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Book: “The Calamities” by Chuck Wendig
Publishing Info: Del Rey, August 2026
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: The heir to one of the world’s most influential families reckons with the demonic secret to their power, in this contemporary dark fantasy that melds occult magic with shocking family drama from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.
Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy, which is one of cruelty, domination, and exploitation… and something even darker.
Because the Maynes are no ordinary family: Hidden in our world are the fiends—half-human, half-demon, and possessed of dark magic born from buying human souls—and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families.
But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that he return to the fold, Mourning has to make a decision whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family, or to forge his own destiny, and with it, change the course of the world.
Because along the way home, he will meet Key, a black-market seller of human souls, and Quinn, an artist who may hold the dark truth behind the fate of the fiends. Alone, they have all struggled with the darkness of their fiendish nature… but together, they might find a path out of the shadows.
Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!
It’s been a few years since “Succession” ended, and while I don’t particularly MISS it (it was good but it ended well and man they were all just horrible), I was still immediately thinking of it when I read about Chuck Wendig’s new novel “The Calamities”. We all know that I like Wendig as a horror author, and the idea of him writing a book about an uber wealthy and uber powerful family that just so happens to have demon blood and soul snatching powers just tickled me. “Succession” meets cosmic and demon horror? Hell yes! The Roy Family is basically filled with demons anyway, why not do a story that just leans all the way into that?
Off the bat I will admit that the theme of ‘billionaires and billionaire families are soul sucking demons’ is a bit on the nose, but that doesn’t make it any less resonant. Especially these days. And Wendig is always so thorough and deliberate with his world building that even if the theme is obvious, he makes it feel fresh and brings in so much originality, probably because he has built an entire mythos around the idea of ‘Fiend’ families (aka people who have demon blood in them and who take human souls for feeding) gathering wealth, power, and souls for their own devices, hoarding and exploiting power with no care for the consequences. With different families having rivalries and motives to hold on to souls to consume, we have a lot of well done motivations and a tellar history and world of people with demon blood and soul snatching powers. The horror in this book is less ‘demonic’ and definitely more in the realm of body and cosmic horror, with some really nasty moments that had me squirming, while also building up the suspense in a way that kept me reading. Wendig is such a reliable horror writer and while this one did feel a little bit meandering at times, I was generally locked in.
And unsurprisingly so, the characters in this one are a feast, with morally grey ones, traumatized ones, funny ones, and incredibly creepy ones. Wendig has the gross entitlement and cruelty of a wealthy family a la the Sacklers or Du Ponts, but also brings out interesting complex characters who are sometimes infuriating but at other times wholly sympathetic. We also get an interesting examination of the way narcissistic parents can favor some kids while scapegoating others, and how they can pit their children against each other. This dynamic is especially prevalent in the Maynes Family, with our protagonist Mourning being a black sheep to his cruel and megalomaniacal father Hadrian while his twin siblings Lachlan and Lorelei are highly favored and keep him under their boots because of this advantage (this whole family was very Lannister-esque). But we also have characters like Key, who is a black market soul merchant who finds herself teaming up with Mourning when his father (and their fount of souls) disappears, who is also struggling with her own culpability in the business even if she doesn’t have the monetary advantages of the Maynes and other Fiend families (and uses her soul stealing skills in a way that leaves her incredibly conflicted as the story progresses). Other characters include an artist named Quinn who has a part to play in the nefarious plan, and a Fiend named Silas who has a cold and predatory nature, but who has been muzzled. While sometimes the four perspectives felt a little harried, I overall enjoyed them.
“The Calamities” also has set up a clear path to more books about the Fiends, and I would absolutely keep reading about them should this come to pass. I so enjoy Chuck Wendig and his creepy horror tales, and this one is another good time.
Rating 8: The world building is stellar and while the metaphor is kind of obvious Wendig creates a nasty and fun world of demons, billionaires, cosmic horror, and undoing familial trauma and damage.
Reader’s Advisory:
“The Calamities” is included on the Goodreads blog post “Peek If You Dare: Our Guide to New Horror Books Coming This Fall”.
The Library Ladies 