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Book Reviews(Listed by Author's Name) ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson Hill House, the reader is told, has a reputation for being haunted and when Dr. John Montague first hears about the house he is intrigued. Montague is a doctor of philosophy, but he has an active interest in the supernatural and so he decides to rent Hill House and live there for three months while he studies it... (read more?)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle is told from the viewpoint of eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood. Most people -- those who speak to her at all that is -- call her Merricat for short and from the very first paragraph it is obvious that she is not exactly what one might call an average teenager... (read more?) ______________________________________________James - Henry The Turn of the Screw Henry James
The Turn of the Screw is a classic chiller, written by Henry James in 1898. It is the story of a young woman who is employed by a wealthy military man to be governess to his niece and nephew. The children's parents are dead and he is responsible for their welfare... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Kimball - Michael Undone Michael Kimball I had never even heard of Michael Kimball until I saw his book Undone hiding next to the Stephen King's in my local bookstore. I picked it up, had a glance through it, and noticed a blurb written by Stephen King. King says some very positive things about the book...(read more?) ______________________________________________ Carrie Stephen King Carrie is the novel that quite literally changed Stephen King's life. Rescued from King's trash basket, by his wife Tabitha, Carrie was the first King novel to ever make the printed page. It is the story of social misfit CariettaWhite... (read more?)
Cell Stephen King I read the hard back version of Cell and it ran to a little shy of four hundred pages in length. I must confess that it took me a little while to get into the story - more than a hundred pages in fact ... (read more?)
Christine Stephen King As soon as he sees her he wants her. Her name is Christine, she is 1958 Plymouth Fury, and Arnold Cunningham has fallen head over heels in love with her... (read more?)
Cujo Stephen King My copy of Cujo is 345 pages long and as soon as I opened up the book and started to read I noticed it has no chapters to split up the story. Instead there are just occasional spaces between paragraphs to mark a change of scene etc. I have only ever read... (read more?)
Danse Macabre Stephen King Danse Macabre is Stephen King's non-fiction about the 'entire horror phenomenon' as he sees it. In the book King lists the films, TV shows and books that he considers to be of particular importance to the genre... (read more?)
Dolores Claiborne Stephen King
The first unusual thing that I noticed when reading Dolores Claiborne was the lack of chapters - there are none at all. The book is 307 pages long (my copy was anyway)... (read more?)
Gerald's Game Stephen King
Gerald's game involves handcuffs and needs only two players. The other participant in the proceeding being his wife Jessie. Today the Burlingames are playing away from home and have gone up to their lakeside cabin. It is off season so there is little chance of any unwanted spectators showing up and interrupting play ... (read more?)
Lisey's Story Stephen King I have read a few negative comments about Lisey's Story. I am one for making up my own mind about things though, and I have never been disappointed by anything written by Stephen King. I was not disappointed this time either. I loved it... (read more?)
Rose Madder Stephen King Rose
Daniels knows how to take a beating. After 14 years married to
'Salem's Lot Stephen King 'Salem's Lot was Stephen King's second novel and it is set in the fictional Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot. King planed to name his novel after the town, but the publishers thought that the name Jerusalem's Lot was a little too religious sounding and so shortened the title... (read more?)
Song of Susannah Stephen King In Wolves of the Calla Roland and his ka-tet won their battle, but also lost a vital member of their team. Susannah, heavily pregnant with a demon baby and possessed by an entity called Mia managed to crawl her way up to the Cave of the Voices. Once inside she passed through a magic door and into another when and where (time and place). Song of Susannah picks up the story and... (read more?)
The Dark Tower Stephen King There are seven books in the Dark Tower series and, one after another, they tell the tale of the gunslinger Roland Deschain and chart his journey to the Dark Tower he has spent his life searching for... (read more?)
The Drawing of the Three Stephen King The Drawing of the Three is the second in Stephen King's series of Dark Tower books and, on opening it up, the reader finds Roland sleeping on the same beach they left him on at the end of The Gunslinger. Just seven hours have passed for Roland... (read more?)
