U.S. Border Patrol Agent Christian Rivera finds the body of a woman in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. Soon they discover that she is part of a group of illegal aliens trying to cross the desert from Mexico to the USA. But what has happened to the rest of the group?

This is not a book for fainthearted; the story is brutal and intense. This is the first book I have read by Michael McBride, won't be my last, but it will take some time before I will let Mr. McBride's writing cross my path again. I'm going to need something a bit less gruesome to read. Seriously, I almost want to curse my imagination towards the end of the book. The story is very intriguing and harrowing to read and definitely worth checking up if you love to read horror!



I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review! ( )

The New York Times reports that in 2013, the Pima County (Arizona) Medical Examiner’s office unveiled a computerized mapping database bearing the records of 1,826 migrants who died in the desert, listing GPS coordinates for where they were found and, if known, their sex, age and cause of death. There were 463 deaths in fiscal year 2012 alone.

NPR interviewed Border Patrol Agent Mario Escalante who blames the increases on human smugglers who lure naive crossers into dangerous situations.

"They weren't told that they were going to have to walk for days. They weren't told that they were going to have to go over mountain ranges. They weren't told that they were going to have to sleep in the hot desert or maybe the cold desert," Escalante says.

Mike McBride does much more than tell a supernatural story in Sunblind—although he does that masterfully well. He brings into light the horror suffered by a small group of people, each from different walks of life, that chose to roll the dice and try to cross to what they hoped would be a better life. Some moved to help relatives, others to escape their past, but they all had one thing in common. They had no idea of what was in store for them.

Plotwise, the story deftly shifts between the perspective of one of the immigrants and a group of three border control agents who have just rescued her and are now looking for other members of her party, and getting increasingly horrific evidence of a terrible series of events. Slowly insinuated into the story, creeping around at the edges, a flicker of reflection from eyes watching from the distance, is a second threat. Because not only is the straggling band of travelers dying slowly with each step in the merciless desert, they are also being hunted.

An amazing story. Powerful for the human element. You care about this group of travelers. They are not saints. Far from it. But they feel real. Real stories, real people. The Border Control Agents are fearless in their efforts to track down the remainder of the party and rescue or at least find out what happened to them. McBride could have written the story without the supernatural element and it still would have been riveting.

The Supernatural element is also extremely well done. Slow reveal really ramps up the tension and when we finally know what we are dealing with, it is so much worse than we could have imagined. This is my fourth book by McBride and far away my favorite (although I also really enjoyed Snowblind—which strangely has no relation to this story).

In the end, you can dismiss the supernatural element as being make-believe, but you cannot deny the ---existence of those monstrous human smugglers who today dropped off groups of people in the desert with no concern for their welfare. We can only hope for their safety.

5 Stars. Great horror story. Great story period. You won’t forget this one.
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Officer Rivera discovers a body in the vast Sonoran Desert somewhere in the Southern United States. Meanwhile across the Mexican Border 25 desperate souls are trying to escape the hell and poverty of their homeland by the promise and attraction of a new start in the US. I was reading this book late at night in a darkened room with the wind and rain beating against the windows and this greatly added to the chill factor and the atmosphere. The story is narrated in two time lines with a matter of days separating both accounts. As Border Patrol Officer Rivera tries to decipher a message carved into the body of an unaccounted alien further south Mayra Visari and a band of desperados attempt to make their way north under the leadership of a young guide known as Il Bufon..."The Joker" The story is mainly about the journey and encounter with an alien force invisible to the eye but deadly when confronted. In this respect I was reminded of scenes from Predator when our muscled up hero Arnold Schwarzenegger, whilst attempting to rescue some politicians in Guatemala, is pursued by a brutal creature with superhuman strength that has the ability to disappear into its surroundings.
Unfortunately when we reach the midway point the story falls into a continuous game of attack and escape as the aliens attempt to destroy/consume the desperate band of illegal immigrants seeing them only as part of the food chain. This type of action soon becomes tedious and a story that started with great promise soon begins to lose my interest. There were of course some enjoyable moments and in particular a snappy narration and quirky observations..."Altar, Sonora, was a town of evil, a place where dreams came to die and were buried in unmarked graves in the desert"..... "It was only a matter of time before we started dying"....."Our shadows stretched away from us as though seeking release from the fate to which we had been consigned"......."We were the walking dead, an entire procession of weakness and despair"..... ( )

