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    The Hunger
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    The Hunger
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    The Hunger
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Hunger

    Written by Alma Katsu

    Narrated by Kirsten Potter

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The Hunger is a tense and gripping reimagining of one of America's most fascinating historical moments: the Donner Party with a Walking Dead-style twist.

    Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone—or something—is stalking them. Whether it was a curse from the beautiful Tamsen, the choice to follow a disastrous experimental route West, or just plain bad luck—the 90 men, women, and children of the Donner Party are at the brink of one of the deadliest and most disastrous western adventures in American history.

    While the ill-fated group struggles to survive in the treacherous mountain conditions—searing heat that turns the sand into bubbling stew; snows that freeze the oxen where they stand—evil begins to grow around them, and within them. As members of the party begin to disappear, they must ask themselves "What if there is something waiting in the mountains? Something disturbing and diseased...and very hungry?"

    Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 6, 2018
    ISBN9780525527671
    Unavailable
    The Hunger
    Author

    Alma Katsu

    Alma Katsu is the award-winning author of six novels, including Red Widow, The Deep, and The Hunger. She is a graduate of the master's writing program at Johns Hopkins University and received her bachelor's degree from Brandeis University. Prior to the publication of her first novel, she had a long career as a senior intelligence analyst for several U.S. agencies. She lives with her husband in West Virginia.