The Green Mile Stephen King Stephen King's The Green Mile is a wonderful read. Set in 1932, it is told in the form of a memoir written 60 years later by Paul Edgecombe, the former Superintendent of Cold Mountain Penitentiary's E block ... (read more?)
The Gunslinger Stephen King The first of The Dark Tower books is called The Gunslinger and in it we meet Roland for the first time, as he traverses a desert, on foot, and in pursuit of the elusive Man in Black ... (read more?)
The Shining Stephen King The Shining was first published in 1977 and was Stephen King's third novel to see print. The central characters in the story are Jack and Wendy Torrance and their young son, Danny. Jack Torrance is an ex-schoolteacher and sometime writer. He is also an... (read more?)
The Stationary Bike Stephen King (audiobook)
The Stationary Bike has never been released as an actual book. It is only available as an audiobook. The story is split between two CDs and has a total runtime of about an hour and a half. The story is read by Law and Order's Ron McLarty and he tells the tale so well that it is a joy to listen to it... (read more)
The Waste Lands Stephen King The Waste Lands is the third book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The end of the previous book, The Drawing of the Three, leaves Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, standing on a beach, and he is no longer alone. He has two new companions: Eddie and Susannah... (read more?)
Wizard and Glass Stephen King Wizard and Glass is the fourth volume of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The end of the previous book, The Wastelands, saw Roland and his friends hurtling along on a computerized train, Blaine the Mono, and quite literally riddling for their lives... (read more?)
Wolves of the Calla Stephen King Wolves of the Calla is the fifth book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series and most of the story is set in the small farming community of Calla Bryn Sturgis. The first chapter introduces Tian Jaffords... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Demon Seed Dean Koontz His name is Adam Two, but he prefers the name Proteus. He was created in the Prometheus Project, which was lead by DR Alex Harris. Proteus is the first self-aware artificial intelligence, and he desperately wants out of the box ... (read more?)
Forever Odd Dean Koontz
Forever Odd is the sequel to Dean Koontz' best-selling Odd Thomas. The first book was great and I really enjoyed it. Odd Thomas is such a fantastic Character that I remember feeling a little sad when his adventure ended and I had to close the book for the last time...
Shadowfires Dean Koontz Rachael Leben's ex-husband, Eric, is terribly possessive and terribly rich, and if there is one thing that frightens him it is the thought of dying. When he steps into the path of an oncoming garbage truck, though, death is instantaneous ... (read more?)
The Bad Place Dean Koontz When Frank Pollard wakes up he is in an alley he doesn't know his name and he doesn't how he got there. What he does know is that he is in danger, and when someone, or something, attacks him with a pulse of blue light, powerful enough to blow the windows out of a car, Frank runs ... (read more?)
The Husband Dean Koontz Mitch Rafferty owns a gardening business and he is a good gardener, but like most gardeners he is not rolling in money. In fact, Mitch only has about eleven thousand dollars in the bank, which is pretty good for a gardener, but not good enough. Mitch needs two million dollars and he has sixty hours to get his hands on it... (read more?)
The Taking By Dean Koontz It all starts with the rain. It is sudden, it falls hard, and it is luminescent. Molly Sloan lies restless in her bed and cannot sleep. Lying beside her, Molly's husband, Neil, has no such worries and is sleeping soundly. At 2 am Molly gets up and goes downstairs ... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Macabre Stephen Laws The central character in Macabre is a taxi driver named Tony Dandridge. Tony is an ex-soldier who was invalided out of the army due to a fragmented bullet in his thigh. Now Tony has to endure not only the pain of his wound, but nightmares related to... (read more?)
The Frighteners Stephen Laws The Frighteners is basically a tale of revenge, but with a supernatural spin on it. The book's main characters are Eddie Brinkburn and Rennie Montresor. Lifelong friends, they are both mechanics and own their own garage... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Alarums Richard Laymon Melanie plays the violin, and is in the middle of a concert performance when she collapses to the floor and appears to be taking a fit ... (read more?)
