White Line Fever by K.C. Jones is about a girls’ trip gone bad. They take a shortcut on a haunted roadway nicknamed The Devil’s Highway. The novel starts with a bang showing an amateur ghost hunter taking a ride on the highway. It doesn’t go well and we the audience get to see how the haunting works. I have read many horror stories about haunted places and objects but never read a story about a haunted highway. The unique setting of a highway is used pretty well. The horror of the story stays with you as you drive. The haunted highway turns this into a nightmare. The narrative follows two characters: Dave, who is the highway’s first victim. Livia has just split from her husband and needs a girls’ trip. Livia is the main character. She also has flashbacks about her time in a junkyard. These memories reveal how all the girls on the road trip became friends. The story has two villains Livia’s overbearing father and the entity that haunts the highway. The Harrower is what the girls name the highway monster who feasts on fear. The pace of the story is a little slow after the awesome introduction scene. The group of girls starts realizing what is happening. They also begin to understand how to stop it. The book gets very good at the 65% mark. The book’s action does not stop until the satisfying ending. I was asked by the publisher to read White Line Fever after I reviewed K.C. Jones debut Black Tide. Thanks to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for allowing me to read White Line Fever. White Line Fever was published on March 18, 2025.

Plot Summary: Dave rides his dirt bike on The Devil’s Highway. He is shooting B-roll on a dashcam for his friends who are a group of amateur ghost hunters. He has helped out before and never seen anything, but this time is different. He sees a spider within his helmet. He gets turned around. He tries to turn back but feels the highway has changed. He gets scared and goes faster. He just wants to escape but will the highway let him? Livia has just split from her husband and needs a girls’ trip with friends from her childhood who know her. The group heads to a cabin in the woods. On the main road, the girl experiences road rage and wants to get away. Livia finds a shortcut on a backwoods road that they take. The road is the Devil’s Highway. The only way they are leaving is to fight their fears. They must also confront the entity that wants to feed off them.

What I Liked: The flashback scenes are tension filled. Livia’s father is terrifying and a hidden monster. I liked the parallel of the Harrow and the father who are both monsters that feed on fear. The ending was great I liked seeing Livia and the others fight back against the monsters of their nightmares. The ending also had Livia stand up to a real monster that I loved. I liked how the girl’s road trip and the ghost hunters are connected. The flashbacks about the girls forming the club were special. I liked the idea of the Harrower, it made me think of the villain in Stephen King’s The Outsider. I like the way Jones wrote the descriptions, I could picture the nightmares he created. The zombie dog was the best-described creature.

What I Disliked: The body count was way too low. It felt like Jones thought about killing some more but couldn’t pull the trigger. I think I would have liked the book so much more if I felt more danger. The pace after the intro was way too slow. I liked the flashbacks the most but felt that the order in which we got them was too late. The dad was very terrifying. If I had the flashbacks before the nightmare version of him, it would have been more impactful. I think it was a mistake to not have the group stay overnight. They should have been on the highway for at least a day.

Recommendation: White Line Fever is an interesting premise. It has some truly haunting imagery. The low body count hurt the book by making the audience never feel in danger. I read Black Tide K.C. Jones’s debut novel and know he has no problem killing characters. I will barely recommend White Line Fever to my followers. I feel like Jones’s writing is getting better and so close to being great. I liked White Line Fever barely over Black Tide. Both books have people trapped in a car for long periods. I would like to see his next book have no one trapped in a car.

Rating: White Line Fever I rated 3.4 out of 5.