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    Reviews for The Hunger

    3.5/5

    234 ratings28 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I was enthralled with reading about the Donner party a few yrs ago, so I was excited to find out about this book. Katsu did a good job at weaving true elements of the actual tragedy into this story. The characterization was well done and you could actually sympathize/ dislike many of them and their situations. I really enjoyed the horror element of this story, it definitely kept me on edge. The suspense-building is done well! Overall this was a really good read and I look forward to trying out another book by this author.
    • 4/5
      The Hunger by Alma Katsu is a 2018 G.P Putnam’s Sons publication. Deeply engrossing! The Donner Party is a mystery/tragedy that has been explored for ages. It’s a gruesome and ghastly tale all on its own. But now, Alma Katsu has added a paranormal tint to the story which only adds yet another horrifying possibility into the mix. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. It has been categorized as a horror novel and since it is centered around the Donner party, it certainly should fall within that genre. However, this is not your typical novel of horror by any means. Bad luck plagued the Donner party from the start. The wagon train was filled with those hoping for a better future and those who were running away from problems, and those trying to make trouble. Yet, in this re-imagining- the Donner Party was pursued by something worse than the winter storm of the century. Yes, food is running out, but the survivors are suffering from a different kind of hunger… This is an ambitious novel, which features both real life characters-The Breen family, William Eddy, and The Donner’s, of course- and fictional ones, pitting them against the usual harsh realities of a plan gone horribly awry and they make desperate choices just to survive, but also putting them into a supernatural element, offering an alternative theory about what may have been at the root of all the beleaguered travelers. The author did a fantastic job with describing the scenery, and an ever better one with the character analysis. This story grabbed me right away and kept me glued to the pages from start to finish. It is atmospheric, and truly creepy, but I did feel lost on a few occasions wondering about the various conjectures implied. While the reader is focused on the puzzling ‘hunger’ that is quickly spreading, the true evil may be the one lurking in the hearts and of humanity and the evil motives behind their actions. I was drawn more towards the characters and the horrible circumstances they found themselves in that the folklore and history of the ‘Hunger’. I did find the trail to the ‘carrier’ of the strange affliction to be quite interesting, although I still felt as though I was missing a key element, leaving me to draw my own conclusions. Overall, this is a solid chiller, made all the more absorbing due to its basis in factual events. This is one you might want to read in the light of day- for to attempt in the dark of night, may have consequences! 3.5 stars
    • 2/5
      So weird, I put this book on hold at my local library and forgot what it was about. I just opened it, and it is about the Donner Party!!! Reason that's weird? I was just at Donner Memorial State Park SIX days ago!?!?!!! Do, do, do do, do, do, do, do .... (Twilight Zone theme attempt...)We all know what happened to the Donner Party, but do we really? Well, yes, we do. However, this book takes a different take on it. The party, in here, is being haunted/followed by a bad spirit, a na’it. “Na’it are never satisfied. Na’it want everything. Kill everything.” Yeesh. Not good. Combine that with the snow storm of the century, and...Well, for me, it combines to be just an ok read. I didn't find the characters likeable right from the start, so I didn't really care what happened to them. Maybe if this was just a random westward wagon train, I might have bought in a bit more. But in the historical context, I was just so-so about it. It was kind of like reading a book version of the old "Oregon Trail" game, but with the Na'it chasing behind. One things for sure, it definitely killed my hunger.
    • 4/5
      While the fateful journey of the Donner Party is a matter of record for American history, it's not as well known outside of the U.S.A. so I was not familiar with this event apart from having heard it mentioned once or twice in passing, and as soon as I encountered the first reviews for Alma Katsu's book I went in search of more information about it: what I found was a tale of hardship and horror whose reality seemed to surpass any fictional tale of the supernatural I might have read until now.The Donner Party was a group of hopeful pioneers headed to California to start a new life in what was the new frontier for the times, the middle of the 19th Century: they set out from Missouri in the late spring of 1846, but instead of following the tried and tested trail other adventurers had successfully traveled on, they decided to attempt