Gentle Monsters

Winner of 2026 ASBC Best New Sci-Fi book! "Survival is easy. Staying human is not."Hayden Flynn has already died once. He clawed his way out of the grave and came back faster, stronger, and far more dangerous than the man who was buried. For decades, he has survived by one rule: never let the monster take over. Hayden keeps what little remains of his sanity by living in the shadows-feeding carefully, avoiding attachment, pretending the line between man and monster still matters. Because it has to. When a single cruel act shatters that routine, he's dragged back into the violence he's spent a lifetime trying to outrun. What begins as one wrong choice spirals into a war where predators hunt predators, prophets preach extinction, and every devil wears a human face. Gentle Monsters is a dark, character-driven dystopian horror about corruption, hunger, and the quiet ways humanity is lost. This is not a story about saving the world. It's about choosing who you'll be after it's already broken.