Michael Rowe (1)Recensioni

This novella was a quick wild ride, once it got going. I think it could have benefitted from a longer and more thorough treatment, to give us a more nuanced view of our main characters, but as I understand this was originally a short story, perhaps this is really all the author had to say about his characters. But I felt for Mikey and Wroxy. I had a small, very small, taste of being bullied as a child, and I remember other children who were the constant targets of harassment, likely much worse than was done publicly. The ending… is the logical conclusion of Mikey’s choices, but not the one I hoped for. Sometimes, though, the ending that we, as readers want, is not the ending that is right. It was still satisfying.

Audiobook, via Audible. Joel Froomkin was the perfect voice for Mikey, although he reminded me irresistibly of George McFly.

I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo square New Release: mystery, suspense, horror or supernatural that was published after 10/31/17. Although it was based on a short story written in the late 1980’s, this novella was just published in February 2018.

Read this for book club and I enjoyed it -- it was pretty creepy. I enjoyed the ambiguity and possible interpretations you could take on the twist at the end.

Wild Fell is a ghost story that starts out well with a scary scene right out of an '80s movie involving two kids late at night on the shore of a lake. Those kids will go on to become part of local ghost lore as the book moves forward in time. The setting involves a creepy old house, an isolated island, remote wilderness, and a small town--all of my favorite horror-story settings, so that all seems promising. There then follows an extended section about the main character, Jamie, as a child and the creepy little girl in the mirror who befriends him and takes care of bullies on his behalf. There is a scene with a turtle that will disturb animal lovers. I enjoyed this exposition and was looking forward to seeing how Jamie would connect back to the house on the island. He does as an adult but first there is quite a bit about him dealing with his father's Alzheimer's disease. By the time he does get up to the lake, after having bought the house unseen, we are running out of book. Jamie spends one frightening night in the house, does some research in town--again, all very standard for a ghost story. And then there is the end. Abrupt, bizarre, and unsatisfying. It feels like after doing all this work to set up the characters and setting and ghosts, the author just decided not to continue with the story. At the very least drop the illusion and show Jamie the ruined house. And I'm not really sure how I feel about the incest. Half a star deducted for the ending, but most of the book was very engaging.

By the way, I think Jamie's best friend, Hank, is meant to be a trans character, not a butch lesbian. Pronouns are wrong, but even though this book was published not that long ago, people were still figuring all this out at that time. It's hard to believe how much the culture has changed around trans people in such a short time. I wish Hank had played a larger role in the end as well.½

I've seen several reviews that state some sort of variation of "this is a rollicking vampire novel" and, sorry, I have to say no. I'm not saying it's bad, because it's not. But there's a protracted opening that ultimately pays off, then there's very little in the way of vampires until the last quarter of the book. That section from about 10% of the way in until about the 75% mark is a whole lotta characters talking.

All right, let me back up a bit and first indicate what I didn't like. There were a fair amount of punctuation and spelling errors in the first third (strech for stretch, misplaced quotation marks, etc.), but they evened out as the novel progressed. I also found much of the dialogue a touch stilted, or maybe a better way to put it is, I found it unrealistic. I don't know, I just found I kept getting popped out of the story when I read a lot of the dialogue, especially when the cops or Adeline Parr was involved.

As mentioned above, there was also a lot through the middle that simply was characterization. Jeremy's hand-wringing about meeting his former lover in the town (that never came to anything), Elliot's misplaced hatred of the Indian, Billy Lightning (that never came to anything), the revelation that Adeline had had inappropriate relations with another character (that never came to anything), and so on.

On the other hand, when it came to Finn, the twelve-year-old Tomb of Dracula reading kid with Sadie, his dog, the pages just sang. Finn is a brilliant character and the main reason I enjoyed this book. Any time he shows up, I perked up. The dialogue was great, his entire plot was great, Sadie was great, his mom was great. His father was a little underutilized, but I could live with that. His interactions with Morgan were also a highlight.