the newest Hastings Cutoff, named after the explorer who had first opened it.Unfortunately, Hastings had not specified either that the cutoff would add a considerable number of miles to the trek, or that the way was more suited to men on horseback rather than oxen-driven wagons loaded with supplies, so that a series of accidents and drawbacks cost the travelers precious time - not to mention the loss of several animals and even wagons - and at the start of a particularly hard winter they were stranded and snowbound on the Sierra Nevada, as their supplies ran out and they found themselves with little shelter and no food. The survivors who were rescued by a search party in the early spring of 1847 had had to resort to eating the flesh of their dead to keep alive.The historical events of the Donner Party look horrific enough in their stark reality, and yet the author decided to insert a supernatural twist to the story, in the form of a disturbing presence stalking the wagons from the very start and at times grabbing some hapless victim whose remains hinted at something inhuman and terrifying at play. While this choice added a further (and maybe unnecessary) layer of dread to an already ghastly situation, it worked as a sort of mirror for the overall darkness that progressively fell on the colonists, one that seemed to come from them rather than from the outside, a force that was freed once the people were removed from the moral and spiritual boundaries of civilization.From the very start we see how the relationships among the 90-odd people of the caravan are subject to strain, mostly due to the different social backgrounds and mindset of the various individuals, so that they fall prey to arguments that end up dividing the group into smaller factions, at odds with each other. Once the true adversities start piling up on them, these divergences flare up, sometimes with dramatic consequences. George Donner's wife Tamsen, for example, is a practitioner of natural medicine though her knowledge of herbs and remedies, and therefore the subject of mistrust that quickly turns into the belief she might be a witch, with the consequence that the Donners are shunned and treated like pariahs. Or once the supplies start dwindling, those with more refuse to share with the less fortunate, all too easily forgetting the principles of Christian charity that everybody seemed to profess.As the journey becomes more harrowing and takes its toll on people, animals and supplies - the crossing of the salt desert being one of the most heartbreaking segments - whatever shred of humanity the group might have held on to seems to disappear, each wagon, each individual becoming a world unto itself, focused on its own survival to the exclusion of anything, and anyone, else. And once that humanity dwindles or is silenced forever, once any residue of acceptable social behavior evaporates under the hardships, it looks far too easy for the pioneers to let go of their more enlightened habits and to fall back to more primitive patterns. First they stop caring about appearances:They were all starting to neglect themselves, losing the will to keep themselves clean and tidy. To remain civilized. Day by day they grew wilder, filthier, more animal.Then there is a scene in which the starved group is forced to kill one head of cattle to have some food, and the people partaking of that flesh look more like a bunch of cavemen rather than city born and bred individuals:..no laughter or songs or shared bottles of whiskey […] Now it was just the sound of ravenous eating, the smack of lips and teeth tearing flesh off bone.With this particular sentence I was strongly reminded of Tolkien's description of Gollum, about his "furtive eating and resentful remembering", and it was a chilly comparison, one that emphasized the regression of these pioneers to a more primeval state, one that was much more horrifying than the shadowy beings haunting the group from the encroaching darkness. And for this very reason, once the supernatural element in the story is revealed, it looks almost mundane, far less frightening than the mindless savagery consuming the group of settlers.The Hunger is not an easy book, and certainly not an uplifting read, but despite its bleakness I could not tear myself from it: the author has a way of relaying even the most horrific of details with a blunt clarity that never slips into morbid gratification, and for this reason offers a compelling tale of the heights and pitfalls of the human soul when subjected to intolerable stress. Like the colonists' own, this was not an easy journey, but it taught me a great deal about humanity, and I would not have missed it for the world.
    • 4/5
      The Hunger by Alma Katsu is based on the true events of Donner Party tragedy where a party of pioneers travelling west came to a crossroads and the leader, George Donner had to make a decision to take the well documented but longer route across the desert towards California, or to take the untested path, which was rumoured to be far shorter. His decision could mean life or death to the families travelling with him.

