𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐥𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐍𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐲
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫
𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫: 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝟐𝟐𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓
I think Nat Cassidy is becoming a fav author - I’ve read three of his books and they’ve all been 5 ⭐️.

But I think this one resonated with me the most though. Mainly because I’ve clearly got daddy issues and this book made me miss my dad even more.

I don’t really know how to put it into words… I was addicted to reading this book, I devoured the last 50% as I could not put it down.

100% recommend if you like
Fast paced
Quirky Storylines
Non predictable
Roger Rabbit

This book made me so emotional, it didn’t go the way I thought it would but it was just so beautifully written and heartbreaking.

It was one bloody ride but amongst all of this chaos was a complicated relationship of parenthood, complications with dealing with your anxiety, dealing with love and loss.

𝐌𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝟓 ⭐️

A top contender for favourite book of the year !!

Thanks so much @netgalley , @catnassidy and @titanbooks for this Arc 🫶🏻🖤!

#bookstagram #books #bookstagramuk #booktok #bookish #booksbooksbooks #horror #natcassidy #whenthewolfcomeshome #netgalleyreads #netgalleyreview #bookstaghouls #booksta #bookworm #booklover #bookghost

Nat Cassidy’s latest book is a pumping horror thriller reminiscent of books like The Fury, Firestarter mixed with It’s a Good Life.

Jess is a struggling actor who works at a local diner. One night she experiences a life changing event. First, whilst cleaning the bathroom she has a needle stick injury from a used hypodermic needle hidden behind the toilet.

Second she finds a young boy hiding in the bushes. Giving him sanctuary she is soon thrust into a life and death situation.

What happens next is a propulsive chase novel as Jess and the boy run from the father who will do anything to get his boy back.

It’s obvious that Cassidy is having shedloads of fun in this novel. There are a number of set pieces that are just plain barking and had me laughing with joyful glee at the sheer bloody (literally) absurdity of them. However, whilst he is having fun, he manages to put a beating heart in the story that revolves around familial relationships and how this impacts on our kids.

From the start of the book, Cassidy wastes little scene time building the characters of the story and they come fully formed with their own problems and insecurities. Jess already has a life that is littered with problems and joys. The boy (we never really know his name and he is just referred to as kiddo for most of the book) has his relationship with his father.

Cassidy carefully plays with expectations throughout the whole of the book. There are many times that he tantalises the reader with what type of story they expect, but then quickly upends expectations and the story morphs into something else and sends it off into unexpected directions.

When the Wolf Comes Home is a nerve shredding horror thriller that never relents in throwing expectations out of the window. Full of twists and turns and oodles of the red stuff, it ultimately has a beating heart that has an emotional tug. One of my horror releases of the year.

This was like nothing I have ever read before. My first but definitely not my last Nat Cassidy book.
Extremely fast paced horror that had the most profound take on fear and how it grips our lives. The after note at the end from Cassidy had me actually crying. He really rooted up my daddy issues which I DID NOT expect from reading a horror 😂 it took me by surprise.
Such a good read HIGHLY recommend.

This was one of my highly anticipated reads and It didn't disappoint.  This was incredible.

Thos book centres around fear and fanily trauma. It explores how our fear as a child turns into anxiety as adult and the relationships we have with our fathers.

This was


This highly anticipated read exceeded expectations; it was incredible.  The book centers on fear and familial trauma, exploring how childhood fear manifests as adult anxiety and the impact of paternal relationships.

This chilling, horrifying, and thrilling chase horror was an emotional rollercoaster.  Despite its horror elements, the novel was exceptionally thought-provoking and emotionally resonant.

The fast-paced narrative fostered strong character connection and immersive storytelling.

This is my favorite read of 2025 thus far.  I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve read some of Nat Cassidy’s work before and When The Wolf Comes Home is just as tense as the others. This is fast paced and a rollercoaster of emotions. There is definitely a main theme of daddy issues and the impacts on life for all involved. I was at the edge of my seat and really felt for the characters. I can’t wait for others to read this and to be able to discuss it with others.