I also liked Billy Lightning, even if I could never actually buy into the reason he showed up in Parr's Landing.

And then there's the end of the novel. With no spoilers here, I'll just say I understand what Rowe was doing, I understand why he did it, but for me, it flat out didn't ring true. After the buildup of what the vampires were like, the ending just didn't work for me. And that's all I'll say about that.

So, for me, I could have used less of the existing subplots, I would have like more on the "thing in the mountain" subplots, as well as more of what the vampires were doing in town (it was kind of a this character turned into a vampire, that vampire turned into a vampire, then without warning, it jumped to, holy cow! Almost everyone's a vampire! with no illustration of how that came to be, or how it would be dealt with).

Still for all of that, I enjoyed the narrative voice, and, as I said, Finn. You got me with Finn.

Estranged twin goes home
gets a shock, and a free house
dad is still a douche.

Since I read Enter, Night , I've been wanting to check out Wild Fell. I'm sorry that I waited so long!

Wild Fell is told in such a unique manner , (I love that!), that it's hard to tear yourself away. Normal day to day chores like cooking dinner, doing dishes and such, all fell by the wayside in favor of parking my butt on the couch,(or by the river on my lunch hour), to see where this novel would take me. It took me a number of places, but it finished with me at Wild Fell itself.

Jameson Browning is our protagonist. As a boy he was bullied and had a best friend, a girl named Hank. From there, we follow Jameson throughout his life and finally, his time at Wild Fell. He's a good guy and a good friend and he fell upon hard times-it's easy to like and root for him.

All is not as it seems with Jameson, though, and getting to what is REAL is part of the mystery of this book. It's not a ghost story, it's not a haunted house story....but actually it is both, plus some.

Unlike the author, I do not have the right words to explain how this book made me feel. I will paraphrase from Jack Nicholson and his line from the movie "As Good as it Gets" , this book makes me wish I were a better reviewer.

Highly recommended to fans of quiet horror, dark fiction, mysteries, ghost stories and haunted house tales.

I loved this book so freaking much! So. Freaking. Much.
 
Sweetheart, Sweetheart was originally published back in the late 70's. It was brought back by Leisure Books in the 90's and has now been brought back again by Valancourt Books. (Perhaps you've heard me talk about them in the past?) This edition has a new, kickass cover and an even more kickass introduction from the lovely Michael Rowe. (A fantastic author of the macabre in his own right.)
 
The intro was more of a love letter to the story and to the author. It's not spoiler-y so you can read it before reading the story, if you like.

Here's a brief excerpt of the intro:

So, instead of writing a cool, detached introduction, I feel like a child holding out a Christmas gift, bursting to tell you what's inside so you can be as excited to receive it as I am to give it, impatient for you to open it. This particular present however, is wrapped in rose petals, not paper, and the ribbon is made of sharp wire and broken glass, not grosgrain, so please be careful not to cut yourself while unwrapping it.

 After finishing the book, I could not possibly agree more.
 
So, on to the story! Dave has a bad feeling about his twin brother who still lives back home in the U.K. Enough so that he leaves his fiancee in America to make the trek to check on his family. All is not well with them and David's quick trip turns into an extended stay. That's all I can say about the plot.
 
This story is beautifully, I say beautifully written.  Mr. Taylor's ability to create a creepy atmosphere is nearly unmatched. (Though Mr. Rowe does it wonderfully in his book Wild Fell.) For instance this brief little clip: 
 

"There I sat in the living-room, the scotch bottle at my side, I felt only that accustomed welcome and comfort surrounding me. The coldness, the chill, was inside me."

 
This book quietly builds the atmosphere and horror of discovering that all is NOT what it seems to be. It nearly drips with suspense as the final chapters are doled out and just when you think you can't take it anymore, POW! It punches you in the face and then it stomps on you some more when you go down. The reader is left sitting there alone, stunned, saddened and delighted all at once. This is one you can't miss. 
 