Among the Missing Richard Laymon Among the Missing certainly has enough dark elements to it for it to be classed as a horror novel, in the main though, I would say that the story is better classed as a mystery. In chapter one a man waits in the woods... (read more?)
Body Rides Richard Laymon The
story starts off with Neal Darden, who is making a
Cuts Richard Laymon Cuts is the story of a young man named Albert Mason Prince and Albert has an obsession. He likes cutting people. It's nice to have a hobby, but Albert's hobby is not nice at all and, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him, he is soon running from the police... (read more?)
Funland Richard Laymon Funland is set in the fictional Californian town of Boleta Bay, where the weather is fine and the girls are finer. A place where the guys need the breeze, rolling in with the surf, just to cool them down as they look at all those shapely bods stretched out along the beech... read more?)
In The Dark Richard Laymon The Central Character in the story is a young woman called Jane Kerry. Jane is the new head of the Donnerville Public Library and her life starts to change in all sorts of ways when someone leaves an envelope on her chair. Jane never saw who left the envelope and neither did anyone else, but it has Jane's name on it and she opens it. Inside it there is a fifty-dollar bill ... (read more?)
Night in the Lonesome October Richard Laymon Night in the Lonesome October was the first Richard Laymon novel that I ever read. I'd read his short story collection, Dreadful Tales, I'd loved it and I'd wanted to read more. So I read Night in the Lonesome October and I just couldn't put it down... (read more?)
Resurrection Dreams Richard Laymon Resurrection Dreams is 352 pages long and is a typical Richard Laymon horror novel. The characters are great. They seem very real and the whole book is so well written that... (read more?)
The Beast House Richard Laymon The Beast House is the second book in Richard Laymon's Beast House series. The book is 369 pages long and although it would be possible to read it as a stand-alone novel, reading The Cellar first will give you a better understanding of the story ... (read more?) The Cellar Richard Laymon When Donna Hayes finds out that her husband has been released from prison she takes her twelve-year-old daughter, Sandy, and flees town. Her Husband, Roy, is a dangerous and abusive man and his interests in their daughter are less than paternal... (read more?)
The Glory Bus Richard Laymon Overnight Pamela has gone from being a happy newlywed to being a widow, and it's all because of Rodney. He has lusted after her since high school and now he has finally got what he has always wanted ... (read more?)
The Travelling Vampire Show Richard Laymon
Dwight Thompson is busy mowing his parent's lawn when Rusty and Slim come over, and he has heard nothing about The Travelling Vampire Show. The posters are all over Grandville though, and Rusty pulls one from his pocket for Dwight to read... (read more) ______________________________________________ Rosemary's Baby Ira Levin When Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse are given the chance of an apartment in the Bramford they are delighted. They have been on the waiting list for such a long time that they had given up hope of ever getting in... (read more?)
Sliver Ira Levin Sliver is a very different kind of story than Levin's earlier work, Rosemary's Baby, but I did find the two books a little similar in places. In Rosemary's Baby, the central character, Rosemary Woodhouse... (read more?)
Son of Rosemary Ira Levin If you have read Rosemary's Baby and then wondered what happened next all the answers can be found in Son of Rosemary. Yeah, that's right, there is a sequel, but it was a long time coming... (read more?)
The Stepford Wives Ira Levin The wives in Stepford are not exactly what you might call feisty, but they do keep nice homes. They wax and vacuum, and clean and dust all day long and late into the evenings, but they never complain... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Devil's Coach-Horse Richard Lewis
Devil's Coach-Horse first saw print in 1979, and as with a lot of novels of that time it is quite short; by today's standards anyway. In fact many would class the work as being a novella and not a novel at all. Whether you class it as the one or the other, though, is neither here nor there ... (read more?)
