres: Horror

347 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 23, 2021

About the author

James Watts was born in Birmingham, Alabama in March of 1976. Growing up in the small town of West Jefferson, Alabama, Watts spent his days lost in his vivid imagination.



At age 10, he discovered the Hardy Boys mystery series and fell in love with reading. By Age 12 the discovery of Stephen King's The Stand gave life to his need to write, to tell stories that he hoped the world would love.



It would take twenty years of rejections and working low paying jobs, and go through two divorces before he would see the publication of his horror novel Them.



James Watts currently resides in West Jefferson, Alabama and has one 19-year-old son, Bailey Watts.

Reviews

[Zain · Rating 5 out of 5]

It Is a Fiver!

Beast of Sorrows is a good book. A great book. There is an awful lot going on in this book. There are many characters and some of them die.

The main characters are Ben, Mrs. Tidwell, Joyce, Cole, Gary, Sherrif Henderson, Ted Edwards, and Becks, the demon. There is a war going on between these people.

It’s all about ruling the world. The characters are divided into three groups of people. The groups are either for bringing the beast back to rule over the human race, or a group wants to bring the lycanthropes into power and kill all the humans.

Everybody must be killed. For some reason or other, Ben, Tidwell and the demon imp are all in the position to kill each other or get killed by each other.

This book has a lot of killing going on. Have mercy.

Five stars. ✨✨✨✨✨

[Shaun Filion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was fortunate enough, to follow Mr. Watts Journey, on Facebook, as he wrote this book. I waited as patiently as possible, And although it wasn't easy, it was definitely worth the wait! I do wish some of the people could have had more of a back story, but I still loved the characters in the book. I also enjoyed the fact, that right when I thought the story was going a certain way, it took a pretty sharp turn. Good creepy atmosphere. Some interesting villains. And even a few laugh out loud moments. I'd highly recommend Beast of Sorrows

[Merrill David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bark at the Moon!

Very well written, wonderful werewolf tail. I loved it! Great story, this one doesn’t disappoint! Its hard to put this one down

[DA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning book! I was blown away by all the intricacies of the different story lines coming together. The plot evolved from a story of a young man running from a demon to an all out supernatural battle. It is a slow burn, but when the action gets going it doesn't stop.

[Ziggy Nixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those facing damnation shall never be forgiven…

Well, I've thought about it overnight and there's really no way for me to review James Watts' "Beast of Sorrows" without giving out a whole passel of spoilers. So, um, STOP READING HERE NOW! No wait, before you go: I did enjoy this book even though it's a bit uneven in that it's really two books in one. There's also a few plot holes that you could drive a tractor through and a heck of a lot of coincidences that the author obviously just pants into the plot like the dickens. And what else? Hm, the first half of the book was scary AF (as farmin') but then the second half kind of just cut loose with the killin' and well, thar' ya go. Like I said though: STOP READING HERE NOW! Y'all be warned, ya hear? Twice even!

Bizarre was nowhere close to describing how fucking weird this was…

Where was I? Oh yeah, the book. First of all, if you get the book with the cover that looks like your niece accidentally thought your Xanax were candies, don't let that discourage you (alternatively there's the cover with a very angry Greta Thunberg deciding she's no longer in favor of PEACEFUL activism). It actually makes a hell of a lot of sense once you dive in. Speaking of which, our story follows Ben who is apparently followed pretty much everywhere he goes with really lousy luck. As in "that town was only here yesterday and now… poof! Everyone done been killt!" We kind of get a view into why his life is all messed up like this later from the convenient appearance of his monster-huntin' Uncle Cole (I did tell you there would be spoilers) but needless to say, if it weren't for bad luck, ol' Ben wouldn't have any luck at all.

I brought it here. I brought the devil down upon these good people.

And I've got to say, the first half of this book had me legitimately spooked. I rarely find books of any genre or sub-genre or sub-sub-genre-to-be-named-later really all that disturbing. But Watts really set things up in a way that I didn't want to turn the lights off, even in the middle of the day. Ben, whom we noted above, is busy running from the spookiest little demon I've seen in quite a while. I mean, the first time we hear that sweet little voice… well, it was plum scary. And it just got scarier once we found out that "within her lies the Beast of Sorrows. And the beast must feed." Plus, if you add to that her ethereal "Puppy" (no, you may NOT pet him!), I was sure we were in for one of the scariest tales of demonic haunting I'd ever come across. But then wouldn't you know it, the old land-lady took her clothes off and got all oiled up…

Crazy old naked ladies in the middle of the road during thunderstorms were probably a bad omen.

So first half of the book = scary little demon child wreaking havoc on a town that just seemed to draw her kind in. She wasted no time finding folks with lots of terrible hidden sins that were both emotional and quite shocking and sending them (the people, not the sins) on their merry way to Deadville. And I would have been happy to continue to follow along this path, hoping we might get to know more about Ben's previous encounter with this wee imp and what she had done to Ben's former lover, which we never really get confirmed in one way or the 'tother. That's why then I was surprised when the second half of the book = this whole town was run by an ancient Werewolf Pack who was intent on not only running things down 'Bama way but ruling the world through apocalyptic mayhem and seeing to a certain "resurrection (that) would usher in humankind’s extinction"!

It was as if death itself had born this spectacle of the damned!

And if that wasn't weird enough - yes, even weirder than seeing the same nekkid landlady's paintings of all things gloriously werewolfian and not really pausing long enough to check it out - there's more to this whole shebang of Monsters in Power. No, we get into the typical "this is a Southern town so naturally all the cops are crooked" bits as well as "okay so the Lycanthropes aren't the only dangerous changelings in town." Oh and did we mention that not only was it convenient that Ben's Uncle Cole showed up - himself a retired police officer and now hunter of all things paranormal - but that Gary - who lived in naked landlady's house, too - in fact is a second (or more) generation werewolf hunter and has an arsenal big enough to take down Greenland in his basement? Yeah, neat how that works out. And how everyone just manages to survive huge fights with all the critters running around Jericho Hills despite themselves.

He willed away the malicious manifestation of madness that was so intent in taking hold of him.

Overall, I found the book entertaining, yes, but also very uneven. Even the formulatin' of all them fancy sentences seems to drift in and out of different styles. Sometimes I found Watts writing to be quite elegant and almost poetic, maybe even a little too much so considering the topic. For example: "Nightfall was swift in its arrival, an obsidian mist swathing Jericho Hills in near-total darkness. A starless sky lorded over the town…" Other times the execution made me wonder if we didn't have a tense or subject disagreement hidden in all that stuff as things would suddenly be much more clunky and choppy. So again, with that and the switch to a kind of "Monster Hunters International" approach, it was almost like we got two books in one. Still, I will say that the "Epilogue" was one of the better ones I've read in a long, long time and has me definitely wanting to check and see if all this is going to be continued somewhere!

I don’t think his biscuits are done in the middle.

However, what was kind of a let-down once all was said and done was that I was left with so, so many questions, some of which I've already mentioned. If you'll excuse me then, I do want to get some of these off my chest and, to be fair, I told you to quit readin' a long time ago.

For example:
- Seriously? The werewolves are having a "meeting" in the living room and they couldn't tell that Ben and Joyce were watching them less than 10 feet away? Did that "spooky lube" they were slathered in smell that strong?
- Why did the vampire (did I not mention the vampire?) suck out ALL of Jeremy's blood (you'll figure out who he is pretty quick, no worries)? Wouldn't a second vampire kind of help things along in a massive battle against an untold number of werewolves and half-breeds? It would have also helped us avoid that silly "heaven is real!!" final scene with Jeremy and his loved ones, but I digress;
- Since so much of our dealings with werewolves in this book followed some pretty standard lore (ref. full moon, pack leaders, etc.), why didn't the folks who survived quite dreadful wounds from these creatures themselves turn into werewolves? Some of our heroes did get rather chewed on and scratched up somethin' fierce, so again, I was surprised when Ben and co. didn't join in the howlin' at the convenient full moon!
- Becks' return was also quite exciting but what's she going to do now (you can't keep a bad demon down!)? Is she still after Ben because he apparently still has some of her juju in him? It would certainly make for some interesting dialogue between her and her newly adopted "Puppy" on what journey they should take together, that's for sure! And are their others like her out there and if so, are they going to unite to try and have mankind extinct-inated as well?
- Also, we spent a rather large part of the book underlining that humans were scummy rat-like creatures - or as one of them called us "pathetic, miserable little primates" - and, as such, we are not worthy of the superior species on the planet, namely, well, all the other creatures. So how does a werewolf get pregnant by a human? Yes, I understand the sexy bits in terms of adding X + Y, but are we implying we = different species! have compatible bits in terms of what you need to have a baby start growin' = Z? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Chiara Cooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audiobook and I was disappointed. I did want to like this story but I think it was the reader that ruined it for me the most. I could not get past how annoyed I was by the voice and I'm sorry about that. I felt the reading was metallic and not credible and I couldn't get into it.

The story as well gets really confusing early on and there is the introduction of so many characters switching to one to another so quickly that I lost myself at times. The story has so many creatures from the devil's spawn (I think?) to werevolves, vampires, all tied in a family feud that I didn't really understand well.

I wish that some parts of the story had been given more attention, whilst I wished others had been shorter. I also didn't really like any of the characters which added to my inability to be fully immersed in the story.

Although the descriptive writing style was very enjoyable, at times it felt too much, again adding to my confusion. I did like the subtle unexpected twist at the end which at least made me smile a little.

All in all I wish I'd read the book instead that listening to it and I might give it another go at some point.

Thank you to R. E. Sargent and Steven Pajack for the audiobook and this is my honest review.

[Paul Pope · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible. Couldn’t finish it. The author frequently diverges from the story to include unnecessary and distracting details that have no impact on the plot, characters, or mood. We get detailed information about what furniture is in the room and its placement, what kind of wood flooring, what is on a grocery list…
At one point he gives DRIVING DIRECTIONS on how to get to place XYZ. It’s a whole paragraph of which street merges into another, where to turn, how far to go, look for a mailbox, make another turn, etc. It’s abysmal.
The writing is tragic, but the editor must have been sleeping.
I give it one star because that’s the bottom of the scale.
My recommendation: Avoid.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and suspenseful all the way through. It was quite enjoyable with unique characters and a captivating plot.

[Crystal Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put this down! Beautifully written, a real “page turner” as they say. I’m afraid to say more, for chance of spoilers.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the audio! Interesting werewolf story with other supernatural elements and good characters.