I enjoyed The rift, sci-fi horror is my most favourite blend.
Reminiscent of Pet Sematary, it delves deep into grief and hope, family and learning to let go. The plot idea was fascinating and well worked out, the pace a bit fluctuating but fine, this book had a lot to offer the readers. I especially enjoyed the horror elements.
Definitely recommended.

As a parent and a fan of horror literature, "The Rift" by Seth C. Adams struck a chord with me in more ways than one. This gripping tale explores themes of grief, loss, and the desperate lengths a father will go to for the chance to reunite with his son, all against a backdrop of spine-chilling horror.

The story centers around Joe Jimenez, a grieving father and estranged husband, who stumbles upon a mysterious atmospheric anomaly in his backyard. Dubbed "the rift," this enigmatic tear in the fabric of reality becomes the focal point of Joe's obsession as he grapples with the tragic loss of his son, Evan. What follows is a harrowing journey into the unknown as Joe discovers the rift's eerie ability to distort reality, offering tantalizing glimpses of hope amidst a sea of despair.

Adams' writing is both poignant and visceral, evoking a rollercoaster of emotions that kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. The portrayal of grief is raw and unflinching, mirroring the depths of despair that Joe experiences in his quest for closure. As a parent, I found myself empathizing deeply with Joe's anguish, feeling every pang of sorrow and desperation as he grapples with the possibility of reuniting with his lost son.

At its core, "The Rift" is a potent blend of horror and science fiction, reminiscent of classics like "Pet Sematary" and "The Monkey's Paw." Adams deftly weaves elements of supernatural terror with heart-wrenching human drama, creating a narrative that is as thought-provoking as it is chilling. The concept of the rift, with its tantalizing promise of reunion tempered by the horrifying consequences of meddling with forces beyond comprehension, is both fascinating and terrifying in equal measure.

While the comparison to literary giants like "Pet Sematary" and "The Monkey's Paw" may set expectations high, I found "The Rift" to be a compelling and engrossing read in its own right. The plot is well-paced, with enough twists and turns to keep me guessing until the very end. However, I did occasionally find myself bogged down by the minutiae of the story, particularly during moments of exposition.

Overall, "The Rift" is a gripping and emotionally resonant novel that will appeal to fans of horror and speculative fiction alike. Adams' skillful storytelling and vivid imagination make for an unforgettable reading experience that will linger in the mind long after the final page is turned. So, if you're ready to embark on a heart-wrenching journey through grief and horror, I highly recommend diving into "The Rift." Just be sure to have your tissues ready.

5/5 Stars

Holy fuck I was not prepared for the intense emotions that I would experience as a parent myself while reading this book. The Rift is a horror novel about a man who is coping with the death of his son. If you like King's Pet Semetary-- but enjoy dark scifi like Benjamin Percy's Ninth Metal series, this book is for you. It's mind boggling, thought provoking, and devastatingly human.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher Flame Tree Press and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

3 Stars!

I do not need an excuse or reason to pick up any book published by Flame Tree Press. I have come to expect the best in all of their books and have rarely been disappointed. The Rift by Seth C. Adams, with its tale of an otherworldly portal appearing out of nowhere with the promise of salvation or damnation, seemed right up my alley and I could not wait to get into this novel to see what terror lies within.



Joe Jiminez had lost everything. When his son died, his marriage quickly fell apart and he was left alone to try to find a new path through life. All seemed lost. Then one night, Joe noticed something strange in his backyard. What he first thought was an atmospheric anomaly appeared every night in his back yard. Driven by curiosity, Joe began to experiment with the strange oddity that appeared to be a tear in the very air itself. When Joe tries sending something through this rift, he soon discovers that something is returned in exchange. Next comes a cryptic message: Joe’s son seemed to be trying to reach out to him through this rift. What could he do but to try to discover what was happening and just maybe return his son, and his life, back to his home.



Joe begins to suspect that the rift may be a twisted version of our world. He is terrified of what he may find in his search for his son, but he is compelled to try. What else could a grieving father do? With the help of his soon-to-be-ex wife, Joe begins an exploration of the rift and what lies within. His greatest hope is to find his son and return him to this world so he can reunite with him and his wife. As his exploration gets deeper, though, he begins to learn the horrifying secrets of the rift. It is only hope that keeps him going as he desperately searches for his son, but what lies within the rift may bring an end to all that he holds dear.