In the end, this is a ghost story. Charles L. Grant named it his favorite ghost story of all time, and Mr. Grant knew quiet horror better than almost anyone. If you're looking for a lot of gore and a lightning fast pace, look elsewhere. However, if you're looking for a classic, slow building, atmospheric, beautifully written ghost story you, my friend, have just found it.
 
My highest recommendation!

4.5 stars!

A friend of mine in the Amazon Horror Forum recommended that I read this book. It took me a while, but I finally did. It was amazing!

Parr's Landing. The recently widowed Christina is headed there, with her daughter Morgan and brother-in-law Jeremy. The town from which Christina and her husband Jack fled when Christina realized she was pregnant, 15 some odd years ago. I loved the characters of Christina, Jeremy and Morgan. I loved this passage:

"Christina had been dreaming of Jack almost nightly in the nine months since the accident. The dreams varied in scale and intensity like music, from the highest soprano pitch of remembered fragments of joy, to the deepest, lowest basso profundo of grief and loss. From the latter, she would wake up sobbing, her throat dry and raw as though she had been swallowing graveyard dirt, feeling as if she were buried alive, and the darkness of her bedroom a sealed, airless coffin."

Christina and Jeremy HATE Parr's Landing, mostly due to Jeremy's mother, Adeline Parr. A harsher bitch you could not find. Her lofty airs and her superior attitude made her a character I could hardly stand to read about. The town is named after her and she won't let anyone ever forget it. Unfortunately, between them Jeremy and Christina can barely scrape together a dime, so they have no choice but to go back home to the town and the woman they both hate.

Once they all arrive, the weirdness begins. I don't want to spoil anything, but I will throw out the words Wendigo, Ojibwa, vampires and ancient evil. The story accelerates quickly at this point and it was quite difficult to put this book down. The prose is outstanding as is the character development.

As the story progresses, one can't help but think about other books that are similar. Salem's Lot for instance. However, the ideas in this book are unique and in my opinion, it gives Salem's Lot a run for its money.

Overall, I am jacked about this book! Thanks to my friend J.K, over at Amazon for bringing this book to my attention. I will definitely be reading the next book from this author. I highly recommend Enter, Night. You won't be disappointed.

Many of the prologues I read are pro forma and shallow. In the case of Wild Fell, the prologue is more in the nature of a wonderful example of flash fiction. It put me at ease, letting me know I would be in for a good story. The atmosphere hit me just right, as did Rowe’s ability to write characters well. The main story itself was paced well and a thoroughly enjoyable ghost story. I look forward to reading more by Micheal Rowe.

Storia traballante e lentissima....personaggi a cui vorresti solo dare calci nel sedere e schiaffoni...
questo libro mi ha fatto partire un istinto omicida...da dimenticare!

Storia traballante e lentissima....personaggi a cui vorresti solo dare calci nel sedere e schiaffoni...
questo libro mi ha fatto partire un istinto omicida...da dimenticare!

This is an oddly-structured book with weird pacing. There is an overly-long prologue in which the reader is given time to care about a character, before it abruptly ends and the characters in the prologue never show up again except as footnotes to the protagonist's horror story. I'm someone who is easily scared (one of the few in the world who found The Blair Witch Project terrifying, ffs) and this book was only kind of chilling and creepy in parts (mainly the part that was told from the POV of the protagonist as a child). But there was also a lot of exposition that verged on the banal and halfway through I was not at all creeped out, just impatient.

Some solid writing in parts that conveyed a menacing atmosphere, but mostly the writing is dull and prosaic. The final scene where the TRUTH is revealed is so ridiculous, I don't even know what to say. It's a bit of an insult to have spent time with the book and be given THAT. Some really half-baked Freudian undertones meant to increase the dread/horror, I suspect, but it was just crudely done, and without much consideration for the emotional and psychic toll on the kids in question beyond "the return of the repressed" that is explored in a really hamfisted way. So in that sense, it feels opportunistic and gross. Also, all the women characters, be it mothers, ghosts, or butch lesbian best friends "with a man's soul" (?) were terrible and vengeful (because mothers and heterosexual women) or vaguely distant but supportive (because butch lesbian is, as emphasised a few times, not some "radical dyke" as a male character puts it but a cool one who is almost a man). The gender binary is awkwardly sketched out in broad strokes that I thought the latter part of the story and the denouement would redeem it somewhat in terms of "troubling" gender and undoing the earlier narrative voice, destabilising the whole damn thing, but no.

