Heavy Oceans

October 23, 2023
Jones (Burn the Plans) draws readers into this cosmic horror story as irresistibly as the mysterious undertow that pulls the protagonists “deeper and deeper into the dark” of the ocean. After Jamie Fletcher’s girlfriend, the mother of his infant son, kicks him out, Jamie heads to Hawaii, where his older brother, Eric, works on a small fishing boat. Eric has always been troubled, having grown up taking the brunt of their deadbeat father’s abuse. When a night of drinking takes a violent turn, Jamie winds up on a fishing boat with Eric, ship’s captain Ed, and Ed’s adult son, Matty, on a grim mission to hide a body in the middle of the Pacific. Alone out on the water, the four men discover something unnatural and terrifying in the depths that turns their worlds upside down—and has striking implications for the evolutionary path of life on Earth. Wretched and thrilling, this fast-paced outing explores the horrors of humanity, the ocean, and the unknown all at once. Horror enthusiasts looking for deep-sea monsters, a cosmic sense of awe, or just old-fashioned disemboweling will find plenty to sink their teeth into. Agent: Elizabeth Copps, Copps Literary.

November 1, 2023
Jamie has come to Hawaii to visit his older brother, Eric, despite the brothers' distant relationship. Eric works on a fishing boat with father-and-son pair Ed and Matty, and when a night out for the three younger men ends with a fight gone terribly wrong, they call gruff, capable Ed to help. Soon, they're in Ed's boat headed out to the open ocean to dispose of a body. There, the boat is sucked into a kind of suspended animation where it's attacked by a variety of creatures. Tiny, fast-growing parasitic worms arrive via salty raindrops; vicious fish with razor-sharp teeth and fins fling themselves on board; and a familiar corpse is ferried to the boat by living marionette strings. Then the stressed, injured, and exhausted men start turning on each other. There's plenty of material here for fans of body horror, plus a soup�on of environmental horror, but unresolved family trauma provides the bulk of the terror for all four men. Recommend to fans of Koji Suzuki's story collection Dark Water (2004), Nick Cutter's The Deep (2015), or The Fisherman (2016), by John Langan.

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