I like to keep my reviews as spoiler-free as possible, which is usually not a problem. But, with this magnificent novel, it really does feel like I'm going to have to hold a lot back...let's see how we get on!

To begin, this is my first time reading Nat Cassidy and will absolutely not be the last. His writing style is just what I like - direct, captivating, punchy. He is a terrific storyteller who is able to make me laugh, make me wince, chill me with fear, and fill me with admiration for his craft. I feel more than a little silly for having slept on his work for this long.

So, onto When the Wolf Comes Home. We start with a werewolf. Well, more accurately, we meet our main character Jess, who is an aspiring actress working the night shift in a diner between auditions. After work one night she finds a terrified little kid in the garden of her apartment complex, and takes him in. Then a werewolf shows up, kills just about everyone in the vicinity, and Jess and the kid get the heck out of there and start to run.

What follows is a rip-roaring horror adventure that has been the most fun thing I've read in literally years and is also really difficult to share anything about in a way that wouldn't ruin the sheer joy of experiencing this story. At its highest level, it's a chase story...we're with our main characters while they try to stay ahead of the monster on their tail. but, my god, it's so much more than that. This book is about fear, about parenthood, about growing up, about responsibility, about existence.

And werewolves. Yeah, it's still about those howlers!

There is so much going on here and, like most of my favourite books, it is largely a horror novel but it pulls from lots of other genres; sci-fi, political thriller, drama, and more than a bit of comedy too. It is a bold, bonkers blockbuster of a book, a scary swashbuckling adventure being gifted to us at a time when the world is terrible and we really flipping need it.

You are highly unlikely to guess where this book goes. It consistently caught me off guard, and with each jolt I fell for it even harder - which is pretty impressive as I was hooked within the first few pages. If this doesn't feature somewhere on most people's end of year lists I will be staggered. It's a brilliant piece of work and I want to see a bombastic movie of it!

Not only that, the author's afterword floored me. It's a deeply personal piece of writing that would standalone as something brilliant just as an essay but, coming after the story it does, really signs everything off with a powerful full stop. Kudos to Nat Cassidy for being so open and so human.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. This one might well be my favourite book of the year so far. Now, I'm off to add more Nat Cassidy to my TBR!

I was hoping for so much with this book that I think I overhyped it in my mind so it fell short.
However, the writing style was amazing, and the short chapters for me were great as I could settle in bed to read a few chapters and not find my eyelids drooping by the second one, and reading more than I thought I would at a time.
The one issue that I have is the relationship between Jess and the boy felt false and lacking in depth, there was no real connection there for me, otherwise this would have been 5 stars.

I have so many mixed feelings about this one, because in some ways it met my expectations and in other ways I found myself disappointed. I’ll start with the good stuff!

The writing felt very alive, I will say. Jess very much had a voice, as did the other POV characters who I won’t name for spoiler reasons. The dynamics all felt very authentic, and the biggest theme of this book is absolutely daddy issues, which again, felt so real for each character.

The dynamic between Jess and the child especially was very up my street, because I love a found family and I love the trope of “aloof person ends up unexpectedly caring for a child who they genuinely end up caring about” every single time. It’s not very often it’s written about a woman, so that was a nice touch.

Another key theme that I think was handled very well was the idea that fear consumes us, how it drives and controls us, especially as children. However, as we grow up, we think we have a better handle on it; that we’ve outgrown it somehow, but it always finds its way back to us in the end. It is a story about trying to overcome fear, in the face of impossibility.

With all the good, I did still have some issues with this book. The biggest one being that it just wasn’t what I expected based on the cover and summary. I thought this was going to be a werewolf horror, but the wolf — such as he is — was barely in it. Instead, it was more of a conspiracy, superhero-esque style horror thriller and I just did not expect that. Sadly that kind of thing is much less my vibe than werewolves, so I was pretty disappointed at having felt misled by the cover and summary.

