This wasn't my favorite John Saul novel, but it was decent. It starts off with two divers finding and excavating a geode of unknown origin off the coast of Maui. It then transitions to a high school student dying of carbon monoxide poisoning - it wouldn't be a John Saul novel without at least one kid dying after all! And this is just the prologue...

Katharine Sundquist is frustrated with her anthropology job in NY when she gets a call with an enticing job offer to come to Maui to help solve a mystery at an archaeological dig site. She sets off with reluctant teenage son, Michael, in tow for what is supposed to be a three month gig. Once they arrive, however, the nightmare begins as Michael and his new friends start to fall ill and Katharine slowly realizes her new boss is in the middle of the reason why.

In true John Saul fashion, there are a few kids who don't make it to adulthood. However, unlike a lot of his earlier works, there isn't an event 100 years ago that repeats in current day causing them to all die. As with other, older books of his, this book didn't feel dated even though it was published in 1997 - a skill of his I always find myself marveling at.

There were definitely moments in which my heart was racing in a "will they get caught" sort of way rather than "I need to double check the windows before I go to sleep." In the afterword, Saul states he set out to write this one as "speculative fiction." As someone who is used to his being a horror writer, I found parts of the story to be a bit far-fetched; I would describe the book as part-thriller, part science fiction. He did do a great job of tying it all together at the end even if it did make me shake my head. Overall, I applaud his effort to step out into a new genre but I look forward to going back to his horror books I haven't read yet.

I don't recommend this book if you are missing travel due to COVID restrictions. The descriptions of Maui will definitely make that worse!

Three is fair I think. Nothing horror about this really and the creep factor was rather on the low side. It was an ok read. Hmmm, perhaps a 2.5 ...

I wanted to give this book more stars, but the ending was sufficiently cheesy to drop the overall score. I didn’t finish this book feeling satisfied.

There are unusual and unnecessary digressions in overall theme and plot. If there had been a stronger focus exclusively on the heinous medical project, perhaps with the goal of helping humanity survive a future of over-pollution, then I feel it would have hit home a lot more.

Instead, the “origins of the species” angle tilted this one too far over into absurd territory.

The pacing and initial mystery were excellent, however, and kept me glued to the pages. I only wish the final moments hadn’t been so one-dimensional.

Side note: it was very interesting, sometimes humorous, to read a thriller from the late 90s where night vision cameras, cellphones, and “the Net” were still rare marvels of technology.

Geared more towards science fiction than I thought. Still a good read all in all.

The Presence was a fun little science fiction thriller. Had some cool concepts and premises with extra terrestrials and life on Earth. It starts strong then it kind of patters out. At 417 pages this could have been 325-350.

A female lead noticeably written by a man, but fun! Lots of aspects to the mystery and story so even if you predicted one thing another thing would become a mystery that you weren't giving as much attention to.

I always enjoy John Saul's books. They usually fall into the category of "fun read" rather than "spectacular read" and "The Presence" is no different. Never a dull moment, always engaging and begging you to turn the page. I've heard Saul's books post-1990 or so have been less than stellar, but this one is not that. It's definitely worth a read.

OMG, it was so great to read such a 'hard-to-put-down' book again!
It has been a long time since I've had the pleasure of reading a really intense thriller, but John Saul's~ The Presence, was a great one. I don't know why I haven't read more by him since I remember really liking 'Nathaniel' years ago. I will definitely be reading more of his work for a while.

This book captured my interest from the beginning, and the suspense got intense very early on. It is a great unique storyline, plus I really enjoyed all the descriptions of Hawaii. This book really put me into the scene, and the characters are very well developed as well. I really cared about them.

Highly recommend this one.

Decent read by Saul. Mother and teenage son relocate to Hawaii for a few months to help with a dig-- it seems so rather odd bones have been found on Maui. Needless to say, something fishy is about as some of her son's new friends start dying for no apparent reason. She tries to get to the bottom of it and it just gets weirder. Some suspense, but no real thrills. 2.5 stars.

Originally posted on the book blog Creature From the Book Lagoon.

*Trigger Warning: Animal testing, animal death.

Wow. Ok, so this book has been on my TBR shelf longer than any other book… How long? Since 1998!!!

An interesting read. I really admire the research the author put into this book. It brought up interesting science concepts which I really enjoyed! The book's pacing felt a little weird, as I felt the end was a bit rushed. However, overall, I didn't mind too much, and I would still recommend this book! I definitely enjoyed it!

Easy read. Definitely not horror.