The Rift starts off on a down note as it takes a deep look into Joe’s life and the pain and struggle he has faced since the death of his son. It was difficult to read at times, but it was also very well written and riveting. When Adams shifts the story with the introduction of the rift, the story shifts away from that human story, although it remains present throughout, and the story becomes more of a traditional science fiction/horror novel. And it is a good one, at that. It is easy to understand the manic way in which Joe approaches his exploration of the rift and the pages seemed to fly by. There is a lot here to like with the rollercoaster of emotion that Joe experiences as well as some otherworldly beasties that come through to our world. The first part of the novel is very well done and only held back by the fact that Joe is not a good person that can be cheered on. He is, in fact, a jerk that does not come across as sympathetic. It is easy to understand what he is going through, but it is hard to feel sorry for him. Although he is the only character of note in the first part of the book, Adams keeps the story moving along and I found myself reading as quickly as I could to find out what was going to happen next.



The Rift grabbed my attention and kept me glued to the page from the start. Adams crafts a story that was different from what I was expecting but captivating nonetheless. New stories and discoveries unfold as I pressed forward. Then, about two-thirds of the way into the novel, it just stopped working for me. Without giving anything away, something happened that just did not sit right with me, and the story seemed to fizzle out and then limp along until the end. I understood the motivation for what happened, but it just did not feel right to me. I am sure that other readers may not have the same take on the story that I had, but the ending of the story just did not sit well with me. I still enjoyed the novel overall, but it seemed to miss the mark for me in the end. I would still recommend the book to anyone looking for a strange adventure into a world of science fiction/horror and I am sure others will enjoy it more than I did, but I felt The Rift was a story with a lot of potential that failed to reach the heights it was climbing toward in the beginning.



I would like to thank Flame Tree Press and NetGalley for this review copy. The Rift is available now.

This is quite a short book for the amount of dark horror and despair it manages to pack in!

The story starts as a slow and painful exploration of the utter heartbreak at losing a child to a sudden, violent death. When we meet Joe at the start of the book, he has already lost everything. He is deep in a black hole with not a gleam of light anywhere in sight to offer him any hope. Then a ‘rift’ in reality appears in his back garden and slowly lures him into curiosity and experimentation (positive steps), blind to the terrible danger of the hook behind the bait.

Similarly, the reader is lulled into a false sense of security by the logical, sci-fi way Joe goes about exploring the rift and the mild horror that results, until suddenly the book explodes into body horror, gore and destruction on a scale that would satisfy the darkest of horror-lovers!

I can definitely understand the comparisons to Pet Semetary and other similar works, but the author takes this book in a slightly different direction than you might expect, building in a battle between dark and light, choosing death or choosing life, all waged within the struggle of one ordinary man to balance what he wants more than anything else against his will to survive. Once the story gets fully underway, there is plenty of action, as Joe has to fight less metaphorical battles than the one he wages against his inner demons.

For more sensitive readers, this is obviously going to be a disturbing book – it starts with the death of a child and spirals downward from there – but for those who don’t mind, or even thrive on, the dark and disturbing, this is a twisty and unpredictable little read that keeps you guessing about where it is heading and left me slightly surprised at where it eventually came out. And the images of what was inside the rift have stayed with me as nightmare fodder ever since, so it is definitely memorable!

This is amazing! The rift is extremely well written and the characters life-like and realistic. I couldn't put it down. I actually feel sad that i won't be able to read this again for the first time and envy those who have yet to read it. May you enjoy it as much as i did!

The Rift by Seth C Adams brings to you a marvelous science fiction that thrills you and excites you till the end. At first, the story felt like horror but eventually the plot changed its course. I really liked the concept of The Rift that opens and shuts after a regular intervals. With each page , my excitement and curiosity reached grew more and more in anticipation. Joe's character is of a grieving father, but changes as the plot advances. The mystery deepens when the anomaly starts acting differently. Reading the book felt like I am watching a science fiction movie.

The book is medium paced where we get some glimpses of Joe's past also. Clara's character also grows simultaneously with the plot. For me , The Rift would be an ideal book which I am going to read on a Sunday with a hot cup of Coffee. The ups and downs, Joe's efforts of contacting the other side in hope of uniting with his son was really interesting. What was The Rift? Was Joe's son on the other side with those creatures? All these answers are just waiting inside the pages. Thanks to Netgalley and Flame Tree Press for providing me with an opportunity to read and review the book.