My final issue is just that sometimes the chapters felt too short and snippy, and other times they dragged on and on with rambling thoughts that felt a tad overdone. I think this is more of a me issue though.

Overall this was an enjoyable read. It was very fast-paced and action-packed, which was sadly not my cup of tea, but I know it will definitely cater to those who are more into thriller over horror, as I felt it leaned more towards thrills than horror.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me this ARC! I look forward to reading Nestlings by Nat Cassidy, which is on my TBR for this year!

I’ve read most of Nat Cassidys work now and would probably say I enjoyed this one more than Mary and Nestlings but his short story Rest Stop remains my favourite. On the surface it seems this book is about werewolf’s but it has a lot of deeper themes running through it such as fear, anxiety, childhood and family relationships. For me I enjoyed part 1 and 2 more than the latter half but actually more than all of that the Afterword really stuck out for me and is definitely worth a read.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Nat Cassidy's latest novel starts like a horror fairy tale with a young boy escaping his monstrous father who appears to be a wolflike shapeshfiter. When this boy meets Jess -- a would be actor with her own father issues -- the pair go in the run. But can she protect this young boy from the monsters?

This in itself is a strong narrative hook, but when things take a turn for the even weirder half way through and the book makes us question what a monster is, and how we see and shape the world around us, it becomes something much stronger and more interesting, opening up questions about fear and strength in unexpected ways while bringing in unexpected imagery and themes of grief and mental health that truly hit for the heart.

Right from page one I knew I was going to enjoy this book, but once it deploys it's unexpected and brilliant twist, it became something even more exciting, and a book I think lovers of horror, urban fantasy, soft SF and just damn fine storytelling are going to love.

I loved a lot of aspects of this book but it just felt like something was missing, I wish that it was a bit shorter and I felt that the relationship between the boy and Jess wasn't as believable as it could have been.

I admire Nat Cassidy tremendously. Their writing is brilliant and you know you're in good hands from the moment you turn the first page.

Which is why I'm so sorry that I couldn't get through this book. It's entirely personal reasons - it started as well as expected, but the abuse aspects unfortunately made it very uncomfortable for me to read. It's intense, which is not a complaint! But alas, my CPTSD said otherwise.

This is absolutely no fault of the story, and I would very much like to know how it turns out. Hopefully I'll be able to come back to it one day. Apologies again.

It starts with An American Werewolf vibes but quickly pivots to physic powers ala Stephen King/Dean Koontz. Starts fast and never slows down. the story is graphic and gruesome, but due to the subject matter it has to be for the payout at the end.
A waitress at a dinner is having a bad shift which ends with a needle stick. Fearing the worst she leaves early but decides to go home first before heading to a health clinic. It is at home that she encounters the boy, at first alone but then with his violently angry father. Suddenly a giant wolf is there, killing all who gets near. She grabs the boy and flees to a friends place, but the wolf, as well as other bizarre creatures, tracks them down and more gruesome stuff occurs. At this point you think you know what is happening but wait for the curve ball, (not saying anything more).
It gets quite wacky for a little while, which at first I didn't appreciate where I thought the author was taking it, but he dragged me with him and I finally worked out that Nat Cassidy was applying an amazing amount of logic, and this makes the ride quite brilliant.

Jess, is a budding actress who works a graveyard shift at a diner.
She has an incident one night, and then encounters a young boy.
The rest is a complex exploration of daddy issues, facing one’s fears and life.
I liked Jess and the kiddo, and some of the side characters.
I liked the last part of the story and the author’s Afterword.
As for the writing, it was not for me. I found it too explanatory, bordering on the nose, and some of the social commentary as jokes, not well-integrated into the story.
This is not to say that I think the author’s craft is substandard. It is to say that perhaps this was an earlier copy, the writing was not fully edited yet.
The themes and topics intrigued me, and some scenes were impactful and emotional.
And yet, overall, my experience was a 3 star read.
I would read more by Cassidy. Simply that Afterword and his previous writing as well as some of the ideas in this book are memorable.

