This webzine is full of Graham Masterton book reviews. The reason is that I love this horror author so much and I read really a lot of his novels, almost everything he wrote. Well, the time has come for ‘The Pariah’ to be read and grace the pages of this webzine. John Trenton lives in Granitehead, a little New England place near famous Salem, where all those witch trials took place and people were executed. John lost his wife Jane and unborn son in a tragic accident short while ago. But, Jane is not lost and somehow connects with John and talks to him through her scary apparitions. John has an antique store and buys a painting of long lost ship called ‘David Dark’ which apparently sunk in the waters near Granitehead. John realizes that he is not the only one who sees dead relatives in Granitehead and grisly deaths start to happen to those who see the dead. John realizes with help of local historians that there is something in the sunken ship which causes dead to rise and must try to stop it.
I can safely say that this one is one of Masterton’s best works I have read yet and I have read many believe me. This is constant chilling atmosphere, grey New England is a perfect place for horror to happen and finale is just epic and fighting the demon is something best I have read ever. John and other characters are fluidly written, there is no filler pages or boring parts that you read in order to get to the interesting ones again. No, this one is tour de force in horror novel. There are some really gory parts and there are some explicit sexual parts like we are used to with Masterton works. This is a mixture of gothic ghost story, demons, gore and walking dead. Just perfect!
As promised, here is the review for Adam Nevill‘s book which completes all his books that I have read until now. This is one of his latest works and this is a folk horror mastery like we are used to from this author. Married couple Tom and Fiona, along with their daughter Gracey and their spaniel dog move into decrepit country house where previous owner killed himself six months ago. At first, they love it there. Tom does all the work in repairing the house to make it home, while Fiona works at the bank and Gracey is happy. But, then they meet their neighbors Magi and Medea who are not what they seem to be. Gracey starts having voices calling her from the near woods and strange things and curses begin to happen and Tom starts to suspect neighbors have something to do with it. This is another intense and masterful tale of horror master Nevill, happening to ordinary folk who could be me or you, that is what makes it even more scary. There are enough grisly gore parts of the story to satisfy gore hellhounds among you, but also to me best part of Nevill’s storytelling is folk horror part, the fear of ancient and unknown rituals, ancient mages and druids, people who should not be messed up with. In all, each and every one of us had at one time neighbor from hell, isn’t it true? So, all of us should have at one time deal with the problem. Or did we?
Those who read this webzine from its inception, know that Adam Nevill is one of my favorite newer generation horror writers. This is his latest work, a bit shorter than previous ones, but king of folk horror works his magic here too. The story evolves around Jess, young mother with daughter Izzy, who starts to work at old people vicarage tending to the older lady called Flo. Her ex husband Tony is around, but acts strangely and you dig that something really terrible happened between those two. As things go, Flo is in wheelchair, suffers from dementia and is at first look and ordinary old lady. But, at night, when Jess’ shift starts, strange things start to happen and Flo walks, wanders and is driven to the nearby pond and all other inhabitants around the vicarage are strange too. Jess starts to suspect that something is at play, and scary and eerie things start to happen. Not to discover just all, so not to spoil your reading of this beauty, you will see that folk horror is in fact so beautiful and scary read because it can happen everywhere and to everyone of us, old gods and beliefs are still out there before plague called christianity soiled this earth and forced upon us their new deity stolen and based upon old beliefs. Now I digress. Well, there is not too much gore in this one, but tension builds as in all Nevill’s works from page to page making it hard to put down page turner. I read all of his books except ‘Cunning Folk’ until now, but I plan to read this one too and of course you will read my review here!
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