Book list
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Out of prison and working as a history teacher at her old high school, Jade Daniels (last seen in Don't Fear the Reaper, 2023) is slowly rebuilding her life with the help of therapy, medication, and the few friends she cares about. Then one of her students records drone footage of something terrifying in the woods, and people in town are being mysteriously separated from their heads. And then corpses bent on revenge start walking up out of the lake. High-stakes, rat-a-tat action sequences are interspersed with investigators’ reports providing additional insight into Jade’s activities in Proofrock (and demonstrating that she may not always be an entirely reliable narrator). As hard as Jade goes after the killer (or killers), she’s just as relentlessly fighting back against her own trauma. And, lucky for Jade, it turns out that she is not the only final girl in Proofrock. Recommend this barn burner to fans of Jones’ earlier books, of course, but also Danielle Vega’s Survive the Night (2015), Brian McAuley's Curse of the Reaper (2022), or Hailey Piper's Benny Rose, the Cannibal King (2022).

Publishers Weekly
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Jones (Don’t Fear the Reaper) brings his Jade Daniels trilogy to a bloody end in this riotously entertaining tale. It’s 2023, eight years after 17-year-old slasher movie aficionado Jade was both unable to save her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, from the gruesome events now remembered as the Independence Day Massacre and unjustly imprisoned as the perpetrator of the bloodbath. Older and wiser, Jade’s working as a history teacher at her old high school in Proofrock when things start going to hell in a handbasket again: more local teenagers turn up slaughtered, a raging fire consumes the forest surrounding town, and a spectral figure dubbed “the Angel” haunts the shores of the lake that town fathers dammed up to submerge the original settlement on which Proofrock was founded. Jones weaves in plenty of clues and red herrings to keep the reader guessing just who is responsible for all the mayhem before igniting a climax that plays out like a horror film library exploding its holdings in a fiery spectacular. At the center of it all is Jade, a descendant of the Indigenous tribes displaced by Proofrock’s settlers who embraces her outsider status and plays the perfect guide through this tale’s weird terrain. This is a worthy finale to a series that has expanded the horizons of contemporary horror. Agent: BJ Robbins, BJ Robbins Literary. (Mar.)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The ultimate final girl reaches the bloody end of her frayed, traumatized rope. How readers absorb this last volume of Jones’ hyperviolent, gory ode to horror flicks probably depends largely on their appetite for the genre itself. What’s on offer here is a lot, not only in terms of blood ’n’ guts but also a fat stack of backstory and a dizzying cast. Jade Daniels, the reluctant but relentless heroine of the trilogy, has returned to Proofrock, Idaho, after her second prison stint for the events chronicled in My Heart Is a Chainsaw (2021) and Don’t Fear the Reaper (2022). Her wealthy best friend, Letha Mondragon-Tompkins, has gotten her a job teaching high school history, but all the meds and therapy available aren’t really cutting it. Before long, tiny threads—a real estate project at the site of the previous massacre at “Camp Blood,” a pair of missing teenagers, and a raging forest fire started by a grieving game warden—have exploded into an infernal nightmare. The writing is still boxing-match ferocious and precise, but while every word is carefully chosen, they’re not all in service of explaining what’s really happening. The plotlines are often steeped in urban legend, which are gleefully punctuated by Jade’s rat-a-tat-tat horror movie references à la Ready Player One. That’s catnip for horror fans, and the images Jones conjures would give some of the movies a run for their money. Whether it’s Jade’s rapist father back from the dead, a murderous child mutilating the townsfolk, a pack of rampaging bears tearing through the flames, or the titular ghost making the rounds at the local lake, it’s real peek-between-your-fingers stuff—when you can work out what exactly happened. A characteristically violent denouement for a girl given hell by just about everybody. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal
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It's October 2023, four years after the events of Don't Fear the Reaper. Jade is back home and working as a high school history teacher just as Proofrock is about to face another massacre. This Halloween will be Proofrock's final stand against the secrets that have been hidden under the lake at the center of this cursed town for generations. Readers will get wrapped up in the action as bodies pile up, but it will be Jade who leads them through, as she comes to terms with traumas both personal and historical, uses her knowledge of slasher films, and learns to trust herself and her renewed connection to her Indigenous heritage. It is the perfect conclusion to this trilogy of ghosts and monsters, both earthly and supernatural, and of secrets that must finally be brought to the surface. A story masterfully told, but most of all, one that provides a final girl to cherish. VERDICT Jones has given the world a gift, an epic tale for the ages, both a violent, high-octane slasher and a frank, thought-provoking indictment of the U.S., past and present.