A 15-year-old boy named Matt lives with his mother Joan and her new husband Bill Hapgood. They also end up taking in Jones mother Emily. There's also a lot of talk of Jones sister Cynthia. Has the story progresses there's speculation that Matt has shot bill in the face while hunting. Matt suffers from nightmares and sees his aunt Cynthia haunting him. She also has sex with him apparently. Then Grandma Emily disappears as well. She has dementia which is really tough on them to begin with. It was so bad Bill left and then came back. As the story progresses and young girl named Becky disappears. Matt goes out to look for her and runs into a couple of football players that beat the crap out of them. In case I didn't tell you he was on the football team before everyone thought he killed his stepdad. Now no one in town likes him. And considering his grandmother disappeared and then the girl that was interested in him, well... So then the girl next door who happens to love Matt doesn't believe he's guilty so she goes to visit. Her name is Kelly by the way. Then everything starts going crazy. So Joan is keeping Becky in a sub basement with her dead mother. She beats the crap out of Matt with a shovel and also beats up Kelly. Somewhere along the way she kills becky. It gets even crazier because now she is really her sister Cynthia. Which is really creepy because Cynthia has sex with her son. Turns out it's really Cynthia's child and Bill is the real dad. But, Joan was terrorized as a child so she developed this split personality and kidnapped Cynthia's baby and raised him herself. Finally at the end of police arrest Joan. Then she's talking to a psychologist as Cynthia who disappears leaving Joan completely clueless as to what happened. Kind of a twisted story at the end there. It took a while to get there but this book was okay. As it progressed you got more and more into it so I suppose that's good. You could kind of see the end coming so it wasn't super surprising. But still a solid book.

i liked it, i don’t know why it has a lot of negative reviews? the plot twist was really good. ig the ending could’ve been better but i still rlly liked it so

I must say, the thematic stars were aligned favorably. John Saul's novel Nightshade had the potential to be a truly remarkable book. That is to say, in Nightshade, John Saul finally delves into some more profound themes. Granted, Nightshade is a classic horror or suspense novel. However, beneath the surface, it also addresses more serious questions: How do we cope with our past? How do we survive trauma? How does repression function? What is guilt (or culpability)? And can complexes of guilt persist or be inherited over generations?

John Saul's narrative style is fitting and engaging: The reader is repeatedly confronted with the past through pointed flashbacks. The flashbacks fall into place like puzzle pieces, forming an increasingly dense picture. Moreover, John Saul successfully narrates the gradual descent into madness of a protagonist, making Nightshade highly worthwhile.

Unfortunately, the Nightshade plot doesn't work as well as expected. The spirit around which everything revolves (the spirit of the deceased aunt Cynthia) appears all too frequently. Someone constantly hears an eerie whisper; someone constantly smells the scent of the heavy perfume that the ghostly apparition brings. This quickly becomes wearisome, turning the horror into routine.

Furthermore, the characters in Nightshade are not particularly well-developed or differentiated from each other. This especially applies to the supporting characters. The high school clique of the youthful protagonist, in particular, is a group of interchangeable (and confusable) stereotypical supporting cast. Finer 'psychologizations' would have been appreciated here.

But here's something positive to end on: With John Saul, you never know what to expect. Meaning: Saul's endings are often somewhat different than one might anticipate. And there are no guarantees of survival. For any character. Whether this holds true for Nightshade as well, I won't reveal, of course. That would be a spoiler.

I really enjoyed this book. Cant wait to read more of John Saul's prodigious work!

After reading another Saul novel, I'm never disappointed by the simplicity and quick pace each story gives. The story contains brutal murders and a certain skeletons that give the reader a horror that they can relate to their fears. Although there was only one major twist, the story could have given the readers a double twist earning another star in rating. Overall, a classic Saul novel.

So in high school I thought I remembered loving John Saul... I couldn't stop reading The Blackstone Chronicles and I thought I had read a few more by him. So I was very excited to find this at the library and start to read it...
I feel like there were only 2 chapters in the middle that I actually enjoyed. The beginning was slow and unimaginative. Things started to get exciting for about 2 chapters and then you figured out what was going to happen and there was no need to read the ending. I did finishing it hoping that I was wrong and there was going to be a twist or something.... but there wasn't.

While this was a bit bizarre it wasn't completely shocking.

My Halloween read ! I'm excited to start!

Well it started out fun... but I can't read about some "cousin" ghost in a incestual relationship with a semi-conscious 16 year old boy. yuck.... done with this

This story of a son seemingly gone wrong but with no recall for his actions, left me all mixed with ike and dislike with the story. In the end I disliked the sexual overtone the most, there was no need for it in the story. The 'scary' came from my own imagination and not so much the story telling, but in the end it was an ok story from an author I enjoy.

I love most of his books... This one however was just terrifying in a bad way.

How? How did I have this book for so many years and kept pushing it to the side? I mean I've always been a fan of John Saul books and was digging the style of cover artwork. Maybe it was the size of the words and page count? But being halloween time I was excited to finally have the drive to pick it up and start it. Within the first few pages we were dropping names and a different flow to a story. So I turned to my fellow readers here on Goodreads and read some of the reviews. Thank you for saving me and my time. I went back to the book and skipped through the story and when I got to the last few pages and how gross and annoying this story would have been I am was ecstatic to drop it off in a free library stand.

I read this book probably 15 years ago. In just reading the decription i immediately remembered this book and the picture it painted in my head. Since i can barely remember what i ate yesterday for dinner, this must have been a good one. So 5 stars! And really who didn't love John Saul in high school.