What puzzles me so much is that this book is not uniformly bad; there were parts when it was shaping up to be a real psychological slow-burn of a ghost story, but then it just fizzled. Most unfortunate.

Creepy Island, mysterious past, ghost stories . . . all things that grabbed by attention. Wild Fell is a creepy old house on a secluded island that's shrouded in mystery. And Jameson Browning is in the middle of it all, but he doesn't understand how.

This book follows the life of Jameson, who as a little boy befriends a girl in the mirror. He talks and she talks back. Are you creeped out yet? Anyway the 'girl' seems to have special powers and can make people pay for their mistakes. Jameson is thrilled but also scared of her at the same time. After a particular incident he finally has enough and destroys the mirror. The girl vows that she can always find him, and she does.

Jameson, on a whim, buys the creepy mansion. Everyone in town seems to think he lost his mind, and he might have. However soon Jameson gets more than he bargained for as he moves into the house.

This book was good. It wasn't as creepy as I hoped it would be, but it was interesting. I thought it was a little slow in the beginning, but it picked up speed toward the end. I was also a little confused about the ending. It left me with more questions than answers. Mirrors and moths will forever remind me of this book, though. You'll have to read it to understand.
Read more at http://www.2readornot2read.com/2014/01/review-wild-fell-by-michael-rowe.html#JUv...

Wild Fell begins in the small town of Alvina, Ontario, in 1960, when Sean Schwartz asks his high school sweetheart, Brenda Egan, if she believes in ghosts. Whether he’s trying to scare her into cuddling closer, looking for some excitement to end the summer before school begins again, or is entirely sincere in his question, his question is a prelude to asking Brenda if she’ll cross a mile of Devil’s Lake to Blackmore Island to explore the remains of a mansion called Wild Fell. It takes some persuading, but Brenda reluctantly agrees, only to change her mind when they’re halfway there, suddenly frightened. Sean is disappointed, maybe angry, but the evening is saved by an illicit bottle of wine and a bonfire. But Wild Fell isn’t done with them, and the curtain of the prologue falls as a legend begins.

Michael Rowe sets his hook firmly with this prologue, but then he lets the line out for a nice long run. Jameson Browning — Jamie — tells us the story in the first person, starting, “I want to teach you about fear.” That sentence recedes from the reader’s mind as Jamie relates the story of his childhood in Alvina with a warm, loving father and a cold, unhappy mother. He is a reclusive child with only one real friend, Hank. Hank is really named Lucinda, but she doesn’t much want to be a girl, as she’s recently demonstrated by cutting off her hair. Hank is better at being a boy than Jamie is, really, and their friendship is a true one that involves no secrets.

Well, except for one: Jamie never tells Hank about Amanda, the girl who lives in his mirror. Amanda has Jamie’s face and speaks in his voice, but she’s completely real. She started as an imaginary playmate of Jamie’s own gender, someone to share victories and grievances with. But when eight-year-old Jamie complains to his mirror that his bike has been stolen by an older child, the presence in the mirror becomes a separate person, not an echo. She still uses his throat, his voice, but the words she speaks are not his, and the reflection in the mirror is not of his body or his room. She asks what he wants to happen to the boy who stole his bike, and Jamie says he wants the kid to just shut up and give him his bike back. Amanda promises that this will happen. And it does. Oh, boy, does it ever.

We don’t find out who Amanda is for a long time, not for the rest of Jamie’s childhood, not during his young adulthood in Toronto, not until much later when he returns to Alvina. In the meantime, though, we come to enjoy Jamie’s company. We see him through college and into marriage and a teaching career; being cared for and then caring for his father; and, ultimately, making a purchase in Alvina that will decide his fate. Always, lurking in the background, whether he acknowledges her or not, Amanda haunts his steps. By the time we find out who she was, and what she wants with Jamie, it feels like she’s meddling with a good friend.