Some books get under your skin in the best way, and When the Wolf Comes Home is one of them. A gripping blend of psychological horror, folklore, and small-town tension, this novel sinks its teeth in and doesn’t let go.

Set in the isolated town of Wolfgrid, the story follows the unsettling return of a man once thought dead—and the darkness that trails behind him. Cassidy masterfully weaves together an eerie atmosphere, unsettling body horror, and deeply human fears, crafting a tale that is as haunting as it is compelling. The prose is sharp, the tension palpable, and the themes of identity, trauma, and transformation linger long after the final page.

If you love horror that is both visceral and thought-provoking, When the Wolf Comes Home is a must-read.

⭐⭐⭐⭐½

This was an emotional rollercoaster I was not prepared for coming into this book. An endless thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy.

Wow. Jess was a wonderful main character, and I absolutely loved her internal monologue, she was hilarious. I near lost my mind at the description of one character being “an old man the consistency of beef jerky”. Alongside these little quips of comedy, there were some really dark and gruesome scenes, but it was also tragic and heart warming all at the same time.

This has the makings of a real horror classic, twisty, addictive and thrilling.

For anyone with daddy issues.

Jess is having one hell of a day and that’s before helping a five-year-old boy running and terrified of his dad. After a violent, bloody encounter (gross, gory, graphic) with the boy's father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.

I would recommend going into this knowing nothing else.
This is about parental relationships, questioning self-worth and has parallels with The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin.

It is extremely visual, vivid, vicious.
We get multi perspectives with Jess as the focus.

I have never read a book by Cassidy before and found the writing style gripping yet simplistic. He captures character and voice and tone well.

I didn’t feel like this was as profound as I was expecting. The ending also left me wanting - it felt lacklustre.

Sometimes, the monsters in our heads are worse than any horror movies.

Arc gifted by Titan Books.

My first Nat Cassidy was superb! I went in expecting a werewolf story but got something completely, wonderfully different!

We meet a little boy, cowering as his father tears their house apart. We meet Jess, an actress who can't catch a break, working a graveyard shift at Poppy's diner. The two collide and set off on a road trip from hell with a shady government employee, the boy's father, and monsters hunting them down.

There is so much in this book: meditations on parent/child relationships (the good, the bad, the flawed); grief; gut-punchingly violent scenes that bring the horror and the thrills; characters to root for. I cared, and I cried - always a good sign!

A clever exploration of fear, love, reality, and what makes a monster 🖤

<b>My Rating System:</b>
<b>Enjoyment:</b> I loved it, had fun, sobbed like a baby, never found myself wanting to dnf - 5
<b>More?:</b> I will absolutely read more from the author - 5
<b>Criticism:</b> some minor criticisms but nothing that would bring my rating down - 4
<b>Rereadability:</b> Not desperate to reread immediately but I likely will reread in the future- 4
Average: 4.5 Stars

When the Wolf Comes Home is reminiscent of all of my favourite horror classics in all the best ways. I think the synopsis is best left to the imagination when it comes to a book like this so I won't say too much but every chapter was wild and unexpected and exactly what I want going into a horror novel. It was brutal, fun, and sometimes hit a bit too close to home, making the reading experience the perfect emotional roller coaster (I love to cry). Nat Cassidy is quickly cementing himself as one of my favourites in the genre and I cannot wait to read more.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eArc of this book!

This is what is best referred to as a chase book. When Jess a budding actress makes the surprising acquaintance of "Kiddo" a boy with unusual skills they must run for their lives. The father of the boy, a damaged war hero, a part time werewolf with a mind and body damaged by scientific experiments, gives chase, the killing spree is on! Add to this an obsessed, driven government agent who will stop at nothing to hide the agencys involvement then all the ingredients are present for a hight octane ride.