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Searching... Amity Public Library | FIC SAUL | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Villejeune, Florida. A secluded little town at the edge of a vast, eerie swamp. Far from prying eyes. Far from the laws of civilization. Here folks live by their own rules -- dark rites of altars and infants, candles and blood. Years ago the Andersons left town with a dream. Now they are back. To live out a nightmare. Something has been waiting for them. Something unspeakably evil. It feeds on the young and the innocent. And soon it will draw their teenage daughter into its unholy embrace.... From the Paperback edition.
Author Notes
Saul has several major themes in his horror fiction; children as victims, and sometimes perpetrators, of evil; technology used for horrific ends; and occult occurrences (is it something external or internal that causes the horrible things to happen to his characters?). While Saul's earlier work has been noted for its extremely gruesome quality, in his later writing Saul is trying to restrain that aspect of his fiction. Often his plots revolve around hidden, secret evil that is discovered by an innocent person, who must then battle against seemingly impossible odds to defeat the demon.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Saul has several major themes in his horror fiction; children as victims, and sometimes perpetrators, of evil; technology used for horrific ends; and occult occurrences (is it something external or internal that causes the horrible things to happen to his characters?). While Saul's earlier work has been noted for its extremely gruesome quality, in his later writing Saul is trying to restrain that aspect of his fiction. Often his plots revolve around hidden, secret evil that is discovered by an innocent person, who must then battle against seemingly impossible odds to defeat the demon.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The prologue of veteran horror writer Saul's ( Second Child ) new novel is wonderfully scary: A pregnant teenage ``swamp rat'' of the Everglades, spying on a secret meeting of ``the Dark Man'' and ``his children,'' sees a friend offer up her newborn baby, whereupon the masked Dark Man plunges a knife into the infant. Right after that, the teenager's husband promises to deliver his own child ``the night he's born.'' The story proper begins when 16-year-old Kelly Anderson, all her life having suffered nightmares of a menacing old man and now sure she's pregnant by him, tries to kill herself. She recovers and moves from Atlanta with her adoptive parents to her grandfather's house just north of the Everglades. Kelly becomes friends with Michael, her age and also adopted, who admits to similar nightmares and a sense of dread. Michael's adoptive mother, meanwhile, feels a strange kinship to Kelly. The secrets of the Dark Man--his identity and his fountain-of-youth formula--are revealed halfway through the book, and thenceforth the story slides into descriptions of relatively tame to-and-fro-ing, mostly in the swamp, and the revolting revenge of ``the children'' on a group of nasty but well-preserved old men. Saul's ending is cozily sentimental. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Publisher's Weekly Review
The prologue of veteran horror writer Saul's ( Second Child ) new novel is wonderfully scary: A pregnant teenage ``swamp rat'' of the Everglades, spying on a secret meeting of ``the Dark Man'' and ``his children,'' sees a friend offer up her newborn baby, whereupon the masked Dark Man plunges a knife into the infant. Right after that, the teenager's husband promises to deliver his own child ``the night he's born.'' The story proper begins when 16-year-old Kelly Anderson, all her life having suffered nightmares of a menacing old man and now sure she's pregnant by him, tries to kill herself. She recovers and moves from Atlanta with her adoptive parents to her grandfather's house just north of the Everglades. Kelly becomes friends with Michael, her age and also adopted, who admits to similar nightmares and a sense of dread. Michael's adoptive mother, meanwhile, feels a strange kinship to Kelly. The secrets of the Dark Man--his identity and his fountain-of-youth formula--are revealed halfway through the book, and thenceforth the story slides into descriptions of relatively tame to-and-fro-ing, mostly in the swamp, and the revolting revenge of ``the children'' on a group of nasty but well-preserved old men. Saul's ending is cozily sentimental. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved