cover image Brood

Brood

Chase Novak. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-316-22800-8

At the start of Novak’s repetitive sequel to Breed (2012), antiques dealer Cynthia Kramer assumes the care of her traumatized niece and nephew, twins Alice and Adam Twisden, born through illicit fertility treatments that turned their parents into ravening monsters. Hoping to rehabilitate the genetically warped twins through “tons of love,” Cynthia has their parents’ Manhattan town house renovated, but she still must contend with a bat in the toilet and a cellar full of rats. Alice and Adam, desperately trying to stave off the puberty they fear will turn them into cannibalistic beasts, repeatedly run away to Central Park, where a gang of abnormal hybrids who sell their blood to lascivious seekers of a fountain of youthful libido lurks. Novak (the pseudonym of Scott Spencer, author of A Ship Made of Paper) achieves a few scenes of genuine rat-inspired horror, but the tongue-in-cheek tone of this satirical supernatural thriller won’t be to every taste. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit. (Oct.)