Rowe has meticulously plotted this ghost story, so that nothing feels extraneous and every word seems carefully chosen. There is a sexual ambiguity to Jamie that colors the story, but is never overt, a suggestion; just as the violence is muted, always offstage and related to Jamie afterwards. The horror in this story isn’t graphic, but it is very much present.

Rowe writes beautifully, with words that draw pictures and bring memories to life. Here, for example, is a passage describing Alvina, and other small summer resort towns, from the prologue:

"Legends begin in small northern towns on the edge of places other people only drive through on their way to somewhere else, in station wagons and vans full of summer gear: Muskoka chairs in bright summer colours, coolers full of beer, canvas bags bursting with swimsuits and shorts and t-shirts, and dogs who slumber on blankets in the back seat and are bored by the entire process of long car trips.

"Towns pass by that are the sum of their parts, and their parts are bridges, barns, fields, and roadside stands where home-baked pies or fresh ice cream are sole in the summer, and pumpkins, sweet corn, and Indian corn in the autumn. These towns are for gas stations that are distance markers for exhausted parents, where the kids can have one final bathroom break before the last stretch of highway leading to driveways that in turn lead to front doors and lake views….

"The towns they pass might as well be shell facades, their residents merely extras in a movie called Our Drive Up North to the Cottage, a movie with annual sequels whose totality makes up a lifetime of holiday memories."

When I was a child, we had a place we visited during the summer that was just like that, though a country away. And when I was a child, the ends of long summer evenings, those long, slow twilights during which the shadows got longer and longer, and anything could be hiding behind the bridal veil or under the willow fronds, were eerie and frightening. That feeling, too, is what Rowe has captured in this novel, a lingering, cold dread.

Wild Fell is one of the best books of 2013. And Rowe is a talent to watch.

Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/wild-fell/

The story is good but the writing style and the characterization lack subtlety to the point of frustration. The denouement occurs quite abruptly for the amount of time spent leading up to it. By the end, I didn't care about any of the characters or who survived. I just felt like the whole book could have been so much better, but instead felt so rushed.

Strangely, the strongest and most compelling part of the novel is the last, historical fiction, section. The writing is stronger and the pacing benefits a horror novel more justly. I would have rather that the last section stretched out into an entire novel rather than just a chapter.½

There is much to be said for Michael Rowe’s novel, Enter, Night. It is a refreshingly traditional vampire story. No eco-friendly, glittering, James Dean vampires here. Rowe harks back to Bram Stoker’s original vampire incarnation, which in turn borrowed heavily from ancient legends.

Overall, the novel clips along with aggressively spare and gritty prose. No poetic metaphors here. Every word, every scene, every character is crafted to make you take notice.

And therein, for me, lies part of the problem.

The novel opens with an introduction to a vampire through the point of view of a bus driver. The vampire is nameless. That first chapter then abruptly shifts point of view to the vampire. Nothing wrong with choosing an omniscient point of view, in general.

Our interest in the following chapter is invested in a runaway adolescent male who makes a desperate journey back to an abusive household to save his mother. We are rather heavily invested in his story when three chapters later he’s dead.

By chapter five we’re introduced to yet another cast of characters, in this case Christina (grieving wife), Morgan (grieving daughter) and Jeremy (grieving brother). For the most part the novel remains about their journey, and retains a fairly tight and consistent point of view. Their stories are heart-breaking, particularly Jeremy’s, and if for no other reason the novel is worth time because of this clear, incisive narrative.

Throughout the following chapters, Rowe deftly tells the story of a vampiric relationship of another sort, that of a soul-sucking matriarch in a Northern Ontario mining town and the three people (Christina, Morgan and Jeremy) who are forced to throw themselves upon her non-existent compassion and agenda-packed charity.

