After a group of menacing doctors arrives, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and soon they learn a demon from childhood stories is hell-bent on infiltrating this world. A mysterious disease spreads among those in the camp, with minor colds becoming fits of violence, aggression and even death. Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and forced into an internment camp in Ohio while they await Jamie. It centers on Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, who await the return of husband and father Jamie, an air force pilot stationed in the Pacific. The Hunger is a standalone novel which is loosely based on the true story of the Donner Party a group of American Pioneers who, while migrating to California, were snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the winter of 1846-1847. It certainly didn’t hurt that the promotional blurb on the front cover is from Stephen King, who states that the novel is, Deeply, deeply disturbing. The book is inspired by the Japanese Yōkai and the Jorōgumo spider demon. Today we’re looking at horror novel The Hunger written by Alma Katsu. As a historical fiction horror novel for young adults, The Hunger by Alma Katsu ticked almost all of my favourite boxes on a surface level.

Around 70,000 American citizens were among those forced into camps. Putnam’s Sons will publish Katsu’s The Fervor, which puts a psychological and supernatural twist on the horrors of the Japanese American internment camps during World War II, which saw 112,000 people of Japanese descent forced to relocate due to racist fears that they posed a threat to national security. Alma Katsu, the author behind historical horror novels The Hunger and The Deep, is traveling to the World War II era for her next book.

Katsu the hunger