Number 11 - Somebody Come and Play - Clare McNally

 

Yet another 80s mass market horror novel with a gloriously tacky cover. I have way too many of these. 

I was in the mood for something trashy and this certainly fits the bill.  There are four other books by Clare McNally listed in the front of this one. Three of those are the Ghost House trilogy so proudly proclaimed on the front cover. A quick clance at Amazon shows she was a busy little bee in the 80s with around a dozen books to her name.

I wonder if they're written as well as this one was.  If they are, they're probably not worth picking up unless the price is in pennies rather than pounds (which a few of them are - these are not books that have accumulated fiscal value).

If this one is a fair one to judge by, they don't have much literary value either.  I imagine that if I'd read this in my early teens I might have been impressed - but even by my late teens I was starting to read good horror authors and I would have let her fall by the wayside.

The basic story of this is a haunted house with a devil ghost child who lures people to violent deaths on a fairly regular basis. She uses an imaginary toy room to attract children to her for her own reasons that we discover very late on.

It's not very well written at all. None of the dialogue feels real. None of the characters are convincing. The denouement lacks drama or tension and it's generally not scary. There are numerous typos and sloppy editing on view throughout.

So why did I enjoy reading it?

I have no idea on this one. I know how bad it is. It's not so bad it's good.  It's just bad. But I had fun with it anyway. The storyline is just good enough to keep the interest going and there are character deaths I didn't see coming despite the overfamiliarity of nearly every aspect of the plot. 

Basically this is pure trash but fun pure trash. I'm glad I only paid £1.15 for it from whichever second hand place I found it in whenever I bought it (and that could be decades ago...). 

This is not an investment book. This is a switch off the brain and critical faculties book. It might be a good intro to horror for a younger reader. The prose has no gloss to it, which makes it a very easy read.

Maybe the nostalgia factor is a reason I liked it. I honestly don't know why.