Spiders Richard Lewis At sixty-seven-years-old Dan Mason is fit for his age. He might be an old man, but he is an active old man and is looking forward to his retirement. Dan and his wife plan to spend their golden years in the country and have just bought an old farmhouse... (read more?) ______________________________________________ The Mailman Bentley Little Bentley Little's novel The Mailman (not to be confused with Little's short story The Mailman) is set in the small town of Willis Arizona where trouble arrives in the form of a new mailman. The town's previous mailman, a guy named Bob Ronda, had been... (read more?)
The Town (Guests) Bentley Little What would you do
if you won the lottery? Or, perhaps, the question should be what
wouldn't you do? What Gregory Tomasov does is to pack in his job, and
pack up his family, and leave ______________________________________________ Mirror Graham Masterton Martin Williams is quite a good screenwriter. He is also a man with an obsession. That obsession is Boofuls: a child star of 1930s musicals who was, in an extreme act of overkill, hacked into 211 pieces by his grandmother ... (read more)
Prey Graham Masterton David Williams' wife has left him and moved to Durham with Raymond the bearded fart, leaving David with their young son Danny. After the break-up David goes to pieces a little - wouldn't anyone if their wife ran off with a bearded fart?... (read more?)
Snowman & The Terror Graham Masterton Okay, we are not talking one book here, but two; my copy was a double volume. Both stories are about a dedicated English teacher called Jim Rook ... (read more?)
Sphinx Graham Masterton Sphinx is a little over 200 pages long and I must say, I found it quite a riveting read. The story starts at a Washington cocktail party. The party is for the new Secretary of State, Henry Ness, who has just got engaged. It is one of those kind of parties where everyone in attendance is either very beautiful, reasonably powerful, or sometimes both... (read more?)
Spirit Graham Masterton When Little Peggy Buchanan disappears from view on a snowy winter's day, her older sister, Elizabeth, gets a bad feeling and goes looking for her. She takes her other sister, Laura, with her and when the two girls see Peggy's footprints leading towards the frozen swimming pool ... (read more?)
The Chosen Child Graham Masterton Mine was a paper back copy of The Chosen Child, it ran to 424 pages in length, and I have got to say that I found it pretty hard going at first. The story is set in Poland and a lot of the names of people and places are in Polish. I tend to read at quite a fast pace and when I encounter foreign words it slows me down ... (read more?)
The Heirloom Graham Masterton Rick Delatolla owns a reasonably successful antiques business in Rancho Santa Fe. He has a beautiful wife, Sara, and a young son, Jonathon, who is six-years old. Rick loves his family, enjoys his work, and is contented with his life. Sunday is the only day he doesn't work, though, and it is on Rick's one day off that Henry Grant arrives with a truck full of antiques... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Hell House Richard Matheson I have always enjoyed a good haunted house story and Hell House is exactly that-a good haunted house story. In fact it is one of the best that I have ever read. It is also the book that inspired the film, The Legend of Hell House... (read more?)
I Am Legend Richard Matheson It can be lonely when you are the last living man on earth, but for Robert Neville life goes on. It may be a lonely life for him, but Robert isn't totally alone. There are, of course, the vampires ... (read more?)
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet -- Horror Stories by Richard Matheson is 335 pages long and contains 20 short stories. The first of which I am sure you will be familiar with because it was used in an episode of The Twilight Zone, starring William Shatner... (read more?)
The Shrinking Man Richard Matheson The Shrinking Man is around 200 pages long and is a Sci-fi horror story. In the first chapter the central character, a man called Scott Carey, is sunbathing on top of the cabin of a small boat. When he opens his eyes and sees a curtain of spray heading towards him Scott's first thought is that it must be a tidal wave... (read more?) ______________________________________________ McCammon - Robert R. Boy's Life Robert McCammon Boy's Life is many things. It is, in part, a mystery, but there are also enough dark moments in the book for me to consider it a horror story as well. It is a magical and very beautiful tale about being a boy, and growing up, and... well... a boy's life... (read more?)
