I am yet to read a book by Laymon that hasn't left me wondering at least once if he has ever actually interacted with any form of female of any species. So when I saw this book had 5 female protagonists I just knew this was going to be something I didn't take too seriously and because of that I found myself enjoying the storyline enough but was so incredibly done with the characters and having to ask myself again and again "why are you naked?" that i was glad to turn the last page ( )

Creepy page turner!

A little back story for you readers:

The story revolves around five friends that have been together since college and every year they have a reunion to relive old times. This time the friend Helen gets to choose where they are going to have their reunion and she picks a place called the Totem Pole Lodge which is a deserted hotel as something horrific happened there a long time ago, but she doesn't divulge that information to her friends.

Thoughts:

Though the story was really good the book was a little drawn out as not much happened till I got to about halfway through the book and that is quite a long way as the book has over 450 pages. There are quite a few chapters that go back to the past explaining how the characters all came together and it tells stories about each character, which was okay as it gives more details about the character depth, but it just made the story longer.

After the halfway mark of the book, then things start happening and the friends start having problems with someone roaming around the lodge. From then on the book starts heating up and then it all hits the fan as the "someone" makes himself known in a horrifying way!

The book was tense, suspenseful and intense! Kept me on the edge of my seat all the way to the end of the book! Giving this one four Scary Slasher stars.

For more thoughts on this review, please see my blog:
https://crusader1515.blogspot.com/2021/10/blood-games-by-richard-laymon.html ( )

A group of girls had off to an old abandoned lodge in search of their yearly adventure. Things turn bad though when they notice a young lad watching them as they take a dip in the pool. Helen ends up dead and they're fooled at first by Jim, the lad that was watching them, into thinking that his mad, bad creepy brother had killed her, and was planning on doing the same to them.

Well, how wrong could you get? And it doesn't help that they go upsetting a particularly crazy guy(?) called Batty, who begins attacking them with his curses and eventually tries to kill them too. They don't have much luck these girls.

It all ends well though, as you'd expect I suppose. I really enjoyed it, not least because I always look forward to following any of Richard Laymon's female characters, and there are five of them in this book, complete with many, many wonderful descriptions of them in various states of undress. what more could anyone ask for?

Recommended, particularly for Laymon fans, or 80s style horror, which his novels always remind me of. ( )

Richard Laymon has a way of creating full-canvas horror novels that sprawl into multiple lives/horrors all at once, and it's pretty wonderful. In this one, I loved the way he moved between different times to show us a horror story in the present while also bringing to life the characters in moments of the past, all without disrupting the tension or the flow of the story. I imagine that this horror novel might move too slowly for some readers who want to delve primarily into action and not get so wrapped up in the characters, but the fact that the group of friends grounding this novel were so real and had so much depth made the book all the stronger as far as I was concerned.

If you like old-fashioned horror that's character driven and has plenty of blood & action, I'd recommend this one. ( )

Spannend! ( )