Title: Sentinel

Author: Drew Starling

Release date: May 14th, 2021

Back in late 2021, I gave this book a shot. At the time, I was intrigued by the gorgeous Francois Vaillancourt cover, the synopsis – hey, any book with a giant creature and trees on the front immediately catches my attention! – and Eerie River raving about what Drew had created. Unfortunately, at that time, I managed to get about 30% into the book and ultimately DNF’d it.

Recently, after getting through a few of my Netgalley ARC’s, I was hankering for a giant-creature-in-the-woods novel and this one kept kind of tugging at me to give it another go. It’s very rare for me to go back into a book I’ve DNF’d before, the reality being there’s a ton of books to read and only so much time to read all those books, but I loved Drew’s novella ‘After’ and wanted to jump into something else of his. So, Drew plus giant-creature-in-the-woods equals ‘Sentinel.’ Realizing that I’d not kept the file on my Kindle from back then, I snagged a copy off Amazon and dove back in, wondering how it would treat me this time around.

What I liked: The novel follows a young family, Aaron (who is in between jobs), his ER doctor wife, Emily and their young son Caleb. They’ve recently moved to the small town of Bensalem with their dog Cooper and are looking forward to making this place home.

We pick up with Aaron having just returned from a bachelor party trip overseas and as such, is suffering from jet lag and insomnia. On this particular evening, he decides to stay up, hoping to reset his clock. At precisely four in the morning, Cooper goes nuts and when Aaron looks to investigate why Cooper is going crazy, he sees a massive beast walking across the back part of their property.

It’s from here where the story begins to layer and unfold, Starling setting up the chess pieces about what’s been happening for centuries in Bensalem, while also connecting why Aaron, Emily and soon Caleb are playing a central role in the Bensalem mystery.

This time around, I pushed aside my original struggle with some of the earlier dialogue, preferring instead to focus more on the story and doing my best to unravel who is behind what. This was elevated even more after Emily and Aaron both have visual encounters with the massive beast and the next day Caleb goes missing. This follows the grisly death of their older neighbour and the introduction of a female police officer in charge while the sheriff’s on vacation.

Starling does a great job of showing the mental and emotional degradation of both Emily and Aaron as they struggle to figure out where their son is, why the police won’t believe them about the massive creature they’ve both seen and the exhaustion that takes hold and threatens to prevent them from doing everything they can to search for Caleb. They think they’ve found a lifeline when a detective shows up, but not all is what it seems and soon a cosmic experience offers some clues – and answers – for Aaron.

The final quarter is a fantastic merger of the Elder/cult introductions at the beginning, the search for Caleb, the revelation of the sentinel and the pestilence and the lengths that Emily and Aaron are willing to go to find their son. This all leads to a pseudo ‘epilogue’ that sets up things for the next book.

What I didn’t like: Much like the first time, the early dialogue irked me, but I pushed that aside to focus on the story as it unfolded and learning about the lore regarding the sentinel and the pestilence.

I did find myself at odds with the police portions, especially the final kind of arrest/interview scenes (I won’t say much for spoilers), but I found them frustrating considering everything the police said they knew regarding the history of Bensalem and the fact that it was related to Caleb’s disappearance and the parents doing whatever they could to get their son back. I’ll leave it there.

Lastly, this one doesn’t have a definitive ending. I was hoping it would, but it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger/what comes next set up, practically forcing you into having to read the second novel if you’re looking for finality and/or answers.

Why you should buy this: If you see the cover and are intrigued and then read the synopsis and are even more intrigued – this one’s for you. Starling sets this one over six days of chaos and craziness and it made for a fun go this time around.

Otherwise, if you’re a fan of massive creatures tromping through the forest and ancient rituals wrapping themselves around current residents of a small town, look no further. Starling really delivered a fun thrill ride, one I’m happy to have revisited and finished this time. Now, I’ll need to get to part two, hopefully sooner than later!