      It’s kind of funny that the first time I heard of the Donner Party was on one of my favourite horror films, The Shining, written by Stephen King and directed Stanley Kubrick. Jack Nicholson acting as the character Jack Torrance, mentio ns the Donner Party and it’s how the name came about for the Donner Pass on Interstate 80 in Northern California. Since hearing about this in the film I was eager to look it up, so when I read the synopsis of The Hunger, I had to read it!

      This book is broken up into monthly sections starting from June 1846 to April 1847. The latter of which is actually the prologue and supplies the details of the findings of one man, Lewis Keseberg, the last known survivor of the Donna Party event. This makes for an intriguing hook for the rest of the book and I couldn’t wait to see what had happened. Why had no one else survived?

      The Hunger is an atmospheric re-imagining of the Donner Party disaster, which blends true horror with the supernatural and is ideal for historical, paranormal and even dark horror fans! It’s full of drama, mystery, intrigue and is downright spooky. The tension Alma Katsu adds, it amazing! I really sympathised for the families, those that had no idea what was going on, and even those that were forced to survive the only way they knew how. I don’t think I’ve ever read a story about Westward migration that is so chilling! This is a study of human endurance tested to its very limits – and beyond. How far would YOU go in order to survive?
    • 4/5
      Certain historical events have always held a grisly fascination, and the infamous Donner Party is certainly one of those. Fictionalized accounts cast different members of the party as heroes and villains, because we don't really know--nor can we probably ever truly understand--what these people went through. This account introduces a supernatural element to explain what happens (and also changes up some key details). Most of the book is a gripping, chilling thriller, with the unlucky wagon train constantly being stalked by ... something. Gradually, the monsters show themselves more and more. This was quite a page turner, although I think it rushed too much through the last and most compelling part of the journey, when the party is stranded through the winter in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. With such a large cast of characters, it was a bit confusing what actually happened during this climactic period, and I felt that this part of the story was given short shrift, given all we'd been through with these people. Despite this flaw, I enjoyed this intriguing combination of gothic horror and historical fiction based on real events.
    • 4/5
      I read this book not knowing previously about the events it is based on, nor knowing much about wagon trails or this era of American history. I thought this might be a drawback, but the book's characters and situations are vibrant and the world at that time comes alive. Tension builds from the start and although you have an inkling of what lays ahead, there are frequent surprises, uncertainty and twists. Unflinchingly dark events are paired with happier scenes in a book that will stay with you.I received my copy from NetGalley.
    • 4/5
      Based on the true story of the Donner Party. It has a different take on what caused a lot of the problems within the wagon train... as well as who was eating who. Interesting theories about mad men and desperation.
    • 5/5
      I had a long car ride ahead of me, and I was happy to see this book available on audiobook. I love Alma Katsu's writing, and THE HUNGER has been on my mental to-read list since I found out it was being published. I sometimes have trouble staying focused during audiobooks, but based on the synopsis of the book, I figured THE HUNGER would be something that could hold my attention ... and Katsu's retelling of the Donner Party did not disappoint.THE HUNGER shifts perspectives and revisits points in time to flesh out its characters, but it's done in such a way that there's no confusion about whose version of the story and in what timeframe it's being told. The language is gorgeous while relaying a story of desperation, creepiness, and outright horror. And knowing the story of the Donner Party, I knew better than to get attached to the characters--yet I couldn't help myself with some of them.The story translated well to audiobook, and I know it has been optioned to be a movie--I suspect *that* will be amazing to watch, although I don't know if I'll be up to seeing this story on the big screen!Despite having listened to the book, I still will be buying a copy. The writing is so great, I can't wait to feast my eyes on it now that my ears have had their fill.
    • 5/5
      When I first picked this book up from the library, I was not able to put it down. As I got close to the half way part of the story I had to stop reading because I did not want it to end.It is a darn good thriller with some plot twists and twisted characters. If you like stories that creep you out, this is the one for you...
    • 4/5
      The hardcover of this book, due for release in early march, shows a horse drawn wagon heading out into uncharted territory. This represented the pioneering spirit of American settlers heading west for California who felt confident in the knowledge that they were destined to occupy this territory irrespective of the affect their actions might have on the indigenous native American tribes who already populated these regions. The Hunger recalls one particular group of travellers historically referred to as the "Donner Party", led by Jacob and George Donner, who in the spring of 1846 departed Springfield Illinois on a perilous 2500 mile journey their intended destination the Mexican province of alta California. Poor planning, bad decision and snowstorms caused a number of the original pioneers to become trapped in the mountains during the severe winter of 1846. When food ran out it was said that they resorted to cannibalism; the unthinkable had happened in order to survive.Alma Katsu expertly uses the harsh unforgiving environment and that deep rooted human weakness, fear of darkness and the unknown, to instil in the travellers a paranoia that something evil is out there stalking them....."He saw teeth sharpened like iron nails, and too many of them, far too many-a long slick of throat, like a dark tunnel, and that horrible tongue slapping like a blind animal feeling for it prey."