Due to the disappearance of Joe son Evan he and his wife have separated after there son Evan’s disappearance Joe has never been the same. One day while Joe is taking in his home in its surroundings he notices a rift in the atmosphere somethings he’s never seen before and as the days go by he notices it comes at the same time every afternoon. After a few homemade experiments he notices that you can throw things into the rift but when it comes out it isn’t the same as when it went in. He even figures out a way to breach the opening without going in an even trade‘s messages with the rift and errors in one of these messages that it tells him his son is there that everyone is there and he should come! Joe couldn’t be more excited but when he finally goes to look for his son oh he be trapped there forever come back changed or not come back at all! this is such an original imaginative story and I could not for the life and they think how it would end but just like it had a great beginning and the great middle it had a great ending as well the book flows along with no dull moment they have some action some heart palpitating moments it’s just an all-around great book and so original! I love that and highly recommend it to any horror fan who likes alternate universe type stories you will definitely love The Rift by Seth C Adams I really don’t think you will be disappointed. I want to thank flame tree publishing and NetGalley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

The moment I read the blurb, I was hooked on this read. The blurb had a Stephen King-esque quality, which is right in my wheelhouse. I couldn't resist reading it; it's a quick but intense read. I couldn't put the book down and finished it in a couple of hours because the blend of science fiction, horror, and the tragic loss of a child had me completely captivated.

The author skillfully breathed life into the characters. A lot of effort was put into creating the rift to capture the necessary details and convey the experience and evil being unleashed.

I found the read impressive; the book flowed well, and the ending was perfect. It's a must-read, no doubt about it.

Many thanks to @netgalley @flametreepress & @RandomTTours for a spot on the tour.

The Rift
Horror, Sci-Fi
Seth C. Adams
⭐️⭐️

This book was...bizarre. At one point there was a strange mutant/humanoid being that ejaculated acid and had an upside down face on the back of its head and suckers at the end of its fingers.

Each chapter had its own numbered sub-chapters, which was a little odd. I've never seen that before and it didn't add anything to the book or the plot.

The publishers have compared this book to the books by Stephen King but that just left me disappointed and underwhelmed because my expectations were too high.

The pacing is very slow. At just over 200 pages, I expected to fly through this book but instead, it dragged on. It only started getting interesting at around 58%. I found myself skimming paragraphs and actually skipping some pages here and there. I don't feel like I even missed anything important when I did this because everything is so over-described.

I was annoyed by what happened to Rusty (the dog). He protected Joe and Clara during everything they went through, survived a trek through a hellish landscape in another dimension, only to suffer the way he did at the end 😢.

I don't feel like anything was truly answered and I found the ending unsatisfying.

*Thank you to @Netgalley, the author and the publishers for providing this ARC. This is my own opinion and an honest review, which I am leaving voluntarily*

3.5 stars

The Rift by Seth C. Adams is a horror novel about a man who is trying to deal with the death of his son.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Flame Tree Press and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

 
My Synopsis:    (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Joe Jimenez is still grieving the death of his 12-year old son Evan.  Clara, Joe's wife, left him six months ago, because she was trying to move on.  Joe is still stuck.

On the anniversary of his son's death, Joe discovers a strange atmospheric anomaly in his backyard, a rift.  A tear in the air.  Joe throws things in the rift, and something similar comes back.  But the thing that comes back is somehow wrong.

Then he gets a message from the other side.  His son is there.


My Opinions:
Touted as being a a combination of Pet Sematary and The Monkey's Paw, it does live up to this description.  However, when you are going to compare a book to those two greats, you have to be prepared for some disappointment.  My expectations were a little too high because of that comparison.  The book was still good, just not as great as those two giants.

It is, indeed, horror/sci-fi.  It is also about grief, and family, and letting go.

The plot was good, as was the writing.  It is a relatively fast read, although I occasionally got bogged down in the details.  It was definitely an emotional read, but sometimes I really disliked Joe.

Anyway, overall, it was good, just not great (and I still blame the publisher for comparing it to Jacobs and King).

The appearance of a strange rift in bereaved Joe Jimenez's backyard puzzles Joe, but as he interacts with the rift, he finds an entity on the other side claiming to have knowledge of his dead son. Joe must decide whether to enter the rift himself...entertaining and well written.

