A satisfactory first offering in a new supernatural series.
A malicious spirit haunts his old hunting grounds in House’s (Save Your Money, Save Your Family, 2011, etc.) paranormal tale.
Wizzie and Billy Frank are thrilled to move into an old, spacious Southern estate in Mystery Acres, Alabama. The price is just right for the young couple, although they soon find out there’s a sinister reason for the bargain: Their lovely, historic home is haunted by the spirit of Chief Running Blood, a fierce Mecklesh warrior who hates white people, and who swore revenge on the night of his untimely death. Running Blood was killed by a Native American brave’s wolf companion, Tala. Although all three of them died in a struggle, Running Blood came back as an evil ghost, while the brave, Red Wolf, and Tala returned as more benevolent spirits. Author House fills the novel with paranormal activity, including freak storms, glowing lights, strange noises and possession. Wizzie, often alone at night, suffers through many of these terrifying events, which escalate as the narrative progresses. Eventually, the Franks and their ghost-hunting neighbor, Booger, enlist the help of Red Wolf, Tala and a Native American medicine man. They all work to find a solution to end the ancient warrior’s curse and banish his spirit forever. House does an admirable job of setting the scene in rural Alabama, and Southern colloquialisms abound, in phrases such as “hot and humid as a toad’s back,” an apt description for the Southern summer weather. However, although some of the regional charm is quaint and amusing, other elements seem outdated and strike a sour note; for example, Wizzie, at one point, explains that Billy is “old-fashioned and preferred her not to work after they got married.” House’s ghost story is promising—an ancient Native American curse and a haunted house are both classic horror-movie fodder—but it takes a while for the story to pick up speed, and feels a little rushed at the conclusion. That said, the Franks are certainly likable characters, and the appearances of Chief Running Blood are truly creepy.
A satisfactory first offering in a new supernatural series.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A presold prefab blockbuster, what with King's Carrie hitting the moviehouses, Salem's Lot being lensed, The Shining itself sold to Warner Bros. and tapped as a Literary Guild full selection, NAL paperback, etc. (enough activity to demand an afterlife to consummate it all).
The setting is The Overlook, a palatial resort on a Colorado mountain top, snowbound and closed down for the long, long winter. Jack Torrance, a booze-fighting English teacher with a history of violence, is hired as caretaker and, hoping to finish a five-act tragedy he's writing, brings his wife Wendy and small son Danny to the howling loneliness of the half-alive and mad palazzo. The Overlook has a gruesome past, scenes from which start popping into the present in various suites and the ballroom. At first only Danny, gifted with second sight (he's a "shiner"), can see them; then the whole family is being zapped by satanic forces. The reader needs no supersight to glimpse where the story's going as King's formula builds to a hotel reeling with horrors during Poesque New Year's Eve revelry and confetti outta nowhere....
Back-prickling indeed despite the reader's unwillingness at being mercilessly manipulated.
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1976
ISBN: 0385121679
Page Count: 453
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1976
PERSPECTIVES
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