Title: Veil

Author: Jonathan Janz

Release date: September 16th, 2025

*Huge thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for a digital ARC of this one!*

I’ve been reading and reviewing long enough to remember the YEAR OF JONATHAN JANZ. If you’ve not heard that, well you missed out on getting a couple new Janz releases plus I think almost a dozen re-releases, all within the same year. This was maybe 2017 or 2018 and it was a gloriously amazing time to be a Janz fan! Throughout Janz’s literary career, one thing has become absolutely paramount in every single story he writes. The man cares about his characters. What I mean about that, is it’s very very veeeerrry rare to find a one-dimensional character in his story. There’s not a lot of folks just there to be there and not move the story along and you’ll learn what makes them tick.

That was what had me so excited when ‘Veil’ was announced. Janz hasn’t been afraid to subgenre hop in the horror world – he’s done everything from werewolves to vampire’s to spooks and specters and ghosts and everything in between. But he’s not done anything truly in the alien/sci-fi world, and fresh off the alien desecration that Adam Nevill unleashed with ‘All the Fiends of Hell,’ I couldn’t wait to see what Janz had up his sci-fi sleeve.

What I liked: The story follows high school teacher John, who is dealing with a heavy life. He’s separated from his wife Iris, constantly fighting with his older son and trying to stay connected to his younger daughter. And on top of that, he feels like a lesser person, dealing with a significant limp from a leg length discrepancy from an accident when he was younger. But that all pales in comparison to what’s begun to happen around the world. Without any sort of rhyme or reason, people are going missing, plucked from the sky by something… never to be seen again.

We’re thrown into the deep end immediately. John and his son go for a walk to the store, discussing father and son issues, and what’s happening in the world, when his son rounds a corner and is just… gone.

That moment, quite early on, is the launching point for the world to turn upside down as the sky opens and hundreds of thousands begin to be plucked and disappear. Video footage emerges, curfews are enacted and after John’s wife also gets taken, him and his daughter hunker down and do their best to survive. Of course, there’s a nut job vigilante in the neighborhood, wanting to make sure all the dwindling supplies are stored in one place – for safe keeping naturally – and its those moments were we see how the novel also alludes to real life events – Covid and political upheaval and even presciently to what’s happening with ICE in the US right now. Janz does a phenomenal job of twisting this from first being an abduction novel and turning into a story about a father doing everything and anything it takes to try and find those he loves the most.

As it progresses, we learn what has arrived and what they’re doing and there’s a hard line that gets drawn between here and there and Janz plays those cards perfectly, showing us what just may await those who pierce the veil.

The final quarter of the novel is a full sprint. It’s tough to really describe everything without having spoilers, but I will say it worked really well to have this earth and non-earth juxtaposition where we feel grounded and then frantic.

The ending is a mix of heartwarming and heart wrenching and honestly that’s exactly what this book needed.

What I didn’t like: Two things stuck out to me. The first was that I found the son disappearing felt almost like it happened too soon. It was the rare moment in the book where I felt like we didn’t get enough of the father-son dynamic to really grab a strong grasp of their relationship before the son was gone.

The second was that the aspect of here versus there seemed like it was too easy to traverse across. Again, I don’t want to be a Spoiler McSpoilface, so I’ll leave it there.

Why you should buy this: Horror and sci-fi have been pals for ever since books began to be written and movies filmed. So, it should be noted that while this is ‘sci-fi’ it’s grounded in the horror genre and shows Janz’s horror sensibilities time and time again. This was frantic. Chaos infused claustrophobia. It was a father desperately trying to find his family and things from elsewhere arriving and wrecking havoc.

Janz is an elite writer, one who has honed his writing voice and mastery of prose over decades now, and once you begin a Janz book, you know you’re in sure and steady hands.

This book was achingly perfect and is sure to connect with long-time fans and bring in plenty of new fans and I expect to see this book – especially with that cover – become a mainstay on social media for many years to come.