Book Review: The Taste by Alan Orloff

Okay, so cannibalism isn't for every reader. I get that. I wasn't sure I wanted to read Alan Orloff's The Taste, but once I got past the fourth page, I was hooked.

Jake Wheeler recently lost his mother. In order to connect with her family in West Virginia, he travels to the small town of Dark Springs. It doesn't take long for Jake to be told the family's secret: they eat dead people. At first, Jake is repulsed by the news until he learns his mother secretly fed him human flesh his entire life. Between inner-clan battles the likes of which most haven't seen since the Hatfields and the McCoys, Jake's pacifist family runs afoul of a renegade group which doesn't want to wait until people die to "harvest" the flesh. The group wants to hunt its supper.

Jake finds himself at the top of the mad leader's hit list. As he struggles for survival, he struggles against himself. He doesn't want to believe he's a cannibal, but he is.

Some reviewers liken The Taste to horror books by Peter Straub,Dean Koontz or Stephen King. I think it's much closer to Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home.

The Taste is available from Amazon in Kindle format only.