...Some excellent characterization really made the story come alive as long held dark secrets gradually emerged. James Reed owner of a large furniture business in Springfield, married to an older woman, yet tortured inwardly by personal feelings, dark thoughts and undisclosed encounters. Charles Stanton, the quiet anti-hero whom Mary Graves...."was giddily, stupidly, happily in love.".....Tamsen Donner, young bride to George Donner, her beauty and wayward ways causing discern and rumour amongst the gradually starving disillusioned pioneers. As bad weather, low rations, and poor decisions prevailed the.... "creatures that fed on human flesh".....selected and noisily consumed the weak and innocent.What I loved about this novel was the seamless blending of historical facts with a modern horror theme, a wolf like predator with an unquenchable longing for human flesh. As a British reader I must confess to my ignorance of the Donner Party and was pleased that the author included an "historical note" which greatly added to my enjoyment of the overall story. There were many fine observations in this ill fated journey non better than a quote at the conclusion of chapter 21....."Then the Lord must be mightily displeased with you, because he has led you into the valley of death. Make peace with your Lord before it is too late, because the hungry ones are coming for you.".... Many thanks to the good people at netgalley for this gratis copy in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      What an amazing book! So detailed and eerie. I highly recommend!!
    • 2/5
      I really, really didn’t enjoy this novel, which took as its basis, the doomed Donner Party of the mid-19th century. The Donner Party was a group of covered wagons which sought to reach California in the 1840s. Getting a late start, the party failed to clear the Sierra Nevada Mountains before the winter snows made passage impossible. Cannibalism ensued; certainly the basis for a potentially captivating novel, potential which is not even remotely realized.The author of this book injects supernatural aspects into the historical record to weave a tale which at times comes across as almost bi-polar. At times, the book reads like a Harlequin romance “bodice ripper”, at other it reads like a poor man’s Stephen King novel. At others, it reaches for historical fiction. The result is a mess. Though not a very long book, it read much longer due to the fact that many scenes seemed to repeat themselves over and over again.
    • 1/5
      The idea had fantastic potential, but I never got caught up in this. I never felt thrilled, creeped out, scared, or much of anything. I never found myself feeling attached to or opposed to any of the characters. None of the characters quite felt real. All of them were a bit ... expected. You have the man with a bad reputation who is misunderstood. There is, of course, the pure-hearted girl who sees through it all and loves him anyway. The story also features the promiscuous woman with a heart of gold who stands by her man in the end and the man in the closet who endangers everything. The bad guy rapes when it adds nothing to the story. It was all just so typical.Honestly, I only finished it because it was a giveaway book and I felt obligated.I received a complimentary copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway. Many thanks to all involved in providing me with this opportunity.
    • 5/5
      Wow. What a page turner. I'd read this again even if it were 2000 pages long.
    • 5/5
      Very good book and kept me thoroughly entertained. Found myself looking for an excuse to don my headphones to see what happens next.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Most people have at least heard of the Donner Party and their travails as they headed west. I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for them. Just reading the wiki was horrifying. Much has been written about this incident in history but The Hunger adds a dash of horror to the well, horror.I generally do not read thrillers, horror or fantasy types of books but for a very select few authors. Ms. Katsu is one of those authors. Her writing is magical and powerful and in all honesty I would read an operations manual that she wrote. No questions asked. I have that much faith in how she writes. I was not disappointed when I opened The Hunger and started reading. In fact I opened and really didn’t want to put it down but I did have to sleep – not that the underlying horror didn’t invade my dreams. (Which is why I don’t read horror/thriller books.)The books picks up near the end of the story with a quick prologue to set the mood. To remind the reader as Ms. Katsu writes so eloquently, “Snow kept secrets.” That line stayed with me. In truth, it still haunts me. Three words, so much meaning especially when you know what happened. But this story adds to what the horror of the reality with a new, stalking horror. What IS out there?After the prologue the story goes back in time to introduce the main characters – mostly the real people who were on the trip but a few new, fictional characters are added to help the story along. Ms. Katsu explains in the author’s note at the end. As with any historical fiction rendering of a tale there is a bit of fast and loose with facts and some supposition but it’s fiction. None of it takes away from what is a truly compelling read.I found it to be a true page turner. The suspense and horror slowly build as the story progresses. You see what is, in effect, a small composite of society with wealthy and poor moving along to an end goal. Even when troubles start they do not pull together but rather remain segregated with each for himself. Somewhat of a life lesson where you wonder had they pulled together perhaps the outcome might have been different. We will never know.OK – off of the soapbox.It’s a great read. It’s the kind of story that just sucks you in and doesn’t let you go. If you don’t know much about the Donner Party you’ll probably want to learn more. You also might think twice about sleeping alone in the Rocky Mountain wilderness.
    • 3/5
      This author managed to turn an epic history adventure into some cheap horror flick material. Way to go!I am not going to read this writer any time soon, but will probably read some more decent Donner Party non-fiction later.
    • 4/5
      This is a historical fiction, thriller, horror, alternate history telling of the Donner Party. The story becomes about those of the party who are leaving their past behind and not just about the weather and poor decisions made by the leaders. The plot is such that there really are no surprises. Character development is good including the setting. The surrounding area is malevolent. Achievement includes 100 Best Horror (NPR and others). Locus Award finalist. Bram Stoker Award Nominee. A horror story that is not too scary. A sense of dread always there. A couple love stories that will never see fruition. After all the reader knows the fate of the Donnor Party or do we; only two families survived-the Reeds and the Breens, 45 people survived to walk out.
    • 5/5
      Thumbs up. There was no part of this story that dragged. Well done.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is one of those slow-burn, relatively quiet horror novels that the publisher doesn't push as "horror" (in the big box bookstore I work in, it's tucked into "General Fiction").

