Number 71 - Holy Ghost Road - John Mantooth

 

This was a NetGalley read and another brand new author for me.

Some books take their time in establishing a setting and the characters and the plot will slowly develop as the location etc become clearer.

This doesn't. we're plunged into the action on page one and it never lets up.

When we meet our central character Forest, she's on the run. She needs to get to her Gran's house.  her Gran can help her, she always has done in the past. Surely her dreamwalking powers will save Forest now. What is she running from? She's not sure herself.  It's scary though. It has something to do with the strange preacher Nesmith who has an uncanny influence on everyone in the county, and indeed has shacked up with Forest's mother.

The only thing worse than Nesmith, is his sister Ruby Jewel, a blind old woman who still seems more alert and aware than any human should be. Or maybe the goat-headed thing that is following Nesmith as he searches for Forest to deliver her into a fate possibly worse than death.

Together with a friend she meets on her dangerous run, Forest must travel the Holy Ghost Road to her Granny's house and her only hope of salvation.

This is gorgeously written southern-gothic horror. The atmosphere of dread and mystery is sustained through every word of the book. 

There are familiar elements to the story but they feel fresh under Mantooth's restrained prose and perfectly nuanced storytelling. 

There are layers upon layers to the story and this will certainly reward a reread sometime. There are dark themes running through the book, loss and grief, the negative side of family, the power of belief vs logic.  These make for a compelling coming of age story as Forest travels her own spiritual journey as well as the grueling physical trek down the eponymous highway.  All the while she needs to avoid the grasps of the villainous trio who dog her footsteps the whole distance.

I will certainly be buying a physical copy of this for my reread, whenever that might happen. Mantooth is a major talent. By all the gods and demons, he can spin a damned scary yarn.

Number 57 - The Vessel - Adam Nevill

 

Isn't she a beauty? Rumour has it that she leans further out of each successive cover of the book and the last person to buy it, she's going to crawl out and... well it won't be pretty.

But don't let that put you off from buying a copy.

By Adam Nevill's standards, this is a very short book indeed, coming in at about 150 pages. There is a reason for that, which is explained in the afterword.

 Jess is a struggling single mother who takes on a job as carer to a decrepit and very senile old woman in a crumbly old vicarage called Nerthus House. Characters forced into bad situations because of cash problems seems to be a theme in Adam's work. Jess has problems other than cash though.  She's a single mother because her ex is an abusive and controlling bully. He's not ready to give up on the family unit, no matter how often she tells him it's over.

When she can't get childcare, Jess is forced to take her young daughter Izzy to Nerthus House while she performs her nightshift. Flo Gardner, her patient, develops an unhealthy bond with young Izzy, and Jess finds herself in a battle for her daughter's affections and her soul.

There isn't much that I would call original in this story. The story follows a well-worn trail and isn't difficult to predict, but Nevill's prose, and some truly weird and disturbing set pieces elevate the material above most other similar stories. His prose actually reminded me very strongly of Ramsey Campbell in this book. There have always been vague shades of Campbell in his writing, but in this book, I'm not sure if it's that the themes are more Campbellian or the writing itself. 

In the afterword Nevill talks about how this started life as a screenplay before being converted to novel form (much like Cunning Folk was) but he's experimented here with making the book entirely plot driven and removed most of the internal views we would normally see in his books (which are usually very character driven rather than plot driven). This is the principle reason for its brevity.

It's an experiment that is largely successful. It was a quick and easy read and created a real atmosphere of dread in its short number of pages.

This blog gets a thank you in the afterword. It's good to see that the work I put into these reviews doesn't go unappreciated. I'm very grateful to the talented writers and I hope that I'm making some contribution to spreading the word.

This book will be formally released at Halloween. My copy is the limited-edition hardback which was sent out early. The mass market editions can be ordered from Adam's website when they become available.  You won't regret it.

 All – Tagged "Novels"– Adam LG Nevill 

Number 41 - Sallow Bend - Alan Baxter

 

I was sent a review copy of this from Cemetery Dance in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I was very happy to be sent this review copy, as regular readers of this blog will know, I think the name Alan Baxter is an assurance of quality and he is one of my current "collect everything I can that he's written" authors. It feels good to be reading his latest before it's officially out.

This book, actually the first full length novel I've read by Baxter, continues the tradition of quality I've seen in his other works.

Nestled in a sweeping curve of the river Sallow, the town of Sallow Bend harbours its own dark secrets.

The carnival has just rolled into town. Two local girls have gone missing. When the girls are found alive and well, the townspeople are jubilant. But what they don't know is that something else has come back to the town with the girls, and it has its own agenda. People start dying, and only one man has any idea of what's happening, but what can he do to stop the rising death rate when no one will believe what he has to say?

In a welcome twist to the traditional tropes, the carnival isn't the source of the troubles; they've just arrived at the same time as an old evil has risen in the town, and they're as likely to die by its hands as any of the townsfolk. 

This is a fast paced and occasionally pretty gross horror novel. Despite the presence of so many familiar tropes (small town American setting, ancient evil rising etc) this wrong footed me on several occasions. The way the villain is introduced to the story was brilliantly done and totally unexpected.  

At least one character who I assumed to be an unredeemable bad guy turned into one of the most sympathetic characters once we found out why he was the way he was. Even the villain has good reason for her quest for vengeance against the town.

Baxter creates an ever increasing sense of dread and hopelessness throughout. We're never quite certain who will survive. The final confrontation is as tense as any you'll read in a Stephen King novel. (I know I try not to compare horror writers to King because it feels lazy on my part, but again, this shares enough thematic similarities it's almost unavoidable)

I missed the Australian setting of his other books that I've read. The American setting has a more familiar feel to it and therefore less of the weird atmosphere I found in the two Gulp collections. that's only a minor quibble though. My only other quibble is that some of the characters were so well drawn that I wanted them to play a more active role in the story and it was slightly disappointing that they didn't. 

There's also some well integrated social messaging that comes across as a natural part of the story rather than preachiness. 

The writing is unpretentious and an easy read. Good characters and a refreshing and unpredictable take on some old conventions. The monster is genuinely threatening and almost completely original.

This is a great slice of small town horror. Go out and buy it when it's released. You won't regret it.