Book Review – Hunger on the Chisholm Trail by M. Ennenbach

Title: Hunger on the Chisholm Trail

Author: M. Ennenbach

Edition: Paperback

Page Count: 182 pages

Rating: 4.5 / 5 ✨✨✨✨

Are you a big fan of westerns? Because I’m not, but I loved this! HUNGER is the second book in the ‘Splatter Western’ series being published by Death’s Head Press where each book is a total standalone that you can enjoy even independently of books that come before/after it. I love this kind of series, ’cause it’s really accessible to new readers as well as old fans to the genre. Maybe one book isn’t your thing? That’s okay, ’cause you’ve got several more titles (and authors) to choose from! Lucky for me, so far, 2 out of 2 of these books have hit home runs for me. While I may not normally consider myself a ‘western fan’ type of girl, these books and this series are starting to change that for me. I’m loving the dangerous, dusty trails, and the towns filled with wild casts of characters – the bloodshed and gore that are trademark of the ‘splatter western’ subgenre are a really awesome bonus!

In HUNGER, we start off with a little set-up to set the pacing for the violence in the story. Within the first few pages, we’ve already got people doing Bad Things, a terrifying creature, and a whole lot of death. If you’ve ever wondered what listening to the chomping of flesh sounds like, this is the book to give that to you – some of the descriptions here were nauseatingly thorough (and I mean that in a very respectful, in-awe-of-the-descriptive-writing kind of way, trust me!). Although it takes a little bit for us to meet our main character, Karl Beck, I didn’t at all mind the journey, bloodstained as it was.

While the first book in this series was more focused on terrible people doing terrible things, this one is focused on actual monsters – and I LOVED THAT! It sort of reminded me of an old western version of the show Supernatural, with our monster hunting protagonist focused on his mission to rid the world of its evil. I love this sort of singular focus in a character, and even besides Karl, I really enjoyed how fleshed out even the most minor of supporting characters was – specifically, with some of the women! I didn’t expect this going in, nor did I expect the witty humor sprinkled throughout the writing, but appreciated both surprises immensely!

This Splatter Western series is really doing something great with the books being put out, and I’d urge both fans and those who wouldn’t consider themselves fans of westerns to look into reading a few. If blood & gore are your things, you’ll really enjoy this – let the terror and the well-written characters be the cherry on top of your western reading experience!

Big thanks to the publisher, author, and book party organizers for sending this one my way to review!