      That being said, I enjoyed the characterizations throughout the novel, the slow ratcheting up of tension, and the withholding of the threat until the last quarter of the book.

      Well done.
    • 4/5
      I loved that the feeling of dread built from the very beginning and lasted pretty much the whole way through the book. I did have a bit of a difficult time keeping track of all the characters, though, which perhaps wasn't avoidable considering the size of the party and Katsu trying to keep many of the historical elements intact. If I'd had any foresight, I would have kept a list of the characters.
    • 2/5
      This historical novel retells the journey of the Reed-Donner Party in 1846, but adds a supernatural element.  So in addition to a series of mishaps and a poor decision to use a dangerous cutoff in attempt to shorten their journey, the party of pioneers also have to deal with supernatural elements.  I found the characterization of the people in the novel was well-done, and the author created a good illustration of how the people in this moving community interacted.  But the horror of the real Reed-Donner party with people dying of disease and starvation, with others resorting to cannibalism to survive is horrible enough. The story is not improved by the supernatural horror.
    • 5/5
      I went into this book with only a fraction of knowledge about the Donner Party and their ill-fated journey. I mean, I knew the story—even on this side of the world, we know about the Donner Party—but I didn't really KNOW the story. You know? Alma Katsu, however, enlightened me on the treacherous terrain and bad decision-making of prideful men. And although The Hunger may have felt a little tedious at times, reading about the journey in particular, it was done with a purpose.When I first finished The Hunger, I was rather annoyed by the abruptness of the book's ending ... BUT after taking a moment to digest the story, I've come to a conclusion: Alma Katsu is a literary genius.Let me explain: The long, sometimes tedious journey the author takes you on across the prairies, the mountain, the salt pans, is the same journey the Donner Party took. It's the same way they probably felt. As for the unsatisfying, loose endings on various stories ... Well, that leaves you with a hunger. Probably not the same type of hunger that the Donner Party had felt, but a similar insatiable desire to know more. The Hunger is, simply put, a masterpiece.And yes, the author may have taken a few liberties, but it worked exceptionally well.Definitely worth a read if you're looking for a fantastic, well-written tale of the Donner Party.
    • 2/5
      As if the tragedy of the ill-fated Donner party wasn’t horrific enough, author Alma Katsu gives the tale a supernatural dose of demons. She stays pretty close to the original facts, as far as the people involved and who lived and who died, but exactly how they died is another matter. It is an interesting twist, but the creep factor kept ratcheting up as the story progressed, and I don’t mean exactly more scary, just more icky. And questions remained as to how and why certain things were; these issues were not resolved. The novel was entertaining and kept me reading, but in the end it was somewhat a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      This book started out well, with the author skillfully ramping up the suspense. Unfortunately, it sort of petered out at the end. Even so, I think this story would make a great inspiration for the third season of the TV series "The Terror".
    • 3/5
      A re-imagining of the Donner Party tragedy with a supernatural contagion loose among the wagon train. Historical figures come to life, each with their own dark secrets. Infighting and gossip contribute to the party's misfortune but the real danger lies just outside the ring of the fire. Somewhere, out in the darkness, something is watching them. It begins with children going missing. Then others appear to go spontaneously mad. As an early winter sets in, trapping the wagons in the mountains, all hope seems lost. What awaits in the shadows? What consumes the frozen bodies at night? I really wanted to like this book, as it is perhaps my favorite genre. A historic disaster spruced up with some horror elements ala The Terror? Sign me up!! Alas, I just couldn't get into this book. I had a really difficult time telling the different characters apart. So many times I would be paragraph's in to someone's inner monologue having completely forgotten the identity of the speaker. Part of the trouble is that there are SO MANY of them, and so few things to distinguish them. There are especially a lot of children who all have the same basic type of story and you'd need a family tree to be able to recall their connections. There are also a lot of similar, unremarkable names. John, Mary, James, Margaret, Thomas, etc etc. With the exception of Donner's wife, Tamsen, all the women were basically the same meek, credulous, and tedious narrators. The men aren't much better, varying only slightly between upstanding gentlemen with dark histories and rapists. The principle villain of the piece, Keseberg, is almost comically evil. He divides his time between raping children and chopping up the weak into chuck steaks. Ultimately, I couldn't care about any of the characters, despite the lengths the author went through to chock them all full of dark secrets and tragic backstories. One's a secret homosexual, one's a witch, one hears ghosts, one's the bearer of a genetic curse. Nevermind the two, count 'em, TWO incest plot lines. Sure the first one is shocking or whatever but by the time the author trots out the second one, I'm just bored. Whatever. I liked the idea but it was just terribly executed.
    • 5/5
      Most people have at least heard of the Donner Party and their travails as they headed west. I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for them. Just reading the wiki was horrifying. Much has been written about this incident in history but The Hunger adds a dash of horror to the well, horror.I generally do not read thrillers, horror or fantasy types of books but for a very select few authors. Ms. Katsu is one of those authors. Her writing is magical and powerful and in all honesty I would read an operations manual that she wrote. No questions asked. I have that much faith in how she writes. I was not disappointed when I opened The Hunger and started reading. In fact I opened and really didn’t want to put it down but I did have to sleep – not that the underlying horror didn’t invade my dreams. (Which is why I don’t read horror/thriller books.)The books picks up near the end of the story with a quick prologue to set the mood. To remind the reader as Ms. Katsu writes so eloquently, “Snow kept secrets.” That line stayed with me. In truth, it still haunts me. Three words, so much meaning especially when you know what happened. But this story adds to what the horror of the reality with a new, stalking horror. What IS out there?After the prologue the story goes back in time to introduce the main characters – mostly the real people who were on the trip but a few new, fictional characters are added to help the story along. Ms. Katsu explains in the author’s note at the end. As with any historical fiction rendering of a tale there is a bit of fast and loose with facts and some supposition but it’s fiction. None of it takes away from what is a truly compelling read.I found it to be a true page turner. The suspense and horror slowly build as the story progresses. You see what is, in effect, a small composite of society with wealthy and poor moving along to an end goal. Even when troubles start they do not pull together but rather remain segregated with each for himself. Somewhat of a life lesson where you wonder had they pulled together perhaps the outcome might have been different. We will never know.OK – off of the soapbox.It’s a great read. It’s the kind of story that just sucks you in and doesn’t let you go. If you don’t know much about the Donner Party you’ll probably want to learn more. You also might think twice about sleeping alone in the Rocky Mountain wilderness.