The Homing

by John Saul

Young widow Karen Spellman and her two daughters are leaving Los Angeles to return to the lush countryside of Karen’s childhood, where she plans to marry her high school sweetheart. But something sinister awaits the Spellmans. For here, long ago, a shadowy menace once stalked the innocent. Dormant, it waits–waits for summer’s heat to shimmer over the valley in a suffocating wave; waits for the arrival of its perfect victim.

And now, with the dizzying descent of a nightmare, Karen’s homecoming will become a confrontation with evil, as she struggles to protect her vulnerable daughters from a menace that seems to rise from hell itself–a malign, preternatural force that must satisfy its gruesome thirst for its unsuspecting prey. . . .

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Supernatural, Science Fiction

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

John Saul is an American author best known for his bestselling suspense and horror novels, many of which have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list. Born in Pasadena and raised in Whittier, California, Saul attended several universities without earning a degree. He spent years honing his craft, writing under pen names before finding mainstream success. His breakout novel, Suffer the Children (1977), launched a prolific career, with over 60 million copies of his books in print. Saul’s work includes Cry for the Strangers, later adapted into a TV movie, and The Blackstone Chronicles series. He is also a playwright, with one-act plays produced in Los Angeles and Seattle. In 2023, he received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. Openly gay, he has lived with his partner—also his creative collaborator—for nearly 50 years. Saul divides his time between Seattle, the San Juan Islands, and Hawaii, and frequently speaks at writers’ conferences, including the Maui Writers' Conference. His enduring popularity in the horror genre stems from a blend of psychological tension, supernatural elements, and deep emotional undercurrents that have resonated with readers for decades.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chilling read about a widow (Karen Spellman) who moves from Los Angeles back to her old, small home town when she remarries a farmer. Her children, (sixteen-year-old Julie and nine-year-old Molly) and other children, get stung by bees, with severe reactions that seem to change some of them. Especially Julie. A shady scientist (Carl Henderson) gives them shots (an antivenin) that the children say make them feel better, but they don’t. Why are the children lying, and suddenly disappearing? What is Carl up to in his isolated home? Where are all the bees coming from? There is a lot more to this book, but I don’t want to give anything away. I really enjoyed it. It was very strange and creepy, especially with the bees, ants, and other insects. I really hated some of the characters and I couldn’t wait for them to get what was coming to them. Another fine horror read by John Saul.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whose homing is it? In this chills a plenty novel Karen marries a new husband. He's a farmer. As his daughter Julie is stung by bees she nearly dies. A new antivenin provided by a strange scientist helps her. But soon after the young girl begins to change. Then other children vanish from their homes... what is going on in the quiet countryside? How is Carl Sanderson, the scientist, involved? What about the missing runaway? This is a classic John Saul thrillfest with a strong supernatural touch. The building up of tension is a bit slow at the beginning but then haunting moments en masse follow. Really recommended!

[Richard K. Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do you get when you cross (and NOT in a good way)Mother Nature's wrath, with a Sick serial Killer, teens going thru puberty, Bees and every other kind of creepy crawly thing, with the attack horror and suspense of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds"? You get this vintage 1994 HORROR classic! I will NEVER kill another bee or bug for the rest of my life!!!

Alright, I will be honest, in 1994 when this first came out....i bought and cracked it open so excited to get into my favorite horror authors newest tale of terror and horror, and to my dismay I did NOT finish it because it did not deal with the supernatural as all of his 'classics in my book' did before it. What the hell was I thinking!!! So, with me working on another piece of art, and having to get ready to do a buddy read of the next Saul book, i picked up the idea to LISTEN to this on Scribd....and boy oh boy this made me realize.....this is one of his BEST books ever!!! I will definitely put this on my shelf of books to always and seasonably re read!

So, onto the review:
This book starts out with on the day of widowed Karen Spellman and Russell Owen's wedding, they are both parents of kids from another marriage; Karen has two daughters, Julie 15 and Molly 9. Russell has a son Kevin. With Karen moving Los Angeles to the Bay area town of Pleasant Valley California to start a family with Russell, she gets to meet and live with Otto Owen, Russell's widowed father....and boy is he mean and cranky!!! On the wedding day, Molly is the flower girl and she is violently stung by a bee that puts her into a near coma and is rushed to the emergency room at the hospital, abruptly ending the wedding and party at the ranch and farm of Russells family. Molly having never been allergic to anything before is almost killed by this, making Karen realize is there something weird about this small town?. A couple days later Julie is also stung by a bee causing the almost same response, is something wrong with the bees in Pleasant Valley or is it all in Karen's head?