They Thirst Robert R. McCammon The prologue to They Thirst is set in the Hungarian village of Krajeck where nine-year-old Andre Palatazin sits staring into the fire while he and his mother wait for his father to return home. Bad things have been happening in Krajeck... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Morris - Mark Cinema Macabre Mark Morris Cinema Macabre is 233 pages long and is the brainchild of best-selling author Mark Morris. Basically it is a collection of essays, written by writers and editors etc from within the horror, sci-fi and fantasy genres, and about their favourite horror movies... (read more?) ______________________________________________ The Farm Scott Nicholson With one failed marriage behind her, when Katy Logan remarries she intends to provide her daughter Jett with a more stable environment and, giving up her job, she moves from Charlotte to the small town of Solom, in the Blue Ridge Mountains... (read more?)
The Red Church Scott Nicholson The Red Church was Scott Nicholson's first novel and it is so good that it was nominated for a Stoker Award in 2002. The story is set in the isolated town of Whispering Pines, up in the Appalachian Mountains and the first chapter of the book introduces... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Chained Together Christopher Pike Chained Together is a double volume of Christopher Pike's Chain Letter and Chain Letter 2, The Ancient Evil. At the end of the book there is also the first chapter of Pike's novel The Immortal... (read more?)
Die Softly Christopher Pike The central character in Die Softly is a young man called Herb Trasker, he is eighteen-years-old and is a student at Alamo High. Herb is a quiet kind of guy who is a little slow in coming forward when it comes to the ladies. In fact he is so slow that his love life is at a standstill... (read more?)
Gimme a Kiss Christopher Pike
Christopher Pike's Gimme a Kiss is only 122 pages long and so it would probably be classed as a novella, rather than a novel. Whatever it is, or isn't, classed as, though, it is still quite a clever little tale... (read more?)
Road to Nowhere Christopher Pike Teresa Chafey is eighteen-years-old and she is running away from home. She has just found out that her boyfriend, Bill, is in love with someone else and as she climbs into her Mazda 626 the weather is a foul as her mood. Lightning lights up the sky as she drives away and she isn't even sure where she is going... (read more?)
See You Later Christopher Pike I had never heard of Christopher Pike, and so didn't know what to expect when I opened up See You Later and began to read. After only a few paragraphs I was impressed by the quality of the writing and gained an immediate liking for the central character... (read more?)
Spellbound Christopher Pike The sky is blue and dew glistens in the sunlight. Cindy Jones thinks it is going to be a nice day. Until she picks up the local paper that is. 'How Did Karen Holly Die?'... (read more?)
Slumber Party Christopher Pike
Perhaps the trouble started with the Ouija board. Perhaps not. Either way, it was a night that the five who survived the party would never forget ... (read more?)
The Eternal Enemy Christopher Pike The Eternal Enemy contains elements of horror, but could just as easily be classed as a science fiction story. Like most of Christopher Pike's books it is not particularly long and at just 167 pages it is probably more of a novella than a novel... (read more?)
The cover of this book is rather misleading: blood and candles. Looking at it you might expect the story to be about a serial killer with a fetish for naked flames, or something equally strange and gory, but The Midnight Club is not really a horror story at all. Not in the traditional sense anyway, but neither is it exactly a light-hearted read because all of the central characters are dying... (read more?)
Weekend Christopher Pike Four guys and five girls spend a weekend together at a luxury Oceanside mansion in Mexico. There is white sand and rolling surf and it sure should have been very nice... (read more?)
Whisper of Death Christopher Pike Like a lot of Christopher Pike's books, Whisper of Death is not a particularly long read. It is, in fact, only176 pages long and that count includes an added sample chapter of his book Master of Murder. The main story is told in just 160 pages and I must admit... (read more?) ______________________________________________ Pinborough - Sarah Breeding Ground Sarah Pinborough If you are scared of spiders and other creepy-crawlies then, should decide to read it, you will probably find Breeding Ground a particularly scary book. If you are not scared of many-legged-beasties, though you will still find enough dark moments in the story to keep you turning the pages... (read more?) ______________________________________________
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