Juniper (The Juniper Series)

Juniper is a post-apocalyptic horror that centers on a forgotten town in the Southern-most part of America.

The author, Ross Jeffery, hails from the UK and is the Executive Director of Books For STORGY Magazine. His previous works have been published and appeared in a variety of journals, magazines and projects. So he's definitely been working on the craft of writing for some time now.

As mentioned, Juniper is a town that is mentioned to be in the middle of nowhere, a tiny town somewhere in the South of America, forgotten. There was a reference to New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, so that leads me to believe the author may have imagined Juniper to be near that region...or even the Southern part of Mississippi....you know, where I'M from. With that reference, I felt an immediate connection with this story and could relate. I'm originally from Brooksville, MS, which to this day only has one gas station and one man pretty much owns everything else: grocery store, furniture store, drug store. (Yes, only one of each existed) I was instantly invested - however, some of that enjoyment was a little lost as there were words used that we do not use in the South, such as "back-chatting" - in the South, we would say "back talking" or truly, "sass-mouthing". There was a very valiant attempt to have the characters speak the correct dialect, but there were a couple times the character would speak in a Southern dialect, then in the same conversation revert to more proper speech.

To summarize the plot a bit, the residents of Juniper have fallen on terribly hard times of what almost seems like Biblical proportions. There has been a long term drought which has destroyed any chance at crops, the wildlife has fled leaving them without anything to hunt, so the residents are forced to desperate measures. What would YOU do if the food had run out and the neighboring states turned a blind eye and left you to rot?

Well, Juniper did only what they could. One resident, Janet LeHey managed to figure out a way to feed the residents and make a lucrative living: by introducing a new form of "CATtle": huge cats that she bred and raised in a shed behind her home.

With this new menu item, the residents of Juniper are hanging in, waiting for the dreaded heat to abate and bring an end to their suffering and hopefully open up avenues for them to return to some semblance of normalcy.

Until.

Bucky, Janet's prized tomcat, a monstrous ginger that even Janet's abusive husband was afraid of - goes missing....

Enter our other main character, Betty, who is a little old woman who lives alone on the very outskirts of Juniper and survives off what roadkill she scavenges off the road. Betty makes a large discovery on the road one day that would either feed her for quite some time or....wait, did it move? Could...it..wait, is it still alive? Would this be a meal or something more important to a little lonely old woman? A companion perhaps? Betty loads the discovery into her wheelbarrow and takes it home...and that's where it begins...

I love Jeffery's writing style - he is so descriptive that it just transports you into the story and puts you there, right next to the character. An example for reference:

(Takes place as Janet was standing at her kitchen sink and a bird flew into the window accidentally)
"Her eyes traced the pattern of the ghost bird on the window, the long wingspan, each feather etched in immaculate detail, imprisoned forever. Her eyes followed the wings in to the centre, where the head and beak had perforated the glass. Right in the middle a crack. It had splintered out from the centre in many directions. She glimpsed something then, something that she couldn't look away from; she was rooted to the spot, by fear, and a little by recognition. She could see herself, fractured and distorted in the window, the fractures twisting her appearance. It was still her, but a broken and fractured, split what seemed a thousand times. A thousand versions of herself told her how fragile and pathetic she had become."

The world building was done well, I was able to picture the town of Juniper and its residents so clearly. It was described so that it looked like the little town where I came from. The character development was AMAZING. In fact, the character development is what I loved most in this novella. I felt the extreme loneliness of Betty. The abuse of Janet by her husband - the author illustrated the cycle of abuse and the fact that Janet stayed and WHY - it felt honest, raw and REAL. Heartbreaking, yes.

I also appreciated the use of religion - Jeffrey nailed that Bible Belt feel SO. WELL. I honestly don't know that many would understand unless you were born and raised in a small town in the Bible Belt, but it was SPOT ON.

While I did cringe at a few parts - I had a hard time with the eating of cats and the descriptions of the feline feasts, but I felt like the payoff at the end would be worth it - and it really was. I know there is a prequel written that I will be getting my hands on very soon because I'm completely invested in this story and because I enjoy Ross Jeffery's writing style so very much.

I would definitely recommend giving this one a try, just squint through the cat parts...