Reviewed by Stephen: 8 out of 10.

Shane Johnson has an imagination worthy of any fiction writer. He jumps from fantasy and sci-fi to historical fiction with ease.

Chayatocha (pronounced “kie-ah-toe-ka”) by Shane Johnson, follows the tale of a wagon train bound for the Oregon Territory in the mid 1800s. Already struggling with the hardships of the trail, the group of pioneer families make a fateful decision when they turn away from a supposed Indian massacre and head for an uncharted pass through the mountains. There they discover something far more deadly than renegade Indians.

The first thing I was aware of, even as little as one paragraph into this book, was that Shane Johnson sure knows how to write. This carried on throughout the whole book, which was just as eloquently written as the first parts that initially grabbed me. This immediately gave Shane Johnson a headstart to a good reception of his work. The storyline itself was not particularly astounding, but the way it was written made it feel like it was.

In a horror story, the majority of the tension always comes from the unknown. As things begin to get more familiar, the tension ebbs. If a writer is not aware of this, they can completely ruin an otherwise great story by revealing the unknown factors that are keeping the excitement much too quickly. In Chayatocha, Johnson had to remove some of the mystery early on in order to tell the rest of the story. He does this in much of the latter part of the novel where he reveals Chayatocha’s origin and brings Daniel Paradine’s own spiritual journey to a climax. It almost worked, but I thought that the whole middle part of the book stretched out too long and I lost a lot of the tension that built so strongly in the first few chapters. It didn’t ruin the story, but definitely slowed it down.

The only other thing that brought the book down for me was the Chayatocha constantly referred to itself in the plural with words like “we”, “us” and “our”. It had to be done for various reasons which I won’t give away, but all I kept thinking of was Smeagol and his alter-ego, Gollum, whenever I read it! “It’s oursssssssssss, precious.”

*Ahem* Still, it was a remarkable story with a refreshingly different and remarkably interesting setting. So all things consider I would still say “highly recommended”.