Occasionally, Amazon recommends new authors and new books via their email advertising, and once in a while curiosity gets the best of me and I wind up checking some of them out. After purchasing a few of these recommendations over the years I’ve become wary of them; usually these suggestions are average at best, poorly written and poorly executed at worst.
When Night Chill came to my attention recently, I hesitated before hitting the buy button. The cover looked great and the synopsis sounded very promising, but what swayed my decision to buy it however were the almost 300 reviews it received; reviews whose average rating were 4 ½ stars. Could so many readers be wrong? After purchasing and reading Night Chills, I have to say that it was worthy of the hype and all those excellent reviews.
In, Night Chills, we meet Jack Tremont, a man escaping his past by moving his wife and two daughters from the West Coast to Maryland. But it seems that Jack has gone from the frying pan into the fire. A deranged man attempts to abduct one of his daughters one stormy night and while the kidnapping failed, it would not be the last time they will interact with the man. It turns out there is a cult in the town Jack’s family now lives in and they kidnap young women for sacrifices to an ancient being. The members of this cult have found a source of power that makes them immortal, and Jack’s daughter, Sarah, may be the key for them to obtain even more power.
A stranger with his own agenda soon aligns with Jack to fight these powerful men, but the problem is they don’t know who’s involved. And Jack isn’t so sure that his new ally has the best interests of Jack and his family in his war with these people.
Night Chills, quite simply, is back to basic, old fashioned horror. While the plot of Night Chill is reminiscent of scads of horror novels from the 1980’s, it never feels dated or familiar. The author accomplishes this with excellent characterization and an abundant use of tension.
With a limited group of characters the author has a chance let readers inside get inside their heads, and this goes for the bad guys too. And what makes these characters such a joy to read is that they are all believable; small town neighbors and friends that we could identify with and feel comfortable hanging around. Familial emotions, best bud conversations, and even the patrons in the local dive bar all lull us with their familiarity, and the author uses them all to great effect. When the author lowers the boom on his characters, we are quite unprepared for the evil and violence that occurs, and we are genuinely shocked at the outcome and betrayals that follow.
The violence in the story is also reminiscent of those old horror novels by Graham Masterton, James Herbert, and Dean Koontz. Chapters often end on cliffhangers, whetting our appetite for more and we respond by furiously turning the pages. The horror in Night Chill is as much psychological as it is physical. The author eschews extreme gross outs preferring to terrorize his readers with prolonged tension, realistic bloodletting and the ache of seeing loved ones in peril.
Night Chill comes highly recommended by Amazon, and this reviewer.
- Inflictions - April 11, 2015
- The Equinox - April 2, 2015
- The Nightmare Girl - March 9, 2015
- Intruder - February 12, 2015
- The Only Red Is Blood - February 12, 2015
- Insanity Tales - February 3, 2015
- Qualia Nous - January 28, 2015
- Once Upon An Apocalypse - November 25, 2014
- The Janus Demon - November 17, 2014
- Case White - November 7, 2014