I've heard so many good things about Michael McBride so I bought like five or six of his books a couple months ago but I'm just now getting around to reading one of them. I can't believe I waited so long! Sunblind was fantastic! It's about a group of people from Mexico that are trying to cross the desert and the border into the U.S. but not only are they struggling to survive against the cartels, intense heat and dehydration but something far worse awaits them in the desert.

McBride did such a great job of describing the terror that's in the desert! I was literally holding my breath through most of the story and even though I know that it's surely not real, you couldn't pay me to cross the desert now. I'll always have in the back of my mind what happened to those people and part of me will always wonder if there's some truth to the story. Now that's exceptional writing!
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The first thing I'll note upon finishing Michael McBride's SUNBLIND is how utterly exhausted I am. The descriptions of atmosphere and human suffering are so well done that reading them is better than any resistance training currently on the market. I was tense throughout the entire novel, which leads me to the fact that you do not read this book, you experience it. More than once, I found myself sweating, as if I were the one broiling under the unflagging sun of the Sonoran desert. Not to mention, I was perpetually thirsty, and actually felt bad whenever I broke down and grabbed a bottle of water because the characters didn't have that option.

As stated above, SUNBLIND takes place in the unforgiving climate of one of America's hottest deserts. The location is a character unto itself, so much so that I'm reminded of the arctic tundra of John Carpenter's THE THING and the jungle in PREDATOR. The most terrifying monster in this book is the oppressive, soul-crushing heat of the locale, which is saying something, indeed, because the night-dwelling threats of SUNBLIND are no joke either.

I love a good creature feature, and have been hunting for one for the past few months. As most of you already know, I don't read synopses 99% of the time, and I think that worked out even better for me this time around than it has in the past. The title led me to believe this was about some unfortunate soul getting lost in the desert after sunburning their peepers, which would have been a rad tale, but that's not the case here. Luckily, what goes down in McBride's newest DarkFuse release is an even cooler premise.

The story hops back and forth in time, telling the tale from two POVs: Mayra, a young Mexican woman whose on a journey to enter America illegally after the death of her sister, has her story told in first person past tense, so we get an in depth feel for her and her struggle. Fantastic decision by the author, if you ask me, as we're privy to just how bad the situation is. I don't know what it feels like to slowly die from heat exposure, dehydration, and hunger, but McBride sold me on never travelling to Arizona by way of Mexico without a case of sunblock, a pack mule loaded down with Dasani, and three or four dozen cheeseburgers. Mayra is a damn strong character, too. No Mary Sues here. The second POV covers Border Patrol Agent Rivera, and occurs in third person present tense, which added a sense of urgency to the situation at hand. Both of these combined proved the perfect story-telling device, because I didn't see the ending coming. McBride made me comfortable in my assumptions then expertly yanked the rug out from under me.

All throughout SUNBLIND, I felt like I was reading a Preston and Child book. This is by no means a complaint, only letting you know that, if you like P&C's books, you will love this one. The monsters are cool, and McBride manages to make them believable. Their motivations are understandable, as is how the author justifies why they haven't been found and how they've sustained themselves in such a harsh climate. As with P&C's books, RELIC and RELIQUARY, I'm left feeling thankful that things like this most likely do not exist and never will. Dear Evolution, let's keep it that way, 'kay? Thanks bunches.

This book is also nearly impossible to put down. It seemed as if every chapter ended on a cliffhanger.

In summation: SUNBLIND is a terrifying hike through an unyielding location populated by some of the most believable monsters in recent memory. There's plenty of viscera for gorehounds, location description that's far from boring, as well as some of the best character writing I've read. I'll be delving into McBride's catalog again real soon. My highest recommendation.

*I received this book in return for my honest review, which you have just read. Many thanks to DarkFuse and Netgalley for the chance to give my opinion of the material.* ( )