Yeitso was entered in the Authors Talk About It 2016 Horror Contest, the results of which will be announced soon. The book received four out of five stars and the following review:
In Scott M. Baker’s Yeitso,
Russel Andrews has left his tumultuous career as a detective in New
York City to take up the position of Police Chief in Los Alamos, New
Mexico. He had hoped the move might prove to be peaceful for him and his
teenage daughter, Kiera. However, on Russel’s first day on the job, he
is greeted by a mysterious crime scene and a heinous murder, as well as
the looming dread of a missing teenager. As the clues begin to unravel,
it is clear that this isn’t the work of ordinary humans; a dark, unseen
force did this, one known by the local Native American tribes only as
“Yeitso.”
Despite being a horror novel, Yeitso
didn’t quite live up to that genre as well as it could have. It
definitely started off great, but then seemed to stray into the buddy
cop/mystery dynamic for a while. However, the concept and suspense
throughout helped to drive the story along until the horror picked back
up again, and it payed off, without a doubt. Perhaps die-hard fans of
conventional horror novels may not find it to be immediately gratifying,
but that’s not to say that Yeitso was disappointing, because it most certainly wasn’t.
Scott M. Baker writes with plenty of intrigue and imagery, developing Yeitso
into a well-written and well-rounded novel. The characters were
personified so well that they seemed real and believable, which added to
the overall likability of the story as a whole. It also seemed to be
exactly the sort of novel that would make an excellent film, with just
enough twists and turns to really leave a memorable impression on the
reader (or perhaps, someday, viewer). Overall, Yeitso was a fantastic book with almost no faults, and one that would surely prove enjoyable for almost any reader.
You can read the reviews of all the entries here.
