When Casey Lovitt’s mom found a wolf spider casually lounging in her living room, she quickly swept it out the front door with her broom. “People weren’t meant to live in the swamp,” she told her daughter. “This place ain’t for us. It’s for them.”

Casey and her mom had lived their entire lives at the edge of Green Swamp, North Carolina. Over the years, they’d learned to coexist with the oppressive bug population. But last season’s hurricane and subsequent flooding significantly altered the local environment. The bugs were now bigger, more plentiful and more aggressive. “They’re finally running us out,” agreed Casey. “The creatures are taking the swamp back.”

That’s bad news for Casey. She was the park manager for the Green Swamp Zip-Line Adventure and Campground, and she knew people weren’t going to visit the N.C. wetlands if they were being attacked by giant horse flies, centipedes, mosquitoes, water scorpions, ticks, fire ants and wheel bugs.

Normally, bugs were mindless eating and breeding machines. But now they were hungry and horny monsters on the prowl. Thanks to the mutated venom of a brown recluse spider, for example, Casey witnessed an unlucky bastard decompose before her very eyes. Something had to be done. Ignoring the problem only made things worse.

Trying to help, the entomology department at the local college released sterile insects into the area. It was their hope that these bugs would nip the ever-expanding population in the bud. It was a nice idea, but it was a false narrative. The mounting danger and unforeseen secret agendas turned Green Swamp into a horror show.

To keep Infested focused, author Carol Gore divided her novel into three manageable chapters. Eschewing a standard third-act finale, however, she gave her protagonist an open door to a welcomed sequel.

A supersized mosquito buzzed toward Casey’s face. She let it get close and then smashed it against her forehead. It exploded with blood that ran down her face like war paint.

She wanted the other creatures to smell the death on her. It was a warning, wrote Gore. Casey would not abandon her home in Green Swamp. She was ready to keep on fighting.

[Infested / By Carol Gore / First Printing: January 2020 / ISBN: 9781989206300]