What follows, vampires aside, is a truly insightful, raw tale that takes centre stage (part Oedipal, part Brokeback Mountain), a taut counterpoint to the subtext of the secondary story that’s introduced in the town of Parr’s Landing, that of Billy Lightning who is searching for his father’s murderer, none other than the vampire from the introduction, Richard Weal.

Lightning’s story is another very human, tragic tale, one that revolves around the horrors of Northern Ontario residential schools, and backwoods bigotry.

Together these two tales intertwine to create a psychological thriller that is extremely poignant.

However, by the time we reach the denouement, the mayhem, gore and death become somewhat predictable. We know that cop should not go down to the dark, dank basement. We know that boy should not go out and look for his dog. We know all these caveats from hundreds of horror novels and movies that have filled modern minds for decades, so that after several chapters of this character being killed off, and that character smearing all over the landscape, it seems the catastrophe is never going to end. And when it does end, there are of course only two survivors (well at least it wasn’t just one).

But the story doesn’t end there. Instead, Rowe introduces us at the very end of his novel to the historical back-story of the evil that dogged the town of Parr’s Landing, that of the doomed Jesuit settlement of St. Bathélemy. By now, we know exactly what this story is and how it’s going to end, because history repeated itself in the first part of the novel. And it is here that I felt Rowe made his most fatal artistic mistake.

Instead of tacking the historical back-story on to the ending like an afterthought, I couldn’t help but feel the suspense, the tension and interest of the novel could only have been heightened had Rowe woven this historical narrative throughout the modern story. By doing so, he would have eliminated the feeling of an enormous information dump at the end, and he would have given historical context to the entire narrative.

Overall, a good read. But, for me, not a great one.

This is a hard review to write. I loved the story. I do have an ARC which means there were some technical errors that I hope are resolved before publishing. With that in mind, I want to focus on the story.
The story was amazing. The language a little tough for me because the author is Canadian and I am not. Michael Rowe is a native English speaker but there was some language that left me puzzled but may not be difficult for a Canadian. However, I loved the story.
This is an ensemble cast making it difficult to give a clear synopsis. In 1952, an archeological dig in Parr’s Landing goes wrong when student, Richard Weal, goes mad and attacks another student. Years later, he returns to Parr’s Landing to finish what he started and that is to wake the being hidden deep in the caves. At the same time, widow Christina is forced to return to Parr’s Landing with her daughter and brother-in-law. Her departure from the small town was not a pleasant one. The town knows the gossip but they don’t understand the truth. Her late husband Jack Parr was the prince to Adeline Parr’s kingdom. Christina will always be known as the slut who drove him from home.
Jeremy Parr escape happened later after his mother tried to have him cured of his homosexuality. His first love remains in Parr’s Landing but has been convinced that it is better to be a heterosexual asshole than a happy homosexual.
Richard Weal is successful in his mission and unleashes an ancient vampire on the small town, destroying everything in its path and yet freeing those held captive by Parr’s Landing.
Take away the vampires and Enter, Night is still a wonderful and touching story. There are so many elements in this book from various prejudices (sexuality, race, class) to family relations to a touching tale of a love and the sacrifices that brings (human and animal).
The story sucked me in but I was left unfulfilled when it was over. The last chapter goes back to 1650 to explain how the creature came to Parr’s Landing and was confined in the caves. It was still interesting but I wanted to stay in the more present day (of the story) to find out what happened. There was some wrap up but not enough for my taste. I only hope this means Michael Rowe is writing a sequel because I would like that.
Visit the author at www.michaelrowefiction.com½

After the death of her husband, Christine Parr is forced to return to Parr's Landing, the small town she grew up in, with her daughter, Morgan. Her brother-in-law, Jeremy Parr, has chosen to return with them in hopes of protecting them from his domineering mother, Adeline, the matriarch of the town.

Unfortunately, they are not the only ones returning to Parr's Landing. Three hundred years ago, something terrible happened there. The Church believed that the native population had killed priests sent to the area The native peoples believed it was a Wendigo, a cannibalistic spirit brought by the Black Robes themselves. They were both wrong and, for centuries, it has lain dormant waiting for a chance to return but now it's back and very, very hungry.

