I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.  All opinions are my own. 

A slacker’s euphoric trip on a new mushroom leads to the discovery of a powerful fungal network beneath his home and a ruthless resurrected killer on the loose in author Terrell Chafin’s “Awakening,” the first book in the Mother’s Little Helpers series.

The Synopsis

🏆 Winner of the 2025 Pencraft Literary Award — Summer’s Best Book for Horror

If it helps you find love and happiness, is it really so bad that it wants to kill and eat you?

Rage Sutherland, an unemployed, foul-mouthed 30-year-old had never once made his dead parents proud – or tried to for that matter. Instead, he lives happily in his consequence-free forever-adolescence in the house his parents left him.

Down the hill behind his home, Mother, a massive underground fungus, is having an existential crisis. Starving and desperate, she births a new offspring—a mushroom that promises boundless love, followed by a slow, blissful death.

When the mushrooms pop up in his yard, Rage can’t resist. One bite, and his world explodes into overwhelming ecstasy.

Meanwhile, Emile Navarro, a long-dead murderer, is resurrected into a fungus-fueled hunter to find Mother fresh food. Navarro, a remorseless sexual deviant who never found satisfaction, is determined to get this new life “right” this time.

Rage enjoys his newfound love of everything, until he finds himself face-to-face with the creature, Navarro—and is forced to risk his happiness by making a choice between life and death.

Get caught between the urge to race ahead and the dread of what’s to come in this fast-paced, dark comedic horror thriller. A life-affirming yet chilling tale that reminds you everything will be okay—until it isn’t.

THE REVIEW

This was a fun, atmospheric, and tension-filled horror novel. The compelling imagery and the author’s writing bring the narrative to life, immersing the reader in a psychological, psychedelic-fueled deep dive into human desire and the lengths a person will go to achieve a bliss-filled state. The level of detail the author brought to each scene was truly compelling, from the frightening look of the reanimated killer that began stalking the streets to the way the Author blended the euphoric beauty the protagonist saw in Mother with the haunting reality of what Mother really was.

The narrative’s strong foundation rested on character development that allowed a beautiful fusion of dark humor and compelling folkloric and supernatural horror. The deeper character dive allowed the reader to see the psychological impact not only certain vices have on the human psyche, but the sometimes shaky ground the path of spirituality can take, reminding this reader of the almost euphoric feeling some people get between drug-induced states and the pitfalls of falling into a cult mindset. The protagonist’s ignorance as the story begins, to the greater dangers surrounding them, did bring a fun and humorous point of view to help offset the lurking dangers and hoarders that became very atmospheric as the story progressed.

THE VERDICT

Compelling, entertaining, and thrilling, author Terrell Chafin’s “Awakening” is a must-read supernatural and psychological horror novel. The twists and turns that the story takes and the quirky cast of characters that brought both humor and true terror to the narrative allowed readers to have a unique and immersive experience that not only kept them invested in the story and the characters themselves, but eager for the next entry in this wonderful new horror series. If you haven’t yet, please be sure to grab your copy today!

Rating: 10/10

About the Author

Terrell Chafin lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Charlie, and the ghosts of their two dogs, Willie and Bear, who still stomp around on the bed at night.

A former composer, he somehow ended up spending more than 30 years in the legal technology field. After retiring, he decided to focus on his passions for fiction writing and performing magic—and occasionally both. After a decade of tinkering with his first novel, the award-winning Awakening, he followed it with the sequel, ReAwakening.

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