Joseph Jimenez, on the eve of the one year anniversary of his son’s violent murder discovers a rift in the universe floating in his backyard. An opening to somewhere else. When something on the other side sends Joe a message that his son is inside the rift, Joe must decided how far he will go to get his son back.

Joe and his wife Clara are separated, she has moved out and moved on at least according to Joe’s frequently bitter, internal musings. Flipping back and forth in time, we learn how far Joe has sunk, he has refused to attend his son’s funeral, has not returned to work and has even suggested they give up the family dog. When a mysterious rent in the air appears in his backyard, he becomes convinced with very little proof that his son is alive on the other side. There are early attempts to demonstrate Joe’s logical mind- we are reminded a few times that he was once a science teacher, we watch him test and record interactions with the rift, but when a note comes through saying “your son is here” Joe needs no more evidence. He blunders through the rest of the story, ignoring every clue that the rift is a cruel trick - the biggest of these is that the world beyond as described, sounds like every description of hell ever put down in text throughout history. Red skies, black, scorched earth, flying demons and sightless giants pushing carts full of moaning men, women and children around. None of this sticks out in Joe’s “logical” mind, instead it is most often put to work keeping important information from his wife and coming up with cruel barbs to fling at her in the heat of their many arguments. At one point in a very Jack Torrance-esque manner he mocks his wife in a sing-song voice. Oh the irony of wishing I was watching The Shining for the 347th time instead of reading about a selfish, emotionally-stunted man lash out at his loved ones.

And all this is laid out for us in writing that is over-baked, flowery, like a garden gone to seed - as you’ll see the author seems to be trying to create evocative atmosphere by describing nearly everything with simile. Tools exist on a workbench like “a doctor’s implements on a surgical tray”, people fold themselves into chairs like accordions, and gun muzzles look like staring black eyes. If this was a standard trade size paperback instead of an e-book, I wouldn’t be surprised to find 3 or 4 such comparisons per page. By 50% I was desperate for a door to simply be a door, and not some other more nefarious or nonsensical object. For the entire time I was reading this I was very aware of the author doing the work of writing, offering up sentences over and over in the hopes that one would be the one true sentence.

Grief and despair are frequent subjects for horror, with good reason. Grief is impervious to weapons, it ignores our best logical arguments, and it haunts our every step. In The Rift, Joe’s battle with despair feels like a collection of poorly drawn set pieces.

There is no pleasure in writing a critical review, but in going over my reading notes and putting together my thoughts to write this review, I can find no moments that I think worked well, nothing to recommend. Straining for generosity, I will say there are evocative descriptions of unsettling creatures, twisted and decaying but even those are inconsistent - in most scenes they are melting, and obviously corrupted, horrifying while in others where it is needed to move the story along they are perfect doppelgängers able to move about in the real world unnoticed.

Unfortunately this one falls flat for me. A very quick read but overall I was left unsatisfied, especially after reading the comparison to King's Pet Semetary. This one just didn't work.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for the opportunity to read rage and review this arc which is available October 10,2023.

If you are going to compare a lesser known horror author to Stephen Freaking King then it had better live up to the hype. This did not live up to the hype. It was flat and boring and was nothing like Pet Semetary. Honestly publishers need to stop doing that bs. It does the authors a major disservice:

Never read anything from this author but this is a great October read for anybody that's dealt with loss the wrist is exactly what you think it's going to be a tear in the fabric of time and things that happen in between I will definitely read more from this author again