Author Michael Rowe has taken the vampire story and, by combining it with the native Wendigo legend, has given new life into a frankly overworked and tired genre. These are definitely not the sparkly emo vampires so popular in fiction today and this is no paranormal romance - Rowe's vampires, if you'll forgive the pun, have teeth and they are not afraid to use them.

But, perhaps the most surprising aspect of this book is the characters. Most horror is plot-driven with little thought to the characters who are usually pretty one-dimensional - the bad guys get killed in horrible bloody ways and the good guys eventually kill the monster and sail off into the sunset having save the day. Not so Enter, Night - Rowe has a real knack for creating three-dimensional characters with whom the reader can easily relate. What's more, he is not afraid to kill off these characters if the story demands it making it impossible to predict the eventual outcome.

That is not to say that Enter, Night lacks gore and fright - there's plenty of both to keep even the most hardened horror fan in blood-soaked heaven. But the writing and characters put this a huge step up from your average horror novel making it the perfect read to add a few more chills in a long winter's night.

I received this book as part of NetGalley in exchange for a review. Quite different from the kind of books I usually read. But that's all right, reading a book that makes you step out of your comfortzone. Enter, Night by Michael Rowe is that kind of a book to me. Not entirely true, because I've read Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll as one of the books in the Transworld Book Challenge. Yet, this is a completely different, much more creepy novel. A horror-novel with vampire-type creatures. And, believe it or not, I really liked it. It's Michael Rowe's first novel and he can be proud of it.

The novel is about Christine Parr, her daughter Morgan and her brother-in-law Jeremy Parr. Christine and Jeremy left Parr's Landing years ago for different reasons but mainly to escape from Adeline, the dominating mother of Jack and Jeremy. After Jack, Christine's husband was killed in an accident, Christine and Jeremy have no other choice then to return to Parr's Landing. They're forced to beg Adeline for help, who is unfortunately still the same the unbearable, hate-filled woman she used to be. Billy Lightning is also returning to Parr's Landing. A professor who seeks answers to the recent killing of his father and believes the killing is connected with the history of murder and madness associated with the land Adeline Parr owns.

The novel is creepy, violent and terrifying. It's extremely well written with fabulous characters. My favorite character in the novel is Finn, the 12 year old boy with his dog Sadie. I really enjoyed reading Rowe's description of the relationship between Finn and his dog. Yet, it's also the part of the book that is sometimes so scary that you have to put down the book.

What I like about the book is that there are a lot of characters to sympathize with, Finn and his dog, Christine, Morgan Jeremy, Billy, they're all very lovable characters.

The prose is outstanding. Consider Rowe's description of the images Finn has: "the gift of a glimpse of the world as experienced from Sadie's perspective - a mosaic of smell no human nose would ever experience; the literature of light on grass and snow; the secret language of birds and squirrels and cats; the true meaning of unconditional love, something no human being would ever truly understandl the perfect ecstasy of Finn's fingers combing through her soft black fur, the utter completion of falling asleep at the foot of his bed. Pure and uncomplicated gratitude for every affection ever shown to her. Vigilance for Finn's safety. Selfsacrifice". A quote to remember "when she was sure she could see the beauty, she allowed herself to feel hope". It's not what I expected to find in a vampire fiction novel.

Frightening, complex and character-driven, this is a horror story for thinking people. What begins as a traditional narrative, albeit one with multiple points of view, some of which dead-end with shocking swiftness takes on a more sinister sheen with every chapter. And those dead-ends (you'll pardon the pun)successfully keep the reader guessing as to what might happen next, since everything is apparently possible, unlike many novels in this genre where it's obvious from the first page who will survive and who won't.

