Много добра книга както винаги! Държи в напрежение до последната страница. Обогатява те с митология и е удоволствие да я прочетеш.

This is the second thing I've read by Dan Simmons and I love them both. He is a very talented writer, descriptive, ironic, good use of foreshadowing... This is the story of a man who has lost everything, so he decides to return to the town where he grew up 40 years ago and write a story about the summer of 1960, and the death of his 11 year old friend. He isn't prepared for what he finds there. It's a simple ghost story, but so well written it stands out above the rest. This is actually the seguel to Summer of Night, but I have not read that one and didn't need to have read it to like this one.

“But why Duane’s drafty old place? Why Elm Haven? Because he had old connections there. Because the place had changed – for the worse – but so had he, and perhaps it was necessary for him to find that connection to his childhood, to something good about himself, to Duane, to the reason he became a writer and a teacher.”

In this sequel to _Summer of Night_ we rejoin Dale Stewart, now 51 years old and his life in shambles. Having made a life in Montana as an author, college professor, husband, and father, he also largely destroyed that life. Having had an affair with one of his students, no longer with his ex-wife, only seeing his two children every now and then, on a long sabbatical from his university (that wasn’t too thrilled with his affair), personally unhappy with his writing efforts (sort of Western popcorn fiction/summer beach reading about mountain men and Native Americans, nothing highbrow or particularly scholarly, all more than a little formulaic), suffering from depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, and at some level still mourning the death of his childhood friend Duane McBride that summer of 1960, Dale rents the farm Duane lived in and died at that long ago summer, taking residence in the fall (one that looked to becoming an early winter) on the cusp of the new millennium, hoping to get some distance from the mess he made in Montana, forget the woman he loved (the student, Clare Hart), and try to recapture the feeling of that long lost summer, one of “an innocence and breadth of potential,” before Duane died, before the unhappy path his life took, writing a novel of what happened that summer. Basically, Dale has an enormous midlife crisis.

Dale finds Elm Haven and the surrounding area a sad one, one haunted by ghosts. Some are figurative, with once thriving businesses shuttered or razed, people who he once knew moved away or long since passed away, the tiny rural Illinois town in serious decline, that areas that seemed wonderous or mysterious through the eyes of a kid, steeped in kid legend, secret paths through the woods or a rock quarry that was dubbed Billy Goat Mountains or shady lanes passing in front of magnificent old houses were now just sad. Sometimes they were sad because they had changed (elm trees had died, groves of trees were gone, piles of junk were now rusting in areas the boys in the first novel used to play in, wide sunny fields were now scraggly woods) and sometimes because they were viewed through the eyes of a middle aged man (hills weren’t as high, woods not as deep or mysterious, etc).

But also Dale sees literal ghosts, some obviously ghosts, some far from obvious at first, from mysterious lights on at the Duane farm to some very real ghosts with an apparent physicality to them.

Elm Haven does not welcome him back at all. In addition to the ghosts, Dale finds the local sheriff not at all welcoming, some anti-Neo Nazi articles he wrote earned him some skinhead enemies in Elm Haven, and mysterious dogs that seem to follow him in his walks around the snowy grounds of the old Duane farm. Dale suffers from a lack of sleep, from nervousness and anxiety, starts to have issues determining what is real and what isn’t, of wondering if he had false memories, has episodes of lost time, he has no phone reception, landline or cell, at the farm (no internet connection either)…given how awful things are, it is a real wonder Dale stays at the Duane place. He makes excellent progress writing his novel, gets hundreds of pages written, does have a break from life in Montana…but after a time, it becomes pretty clear that Dale is in mortal danger staying at the farm.

Much of the tension in the book comes from wondering if what Dale experienced was real or not, and once finding out a particular element was in fact imagined or a ghost (or a mixture of the two), casting doubt on a number of plot threads from earlier in the novel. The author also weaved in extensive flashbacks with life with Clare, at first it seemed to explain the root of Dale’s misery (his affair and then breakup with Clare) but after a time the creepy unreliable narrator bit with Dale’s current situation does start to affect what Dale recalls about his relationship with Clare leaving the reader to doubt elements of that as well.

An added element is that early on you learn that Dale is sort of haunted as a person, literally, as in the spirit of Duane inhabits a part of his mind. Difficult to explain and I am not sure I entirely understood it, but parts of the book were narrated by Duane, relating what he saw and experienced through Dale. It is unclear for most of the book what if any control Duane’s spirit has over Dale’s memories and actions.

Positives, I liked the exploration of Duane’s character, his home, his family, and the events of his life. Not only was Duane the best written and most interesting character in _Summer of Night_ but also my favorite and in addition to better understand Duane is to better understand what happened in the first novel. You do learn a lot about Duane and except for one very minor element that maybe I had forgotten, did not seem in any way to contradict _Summer of Night _ (I do not remember the nickname given to Duane’s home mentioned a few times in this book). I also liked the winter setting, that seemed very fitting for the type of ghost story in the book, in sharp contrast to the vivid, alive, green, buggy summer of _Summer of Night_, set against a backdrop of families in a thriving small rural town, _A Winter Haunting_ gets a smaller, faded town with no families, bare trees, barren fields, fog, biting wind, dense snow, a perfect setting for one lone, sad man in a land of ghosts. The end of the book also had some exciting action and some really good foreshadowing for that action early on in the book. I also liked the weaving in of elements from Egyptian mythology and Beowulf for elements of the haunting, that was enjoyable.

Negatives, the book could be depressing at times when it focused on how Dale’s life went down the tubes and the day to day realities of life in Elm Haven in the book’s present. The Clare flashbacks were very long at times and I think in the end somewhat misleading, though at the time I really liked the tension they created towards the end. It really seemed the book was heading one direction for an ending and it went another and I maybe should reread a few passages but it looked like there was some misdirection (though it is possible there isn’t; I think this depends upon part on Dale’s perception of reality and the degree to which Duane’s spirit influenced events). Maybe that was my misreading or misremembering and maybe those were legitimate tactics but it felt like there were strong hints the ending might be different (this is a minor complaint I suppose as I liked the ending). Clare as the flashbacks progressed became a very unlikable person, though it also seemed those were flashbacks viewed with hindsight, of Dale recognizing red flags he had missed at the time. Anne, his ex-wife, I think that was her name, was an nonentity in the book, just a name mentioned every now and then or a minor plot element in the Clare flashbacks. Aside from Clare, I never got a sense of Dale’s life back in Montana, that virtually all of his flashbacks were interactions with Clare. There was a long flashback of Dale and Clare in Paris and I am not sure it added much to the book.

My complaints though didn’t outweigh what I liked and I enjoyed the book. Though not as good as _Summer of Night_ I do recommend it (and I also recommend reading _Summer of Night_ first).

This is another really enjoyable novel by Dan Simmons in my opinion, it isn't my favourite but it is very good. As ever, I find the prose to be excellent and his characters are three dimensional and realistic. The novel even contains some action sequences, which I didn't expect to come across in this book and those were done with Dan's very own panache. This book is considered to be a sequel of sorts to Dan's horror novel 'Summer Of Night'. While I think that this book can be read without reading 'Summer of Night', I honestly would urge a potential reader of A Winter Haunting to read 'Summer Of Night' first.
If I were able, I'd give the book 3.5 stars, it isn't a long book and find myself still thinking about it after finishing it last night. Simmons is a master storyteller and he has written a creepy & effective ghost story with this novel, that is worth reading.

I loved Summer of Night so this was really disappointing. Mostly, it was just boring and lackluster, not much of a plot. The few events that did happen were overly descriptive and they just went on and on. There were a couple of surprises but overall I just didn’t care. And the Audible narrator was horrible at women’s voices. I’m just glad it’s over.

Fitting conclusion to Seasons of horror.

Once again it was a well researched horror novel with an original take. It is connected with other stories of the "series" and that made it even more exciting.

I will take a break from Dan Simmons now, but I can say that this series only confirmed his place among my favorite authors. These are not his best books, but they are wild ride full of fresh ideas, they are easy to read and they are so thrilling you almost have to bing-read them. 7/10 for Winter Haunting, 7/10 for Seasons of Horror.

Sometimes I wish books came with an "asshole main character" warning.

For me to enjoy horror, I need to feel the tension. I need to worry for at least one character's safety, otherwise I'm just bored. And if I dislike every notable character, I just do not care about what's happening. It doesn't matter that the main character is (presumably) insufferable on purpose.

The plot is not really anything special either, pretty scattered and disjointed by the end.

I'm pretty bummed that this was my first Simmons, but I'm hoping his sci-fi is better.

oh my god thank you dan simmons!

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oh, dan simmons, i wish you had dedicated the terror to me instead of this one. spooky month is not going as well as i had hoped...

this is fine. it is a very straightforward, classic-feeling horror novel,like an early stephen king or something, and i still think simmons is a good writer, but this one just didn't thrill me the way the terror did.

it is at once a psychological horror novel and a traditional-ish ghost story, with some mythology thrown in for spice. it is tricky business, because we have a character who is medicated after a suicide attempt, returning to his hometown and his deceased childhood friend's house to try his hand at an autobiographical novel (ummm, summer of night??)* , and he finds himself isolated in a cell phone dead zone, and facing a triple threat of ghosties, skinheads, and the horror of his own mind and his guiltish memories. so - what is "real" and what is delusion and what is self-punishment? the reader is kept guessing, and it is perfectly readable and page-turning, but it lacked that special "oomph" that would have turned this from a serviceable novel into a shiverlicious one.

i did like all the nerdishness, with the henry james and the beowulf quotes, and all the english-major memories (and how many horror novels have proust in them, sparking a turning point for the character??) it was dorky good times.

but it just wasn't enough for me, i guess. i need something less...expected - i need a horror novel that is going to scare me, but it just never happens for me. i am scared of plenty of real things, but books have to work really hard to give me the bumps.

this would probably scare someone else more than it did me - the dogs in particular - but alas,to a karen, it remains "fine."


* it would have been nice for me to have known that this was a sequel to summer of night, because now i guess i know how summer of night ends up, and now i am less inclined to read it anytime soon, even though it is sitting right there. i see that goodreads has helpfully called this "seasons of horror #2," but the book itself did not. sigh.

come to my blog!

I read this when it was first published and had no idea it was a sequel. A few years ago, I read the first book, Summer of Night, and looooooved it. Finally, I got around to re-reading (listening) to A Winter Haunting and now I am familiar with the characters and their history. So, even better this time around. I wish the book could've gone on and on because it was just so darn creepy and held my attention.

While occasionally confusing and wrapped in ambiguity, the novel's exploration of memory, trauma, and the enduring influence of one's past on their present is brilliantly executed.

This is the sequel to Summer of Night,but out of all the kids it only has Dale in it , although Duane is in the book as well, as a sort of voice in his head.

Even though i feel it isn't as good as the first it still deserves 5stars. Dale is staying at Duane s olds farm house and soon starts to see people from 40 years ago. It's a very creepy book and at one point it looked like it was following the horror film route of big dinner, too much booze, it's dark out, so it's a good idea to open up the seemingly haunted upstairs!!

As I was reading this , I'm shaking my head going fools, now your in for it!
Even this was written well, and by the time I started to figure out what was going on I was freaked out enough to make me really love this book. So it's not as good as the first, but it's good enough in its own right to make me love it. But it would of been ideal if Lawrence was in it

I read this in the same way my mum watches Spanish soap operas, constantly cussing at the protagonist and telling them not to do that, to go the other way, make the other decision, to even abandoning it and saying I'm done with it, only to pick it back up thirty minutes later. The protagonist, Professor Dale Stewart, on his much needed sabbatical decides to visit his hometown where his bestfriend, Duane, died in a freak accident. Not only does he visit Elm Haven, but he rents Duane's old family home, the McBride farm, which the precocious Duane named 'the Jolly Corner'. This is the part where I'd be on my merry way, but, unh-unh, not Dale, he sticks around and attempts to write a novel about the summer of 1960, the summer Duane died. Going against him, not including me in my best mum's-spanish-soap-opera-watching spectator-director self, are a gang of neo-nazis, a haunted house, a pack of wargs, ghosts of people from his childhood, and a phantom interlocutor that haunts his ThinkPad.