The life of an influencer seems horrifying on its own, but when putting your life on the internet for thousands of fans is not the most horrifying thing, it’s even more terrifying. Brian Asman crafts a frightening influencer horror with #VanDeath where simple choices and mistakes can cost you your life.
Morgan and Jasper are the couple everyone wants to be: beautiful, successful, and constantly mobile. Their #VanLife content has captured the hearts and minds of a million online followers, who all “smash that subscribe button” to watch as the loving couple documents their outdoor adventures.
But it’s all a sham. Their relationship is on the rocks. Jasper doesn’t know Morgan’s trolling the dating apps. Morgan doesn’t know Jasper blew all their earnings on shady crypto investments. What started as a fun way to share their love of nature has turned into a grind. Plus, they’ve also got stalkers: fans whose parasocial obsession with the couple verges on the terrifying.
When Jasper gets a contract to shoot a promo for an upstart granola company at the Ubehebe Crater, a gorgeous but remote section of Death Valley, he talks Morgan into a last-minute trip. He’s secretly hoping this trip will not only solve their financial woes but also help them reconcile. But things go wrong immediately. A mysterious black van runs them off the road. Their cameraman seems like a lunatic. And soon, they find themselves stranded in the desert, pursued by a masked killer. Can Morgan and Jasper put aside their differences long enough to survive both the killer and the desert itself?
Putting things on social media is my least favorite part of marketing anything, trying to get peoples attention to whatever you are promoting, let along make it your entire life and identity. So, the life of #VanLife social media influencer sounds horrifying on the surface. This is before having to deal with the type of people that follow you, comment about you, and even stalk you because you put your life on the internet. However, Asman takes this life and dials it up to 11 with #VanDeath.
Asman puts a couple on the teetering of epic breakdown into a position of terrifyingly having to fight off those horrors of social media influencing that have taken things a bit too far. A couple who is nearly forced into a marketing agreement to fight for their relationship and financial future, only for it to all go horribly wrong along the way.
All the terrifying moments that take place in #VanDeath are balanced by holding onto the hope of saving their relationship and being able to grow as a couple. This hope made everything happening worth fight and had me rooting for the couple. Each have their own failures and secrets, but in the end surviving a few nights in Death Valley while being terrorized is something worth fighting for.
Asman builds suspense with a few twists and turns, as well as a few red herrings that will have you thinking you have figured it out, only to have the story go a new direction. The mystery behind who was in black van could be multiple people, and by the time all is revealed I still had no idea who it was. The blend of mystery and horror was wonderful.
The lives of Morgan and Jasper were only enhanced by reading this #VanDeath via both physical and audiobook. The narration by Joe Hempel & Zura Johnson put us in the drivers seat and immersed us in the horrors, while picking up a physical copy is always a great thing as well.
#VanDeath is a terrifying trip into Death Valley where the horrors of social media influencing for one couple are the least of their worries. Brian Asman delivers a horrifying story filled with gruesome terror as well as a glimpse of hope for the future. I’ll tell you what, #VanDeath doesn’t make me want to get in a van and share my life on the internet, that’s for sure.
#VanDeath hits bookstores everywhere on September 22, 2026 from Blackstone Publishing. The audiobook, narrated by Joe Hempel & Zura Johnson, is available via Libro.fm!