I have to admit, I was a little worried going into this one because the few reviews I read were not very positive. I also went into this short novel expecting something quite different than this. That being said, I was very pleasantly surprised (sometimes reading negative reviews makes your experience better!). Let’s start with my expectations; I was thinking this would be a dark and sad story that crawled through Joe’s psyche during his final days. I also thought maybe there would be a little Pet Sematary in the mix, like Joe throwing his son’s corpse through the void and having him step out as some undead oddity. However, I was wrong about all of this. Though the first third or so of this novel is relatively tame – Joe experiments with the void while mourning the loss of his son and wife, who left him – it then takes a wild left turn for someone who wasn’t expecting such a dark fantasy jump. Joe actually passes through the rift and ends up in this twisted world that is monstrous and evil. From this point forward, the story wasn’t at all what I was expecting. There are a couple times a moment seems out of place – like when XXXX falls through the rift and a monster steps out with his XXXX shooting acid-like XXX – but by the time I reached the end of the book, it felt relative enough, not as strange as I’d thought at the time. And yet, that one scene still seems a little over the top by comparison to the rest... Anyway, The Rift is sad, yes, but it didn’t leave me broken as I feared. I have a real problem with children dying in stories and thought this might end up being a DNF. Instead, I never really got too caught up in my head over any of the ways Adams wrote his story. It’s still deeply sad, but he didn’t get caught up too much in the details (except once or twice, briefly) for me to feel the need to abandon the book. This was good. It was upsetting but not traumatizing. I would also like to note I had no idea how this story would end as it ramped up and got wilder and further away from what I'd been expecting; the conclusion made sense even if it was heartbreaking. My bottom line here: The Rift is well-written, dark and twisted, sad, and engaging. I didn’t always sync with it, but I definitely enjoyed it enough to walk away satisfied and thinking Adams will be an author to read again later.

Horror often has proxies for real world horrors. Addiction, depression, racism and many more important topics have been explored in fiction. A dark mirror reflecting a painful subject to us in different ways. Unsurprisingly death and grief are a huge part of the genre from ghosts to the undead. In Seth C Adams’ emotionally charged horror tale The Rift a grief-stricken father faces temptation to push himself past the point of our reality in a quest for the impossible.

For Joe Jimenez the world ended a year ago when his teenage son was kidnapped and murdered on the way to school. He cut himself off from the world and has since lost his wife, job and life is just one gut-wrenching day after another. Until in his garden a strange light appears a rift that if someone thing goes in then something very similar and different comes back. A rift where a message appears that says his son is on the other side.

This is a powerful exploration of grief as the rift is in many ways a metaphor for Joe cut off from his won world. The early chapters are filled with that pain, anger and self-loathing that Jim has and yet he is a sympathetic figure. Only when this strange fissure in space and time appears does he actually has a focus again even if it appears a dark obsessional one. The way the former science teacher treats this as an experiment and tests what the rift can do and what may be on the other side ground the tale into its own reality and the third person narration creates a clear sense of foreboding. It is a really a question of how far Joe goes and yet at the same time we understand the desperation that somehow his son and his fractured family can come back. Watching Joe re-connect with the family dog Rusty gives a sense of humanity coming back…but it may be too late.

The horror aspects are good. The mysterious hellish landscape of the Rift and what comes out of it when things return are great body horror and add a clear sense of threat. Things are indeed icky and there is a high price to be paid. I think though the tale does feel a little slowly paced and rather than tension rise I felt it was more heading towards the inevitable and the final perhaps overcooked the final confrontation and revelations. Despite that it was a really enjoyable read and I was very impressed how Adams captures the path of stages of grief throughout the story via clever storytelling. It does ultimately have the feeling of someone learning to battle and accept their demons (in many ways). Worth a look!

2.5 stars rounded to 3. Seth C. Adams' 'The Rift' is not an easy book to review: I found the synopsis quite exciting, the comparison to 'Pet Sematary' even more so, with the result that expectations were admittedly too high and the book didn't stand a chance. I expected an ambitious novel that would stand out from the rest, blending science fiction with cosmic horror; I got a beefed up campfire story with so much description, so wordy, sometimes I felt I had to skip pages to reach the end as soon as possible. This could have been a terrific novella of a hundred pages or so. Perhaps cutting it down mercilessly and skipping some parts would make up for the lack of atmosphere? Well, better luck next time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for the ARC!

“Joe had woken up just the same as he had each morning since: dazed, lethargic, slightly nauseous and with a headache, as if waking up with one bastard of a hangover.”

This is a scifi horror story that deals with cosmic terrors, complicated grief, and complex relationships.

Some parts were absolutely thrilling, some sad, some frustrating. Unfortunately some sections also dragged so I skipped through pages to get to the meat of the story.

I felt this book should’ve ended after the detective visit when Joe and Clara came back. I wasn’t a fan yet another thing going wrong for them and what happened to Rusty. Rusty was such a good pup and this ending totally pissed me off- whyyyyy???

“Dogs that saved people from hellish monster crickets deserved pot roast for dinner.”

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Flame Tree Press for a copy!