Meet Carl Henderson, ranch hand and employee of Otto. Now this is one of the BEST villains and bad guys that Saul has ever written about. He is obsessed with bees, bugs and anything that crawls and bites, and he warns both the girls and their mother to 'never swat at a bee, just leave it/them alone and they will not harm you or sting'! Yeah, Right!!! What unfolds in this take on the old wives tale of 'Don't Mess with Mother Nature!!!' is something that will make you think, what the hell!!! And you will think twice before you kill a bug. The book has graphic scenes of a young hitchhiking girl on her way to Los Angeles crucified, and held captive in a basement being the food source of creepy crawlies, while her tormentor gets his enjoyment out of watching, there are disturbing and terrifying scenes of suspense and lost children that will just make you flip the pages all that more fast! And the descriptions of how the 'spider was chewing the thin skin off of the kids eyelid......' YIKES!!! It was so well done!! With this being 423 pages long, it is a quick read, however if you get the chance to listen to it on audio, do it, it was so effective! Maybe this read did not interest me in my early 30's because maybe I just did not care about it.....but after reading other readers comments of how this is one of their faves by Saul, now I realize why!!! LOVED THIS BOOK!!!

5 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 for this one!
Read it!

[Kate Victoria RescueandReading · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a long winded book with some genuinely creepy moments. The ending completely dropped the ball though… maybe the author got bored of the story too.

[Bradley Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted desperately to scream, "Oh, God! This book sucks! This book really, really sucks!" but the only words I could find were, "It's fine. It's totally fine." And then I finished it. As I closed in on 10 pages I thought to myself, "How the hell is John Saul going to end this story with 10 pages. He did. Which was a giant relief. I then closed the book on the metro, heading into DC, looked over at the guy sitting next to me and punched him in the face from frustration.

Okay, I didn't do that last bit. But I did tuck the book back into my bookbag to later donate to my local bookstore for some other poor son of a bitch to read. Hopefully you see this review first!

This book would be good if it didn't repeat the same thing over and over and over and over. After reading about the 2nd teen in the book, you understand the plot. Move on, Saul. We get it. If you don't like bugs and spiders, move on. Saul does do very well painting horrific scenes in your head with these things. The ending was rushed. Obviously rushed. If he had wrote the rest of the book like the last 50 pages the book would have been just over 100 pages long and probably a good read.

I'm not saying I wouldn't pick up another John Saul book, but if I were you and hadn't read this book, I would find another one first.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very special to me because John Saul was my first experience with a horror novel. The Homing is one of the first John Saul books I read, which I found when the bookmobile would visit my town once a month. I would stay up late reading these books and then be so scared that it was hard to sleep. I have had fond memories of this novel over the years and I'm happy to be able to re-read it. I remembered many of the scenes and I had a lot of fun.

The most annoying thing to me in the writing was the use of the redundant phrases "she, herself" and "he, himself". I had previously rated The Homing five amazing stars based on my first memories. I have dropped the rating to 4 stars. John Saul has a special place in my reading life. He is a great and kind man, who has always appreciated his fans. I hope he will still write some more in the future. The last novel he published was The House of Reckoning in 2009.

[joody · Rating 3 out of 5]

picked this up at a book fair for a dollar:: 2.9/5 stars? it was FINE. just a shallow, entertaining read. I didn't care for any of the characters, so I stayed to read how this would end. Every character was extremely incompetent, save for one kid and the sole town doctor (and even she...hm). The deputy was a man of questionable ethics, and I think he was written like that unintentionally lmao considering he became a (below-average) hero at the end. There were plot holes, but they were forgivable...I also wouldn't consider this a horror, but I will say that not being able to show or articulate how much physical pain you're in to people who want to help you sounds like hell.
tldr: bzz bzz

[Big H · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. I felt like it left a lot of questions unanswered, though. For example: What happened to the infected coyote? Why did Julie get all distended and disgusting? Was it just because she was the queen, and all queens of insects are bigger than the others? Why was she the queen? Was it b/c she was infected first? Why were the infected chicks always naked, but the dudes weren't? If the other girl (Sarah?) would've gotten to the group, would've she been another queen, or something else b/c Julie was the queen? Why didn't Carl (I think that's his name...) take his hatred and rage out on his sister, since she was the cause of it, instead of on others? Did anyone even notice Vic Costas (?) was missing after the ants ate him? Why would Carl kill everyone else, but not the doctor? I mean, he had the means AND he told her who he had killed. Why did he throw "just spiders" in as opposed to scorpions or ants, thereby making it impossible for her to tell anyone if anyone came to try to save her (which happened)? So very many questions this book made, but never answered for me...