Then, too, Rowe's research is enviable -- legend, myth and history combine to lend the novel an unmistakable air of authenticity. His use of the Ojibwe Wendigo myth is handled with enormous respect, as well. (The next time I'm out on a wilderness ramble, I'm not sure I'll be able to wander past a pile of boulders or a cave opening without feeling a chill run up my spine.)

And I have to say -- there is one scene with a boy and his dog that scared me so much I had to put the book down for a couple of hours (before I was compelled to go back and read on). Rowe has a way of not only scaring the reader silly, but also of creating tremendous feeling -- the description of that same boy's relationship with his dog tore me apart, as did the descriptions of what was done to a young man when his monstrous spider of a mother sent him off to a "doctor" to be "cured" of his homosexuality. Ghastly and heart-breaking.

Then there's the prose. Consider Rowe's description of the scent of autumn: "Fallen leaves, the scent of cooling earth and the flowering of benign rot, the sleepy prelude to winter." He goes on to talk about sunlight streaming down through "a cathedral of orange-leafed trees, turning everything around it the color of caramel apple glaze." Or this passage:

“The light leaking through the motel curtains was deep orange, a pellucid autumnal hue unique to northern regions where the snow came fast and early and winter ruled for seemingly endless months. The light spoke of stars in the violet-blue early morning sky, of columns of Canada geese streaking south across the vastness of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, while below them, the forests turned the colour of fire and rust and blood.”

You don't generally find prose of that quality in horror fiction. Stephen King . . . watch out!

I received this book as a part of NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. It reminds me of 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. I am a big fan of vampire books in general, but this book qualifies as so much more. The story is so lifelike that I almost believe that something like this can happen. The book supports the idea that this is a real legend with actual supporting documents at the end.

It's the story of a woman who loses her husband and is forced to move in with her mother in law to support her family. Her mother in law is a wealthy ice queen who is hellbent on making her family's lives miserable. There are mysterious disappearances in this book, and ultimately the reader finds that everything comes together. There are a lot of characters in this book and in the beginning it seemed like they were unrelated. However, it comes together nicely in the end. It didn't end as I expected and I loved the twists and turns. The characters are so relatable and I grew quite attached to them throughout.

If you like creepy books that make you think with an element of horror, then you will like this book. It's a page turner- only took me about a day and a half to read! I will read other books from this author.

horror, vampires

Christina Parr (née Monroe) fled Parr’s Landing with her fiancé Jack Parr 16 years ago in order to escape Jack’s dominating mother and allow the two lovers to get married and have their baby in peace. Five years later, Jack’s brother Jeremy joined them after the boys’ mother sent Jeremy to an asylum where he was basically tortured for six months in an attempt to “cure” his homosexuality. Now, in 1972, with Jack having been killed in an accident, Christina, Morgan (her daughter) and Jeremy have no choice left but to return to Parr’s Landing. The problem is that something else is already in Parr’s Landing – something has been sleeping in the caves under the town. And it’s about to wake up and fill the streets of Parr’s Landing with blood … Is it the mythical Wendigo of Native legends? Or is it something more recent – perhaps dating back to the destruction of the first Jesuit Mission in 1630?

Just after Halloween, this amazing horror novel is being released by ChiZine Publications, the leader in speculative fiction. “Enter, Night” will be available on November 1, 2011, and if you are a fan of horror books, especially those relating to vampire-type creatures, you will definitely want to be on the look-out for this terrific, creepy novel. The characters are fabulous, the plot moves with a brutal efficiency, and the writing is superb. There are a few editing problems – nothing too obtrusive, but there are a few instances of the wrong name/pronoun being used, and a few grammatical mistakes and missing words. But the story, the writing, the plot, the characters – they all make up for it. I was also well pleased with the scholarly nature of the writing – several times I had to look up words, and I have a pretty decent vocabulary. I should mention that about 80% of the book is the actual story – after the end of the story, a copy of a manuscript described in the text is provided that gives the background of the area and the genesis of the monster. I found this particularly interesting and it seems pretty well-researched. Michael Rowe is definitely a name to watch for in the horror/speculative fiction field and I hope to see some more novels by this amazing writer!