#BookReview: The Shark House by Sara Ackerman

Beautiful Anti-Jaws. In a sense, this book is the anti-Jaws intended to take everything ugly about Jaws (including its New England setting, sorry Yankees) and make it more vivid and beautiful, with a far stronger emotional component to boot.

Now, admittedly I haven’t read the Peter Benchley original book (yet), but this year *is* the 50th anniversary of the movie that effectively created the Summer Blockbuster out of thin air, and yes, I’ve seen the movie more than a few times (and ridden the former ride at Universal Orlando, may it rest in peace). Stupid Harry Potter. (No, Rowling is awesome. I just hate that Universal decided to rip out Jaws to insert a new HP land. Almost as much as I hate that they took away Dueling Dragons in Islands of Adventure to put in Hagrid’s rollercoaster.) Wait. Wait. Back to the Ackerman’s book.

Seriously though, Ackerman flipped the script from New England (boo! hiss!) to the beautiful Hawaiian waters (yay!), gave us a compelling and complicated shark scientist lead character, truly makes us see the beauty of both Hawaii (as she always does in her books) and sharks, …

Wait. She makes us see the beauty in *sharks*? Those apex predators who are nothing but man eating living torpedos that lurk silently and randomly attack humans? Yeah, well, Ackerman actually has solid in-story rebuttals to all of that, and she works it in without being preachy but instead having her characters truly be in awe of the majesty of the sharks and seeking to understand them.

Combining elements of real-world Hawaiian anti-“mainlander” racism and magical realism to great effect both comedically and in key moments in the story, Ackerman brings in elements of Hawaiian culture in this book I’d never seen her bring in before, and looking at her catalog, I’ve now read 75% of it – the last six of her nine published books. (And I’m fairly sure I have the other three on my Kindle as I type this review.)

Indeed, it is the magical realism elements here that perhaps shine the brightest in the biggest moments of the book and help elevate the book from “just a Jaws clone” to more of a “Moana-esque epic celebration of family and culture”.

Or maybe I’m just completely seeing all of this wrong and being an absolute idiot here. Once this book releases less than two weeks into 2026, make sure to read it for yourself and write your own review. Feel free to call me out on anything you feel I got wrong here. As long as you’re actually writing a review, I’ll gladly take the hit. 🙂

Very much recommended.

This review of The Shark House by Sara Ackerman was originally written on September 23, 2025.

#BookReview: Blackbird by Kay Bratt

Kay Bratt Goes “North Ga Dark”. Ok, so what the hell do you mean by “North Ga Dark”, Sexton? Well, growing up even “in the country” in North Ga, specifically the Atlanta exurbs (then, now northern suburbs), even on a pitch black, moonless night… you still had the glow of Atlanta and its suburbs over the horizon. Thus, even at nature’s absolute darkest… there was still *some* light, if well over the horizon and very faint.

And that is what Bratt has introduced here, with both our longer term story and one of the active cases in this story now focusing on themes of abuse in various forms. To be clear, this is one of those stories that will be quite difficult for some, perhaps many, readers – but as usual, Bratt manages to handle even these themes with a care not every other writer decides to put into their story, for any number of reasons. So while the evil is very present and menacing *in story*, it is more like a shark menacing – if you’re in its domain (ie, a character in this book, for the book evil, or pretty much anything in most any body of salt water, for the shark), you’re going to feel its presence and you should probably take appropriate precautions. The easiest of which for most of us is simply… stepping away from its domain for a bit. In which case, sitting on the beach with a good book is probably a solid idea for both. (With your beverage of choice, for when you need to step away from the book if it gets too menacing for you… as you ponder the water and the menaces within it. :D)

As with a few other reviewers, I noticed the lack of direct family involvement in this book, which had previously been a long-running staple of the series. And am I just forgetting (it has been 75+ books for me between Book 8 of this series, Starting Over, and this one), or did a certain sequence that was (somewhat briefly at that) explained as happening before the events of this book not actually happen in the previous book? Because I don’t remember that particular scene in that book, and I think I would have commented on at least its presence – even if somewhat obliquely to avoid any outright spoilers. If this is indeed the case, this was likely the most egregious miss of this entire series. While the series didn’t need a full on “Return Of The King” massive *event* for this particular scene… it still would have been great to see it “in real time”. (Note: While writing this review, I did go back to my copy of Starting Over and confirm that it did not include this particular scene. It included a blatant setup for the scene, but not the scene itself. So I stand behind my comment that this was a major miss, and a glaring hole from an author not generally known for such obvious misses.)

All of this noted, this *was* a supremely enjoyable and fast read, and it absolutely sets up for Bratt to either conclude the series (as was originally intended with Starting Over) with Book 10 – Hello Little Girl, out Summer 2024 – or possibly extend it again. It will be interesting to see which direction Bratt takes, particularly given that she seems to be actively writing that book at the time of me writing this review. Very much recommended.

This review of Blackbird by Kay Bratt was originally written on May 1, 2024.

#BookReview: Hotel Megalodon by Rick Chesler

Not Your Normal Meg Story. Other than taking place near a trench in the Pacific Ocean, this isn’t your typical Megalodon story at all. With this one, the terror takes place in an enclosed-ish island/ reef area with the trench just outside the reef, and thus the terror is a bit more immediate. Definetly an interesting take on the subgenre, and one that is perfectly safe to read when in the Atlantic or Caribbean – neither of which have ever (to my knowledge) featured a Meg story. 😀

This review of Hotel Megalodon by Rick Chesler was originally published on November 20, 2018.