[Chris Sutton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. This was cornball stuff. It had its creepy moments, particularly if insects give you the willies, but there was just too much about this book that was subpar, so one star is all I can muster.
Having just read John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids, I was underwhelmed by Saul's writing. Yes, his words moved the plot along, but there were no sentences worth reading twice, no passages to really savour.
But what sank this book for me was Chapter 26. I actually felt like dropping the book in the street, a rare feeling for me. Two characters, Molly and Ben, made a series of ridiculously boneheaded, contrived decisions that were utterly unbelievable (including carrying a large dog out of a second floor window to urinate). At the same time, Saul granted Kevin the ability to resist the parasitic organism inside him and warn Molly away, something Saul spent the better part of 200 pages establishing was impossible to do. The whole thing reeked of contrivance, and lazy plot tricks.
Cheesy writing, I can stand. But character actions have to be at least a little believable.
One last thing. John Saul really likes to use exclamation points!

[Noeli Cobaya Debiblioteca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cómo siempre John Saul me atrae con una vertiginosa historia, que involucra niños 🚸 ufff muy buena historia recomendada

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A change of genre is always ::A:Good:Thing::



If bugs bug you then this read is not for you!

I have a few other Saul's in my goodie bag, however he does seem to teeter on the high 2, low 3 mark for me.

#51 TBR Busting 2013

3* Perfect Nightmare
2* The Homing
3* Sleepwalk

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining read from Saul. Unique concept using insects along with a serial killer. The problem I had with this book is that Saul does not go into much background at all about the villian until the last chapter. Which is a flashback moment. I think the book would have worked better if that part was used as the prologue, then throughout the story describe other times from his past. Overall pretty good and some violent scenes. If you have a phobia about insects, I would skip this one.

[MKF · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was younger well a few chapters of it. I ended up getting scared I threw it across the room vowing to never read it again a vow I have kept. Then I started having nightmares about turning into a bee and being one of the only horror books to scare me so bad it earns the five stars. Though now at my age I doubt it will be as good or frightening but why ruin it?

[Jennifer Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dumb but entertaining! Read for the 2019 Pop Sugar Challenge... could count for 2 word title, about a family, features a wedding, told from 2+ points of view... may take advantage of that later in the year if I get behind on the challenge.

[Marie Bjork · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is hard to put down

[Dylan Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

That one time Sarah McLaughlin ate too many A&W cheeseburgers and got a tummy ache.

[Neele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich bin froh, diesen Autoren entdeckt zu haben.
Das ist jetzt das zweite - und bestimmt nicht letzte - Buch, das ich von John Saul gelesen habe. Es hat mich unterhalten und war angenehm zu lesen; irgendetwas an der Art, wie das Buch geschrieben ist, hat dafür gesorgt, dass mir nicht langweilig wurde, selbst wenn von Anfang an klar war, wer den Virus (in Ermangelung eines Besseren Wortes) wie ausgelöst hat. Der Autor hat es außerdem geschafft, dass mir die Charaktere (vor Allem die Familie Spellmann) nicht egal waren und ich sie mir gut als Individuen mit Persönlichkeit vorstellen konnte.

Es gab ein paar einzelne Stellen, die mir unrealistisch oder etwas "lazy" vorkamen (in einem Buch über Insektenzombies wow), zum Beispiel, dass Ellen scheinbar aus dem Nichts auf die Wahrheit kommt. Auch die Offenbarung von Carls Vorgeschichte auf den letzteren Seiten fühlte sich etwas reingequetscht an.

Die Lektüre hat mich spannungstechnisch zwar nicht komplett mitgerissen, aber ich habe sie durchaus genossen und freue mich auf mehr.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, not great, as per usual, the sweet spot of mediocrity wrapped in a page-turner fashion. There are a few things that irked me, though.

🐝 It was awfully repetitive. The whole host body, Alien-esque transformation was alright for the first two times, but when he kept describing the same thing over and over for every teenage victim caught in the infestation, I started losing it. Sure, sure. Fever, nausea, itchiness, losing control of one's own self, yada, yada, yada. He could have implemented different reactions for every host of the parasite. Also, why were the teenage girls getting naked as a secondary reaction, whilst their male counterparts felt no need to rip their clothes off? Weird af.

🐝 Too many useless descriptions about the farm and its surrounding landscapes, and too little about Carl Henderson and UniGrow. Seriously, we never learned anything about this BigPharma-esque company, and why are they producing such dubious things. I thought they would have more of a contribution to the plot. As for Henderson, he played too little of a part given he was the one behind it all.

🐝 Why did Ellen Filmore go to confront Carl Henderson alone knowing he was the main suspect behind the disaster?

🐝 The ending was rushed. Seriously, 440 something pages and you're rushing to wrap everything up in the last ten pages? It was completely anticlimactic. It genuinely felt like Saul got sick of his own story and said, let me just cut things short and say how it ends, no questions asked. He shovelled Henderson's backstory down our throats all at once instead of letting it unfold across the story in a more natural approach. And the fact that everyone infected had to die was also quite boo hoo. No miraculous cure this time, guys.

🐝 I also felt like I've read this before. He's got this theme of murdering/torturing teenagers and animals whilst the children miraculously survive. Well, except for Suffer the Children, but that's a different story...

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Saul's best work, but not his worst either. Single mom and her two daughters move from L.A. to mom's home town to marry an old flame. Some strange hybrid/engineered bees start causing trouble, along with the company rep in town. Definitely not for the squeamish, this one has lots of bugs doing nasty things, plus a brutal killer of young women.

[Litio Broie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me cuenta alguien lo que pasa en esta novela y no me lo creo ni de coña. Con razón es uno de los libros más conocidos (y reconocidos) de John Saul... Esos toques de cifi-body horror son geniales.
Eso sí, tiene momentos peliagudos. Si necesitáis CW/TW, ya sabéis, solo tenéis que pedirlo 😉

[Andi Gates · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing was incredibly intense and I was hooked into the action immediately. I'm still confused by how the final event occurred but the ending was fitting yet truly disturbing.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yuck :/

Probably more of a 2.5 but I’ll round up ur welcome Saul

[Anna Bacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Jana · Rating 1 out of 5]

What to even say about this book... This is a book that brings the worst nightmares to life. The beginning of the book started out great and slowly it got darker and darker and down right disturbing. I am the type of person that can't start something and not finish it, so I had to continue, but it was tough, as I had no interest in reading more. This may be someone else's cup of tea, but not mine. I don't even know how the author came up with the scenarios in this book.

[Jakob · Rating 5 out of 5]

The purpose of The Homing is to entertain. This is evident in telling of a fictional story. John Saul presents all the classical components, including setting, plot, and conflict. This book was written as a narration. It is told from a third person omniscient perspective. The theme is not to let personal trauma turn towards others. If the antagonist had sought a way to properly handle their emotional issues and impulses, the biggest conflict in this story would be a love triangle.

I appreciate the extensive character development often not shown in books of this length. For instance, Julie remains stubborn, even when she would prefer to go along with what her mother is suggesting. I did not like how much Karen’s description to the reader was similar to Dawn’s. It seemed at first that Karen was Dawn from the future, returning to the town she had left in the prelude. If I could change something about this book, I would better the placement of Dawn’s story between other chapters so that the timelines are easier to straighten out. This novel is quite different from any other I have read. I have read a few murder mysteries, but this is my first accidental-kind of-murder story. Also, The Homing leaves a curious cliffhanger which is unlike most conclusions.

[Mikesawin Sawin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well. This is a book with a lot of writing in it. I've had a lot of folks recommend John Saul's stuff to me over the years, so when I saw this at a garage sale for 50 cents, I picked it up.

Not a great book. And it's not for the squeamish. I will say that the writing style is very fluid, and I was able to finish this in an afternoon. I didn't really care for the characters that much, and I wasn't invested in the story, either.

But the author keeps things moving, and the result is what I call a "brain popcorn" book. Not that good for you, but filling.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first Saul book that I read and I thought that it was pretty creepy. The main thing that stuck with me after all these years was the girl unable to vaccumm so she swept the entire room as the bugs in her head couldn't handle the noise. (Note to others: This excuse doesn't go far with your mom in real life and actually gets your fussed at and told to stay out of your brother's books.)
Other than that "scene", there is not much that I recall about the novel except that I like it quite a bit and have since enjoyed several other Saul books.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed John Saul's book, The Homing. It was a fast pace thriller that could really happen in today's world, if it hasn't happened already. Scientist are always trying to re-create God's creatures, thinking they can do better. I bet it usually ends up in disaster for the world. That's the scary part.

Once again, I don't want to give away any part of the book. The blurb on the back about the book is good. John Saul is a good writer and this book is no exception. He makes you think of all the horrible possibilities that may be in anyone's backyard, including yours and mine.

[Kyle Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scary.. and imaginative!! This is the one that I liked most of Saul's.

Love all of John Saul's books. He focuses on teenagers, at least all the books of his that I've read were that way. I empathized with his lead characters because I always feel like an outsider, which his characters always wind up being. Saul mixes it all up with some Sci-fi to boot.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a chilling read that puts genetic modification at the heart of a horror story set in the idyllic Californian countryside that takes the humble bee and turns it into a killing machine. Add to this a good dash of good old fashioned power and corruption and you have a fast paced horror that keeps you engrossed from start to finish.