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Should've been a short story...

I was reading this book while camping. Everyone decided to turn in but me...I sat up alone by the campfire,and read. Before I knew it I got totally scared. I swear I could hear things in the woods going bump in the night,and I am dodging into the tent, burying myself into my sleeping bag, scared shitless..... If you want a fast read, scary novel, , not much thought needed, just a good old fashioned scare...this is one to read....

It's that good!

This book is rather strange and not one I would necessarily recommend to anyone. It is about a family with a history of devil worship. They move into their ancestral home and immediately things start going wrong. As the story progresses, you see that the ones you at first thought was evil ended up being the good guys and the ones you thought were the good guys were not really so good.

I didn't care for this book the first time I read it and I have to say, my opinion hasn't changed. I am not one for religious centered fiction and hate, hate, HATE things that have to do with Satan, demons, and all that crap.

I give this book a C-

Creepy children, possessed children...John Saul is at it again. If you expect originality from his books, you'll be disappointed, the man has worked out a formula decades ago and stuck to it. However, this particular take on the same old subject was better than most of his books, more horror in it, better pacing, less cliched characters. Very quick read, despite its bulk, and a decent way to waste an afternoon.

What is the true history of the Conway house?

In the small town of St. Albans, Louisiana stands the Conway mansion. For over 120 years, entries made in the Conway family Bible (all made by women) speak of madness, evil, murder, suicide, and disappearances. In 1999, Ted Conway, his wife Janet, and their 3 children move into the house, with hopes of turning the sprawling mansion into an inn. But the locals remember the year 1959, the last year the house was occupied, and the horrific events that occurred then. What now? John Saul takes the reader on a truly terrifying and no holds barred journey into horror - that's what! Murder, suicide, immolation, sacrifice, and gory visions straight from hell all get ample page time. And the natural (and supernatural!) bond between twins is explored and utilized to great effect. Well worth a read.

This book was ok. Like most John Saul stories, they land in the middle. Well for me they do. But every so often I get a craving for them and have to read another. So no, this won't be my last one.

Ted and Janet Conway move into Ted’s ancestral home in Louisiana, along with their children (teenage twins Jared and Kim, and baby Molly) after Ted’s estranged aunt dies. Ted is an alcoholic who was just fired from his job so this seems like a fresh beginning for them. But the house has a legacy of evil that, at first, they try to overlook. But as time goes by, and strange things start happening, along with the total change of behavior in their son Jared, they realize they were wrong in moving here.

I totally enjoyed this book. It was a very creepy, chilling, and captivating read. The house itself was quite eerie, with descriptions of long gloomy halls, darkness outside the windows that goes on and on, a dank and spooky cellar, and people having horrifying dreams (or are they) within the house. The story was easy to read and I was always looking forward to getting back to the book to see what was going to happen next.

Another fine thriller by John Saul.

Well, this does exactly what it sets out to do. Saul is one of those writers whose name has become synonymous with horror. It’s what he does. As such, he’s written this kind of thing quite a few times, and in some cases, better. It’s the sort of standard horror fare that horror aficionados can finish in one sitting and that reads like the plot of any 80s or 90s supernatural horror flick. Is that a bad thing? No, if you like small town horror stories and you’ve already read all the really good ones ('Salem's Lot, Ghost Story et al and then some), then books like these are where you’ll go next; there are hundreds of them from dozens of authors and there is definitely a place for them.

If you’re a casual reader, or only entering the horror genre, there are certainly better places to start, even elsewhere in Saul’s catalog. But if you eat up horror stories like popcorn this will fill that empty spot between your previous and your next horror novel (which will no doubt be the same kind of thing) nicely. Because, let’s face it, when the hunger is upon you, you need your fix.


Update
I borrowed heavily from the above review (basically the whole thing) for my review of The Town, for reasons disclosed there.

I have to put a warning on here to anyone that doesn't like animal mutilation as this book contains some of that which is very graphic.

It kind of surprised even me of the graphic content of the mutilations as I wasn't expecting it for one thing, but I kind of skimmed over those parts as I really didn't want to read it myself. So with that being said, this book was really good.

The Conway family moves into an old two story mansion that they inherited from dear "Aunt Cora". She left the house to her nephew, Ted in her will with a stipulation that him and his family had to live in the house. Up to the time before Aunt Cora died, Ted and Janet Conway were close to maybe getting a divorce as Ted is an alcoholic and their marriage was on the rocks.

The house sits not too far from the small town of St. Albans where everyone knows everyone. The town considers the house an eyesore and they also considered it to be evil as there have been many bad things that happened in the house.

After moving into the house, Janet along with her twin teenagers, Jared and Kim, feel that something is wrong with the house and word around town is the house is haunted. Even though they have moved, Ted is still drinking and Janet fears that eventually the town is going to know that Ted is a drunk, but then after being in the house a couple of so weeks something happens and Ted "changes". He is no longer drinking and he has turned over a new leaf. Janet cannot figure out what has brought on this transformation, but he is back to the Ted that she married. The twins are just as surprised by their father's change of heart and they too wonder what has happened.

The beginning of the end is really what happened as the house has taken control and the evil is seeping out into the family.

The Conway family and the citizens of the town become involved an evil force that has been laying in wait in the basement of the Conway house.

The book takes off about midway along with some gory graphic details that emerges off the pages and it contains a demonic atmosphere through most of the book.

The last half of the book is literally steeped in "evil" and it seemed that I could feel it as I was reading it.

I noticed that the book has gotten mixed reviews saying the book is not that scary, but in my opinion, it was scary to me as it contains voodoo, ritualistic killings, and the animal mutilations. Four stars for this one.

Mostly meh. It was interesting how the husband started out horrible, but when he was possessed, he seemed great.

This was my first book by John Saul and it probably will not be my last book. He is great way with words where things come off as smooth and not tedious and overdrawn. The story was the actual problem in this book.

Now there was not anything wrong with the actual story (sure, there were some inconsistencies with it and things that were not explained/developed fully) but the problem was that the actual story was quite boring IMO. Filled with plenty of religious material that is brought on by a religious town folks who believe in demons, ghosts, and devil taking a form of anything, especially a human being who disagrees with them and their ways of life.

This is the point where we are introduced to Ted and Janet Conway who are a married couple with three kids (a 16 year old twins (Jared and Kim) and a small a baby, Molly). Ted is an alcoholic whose life is controlled and destroyed by alcohol. Janet is a strong woman who is trying to stay with Ted for the sake of the kids. They decide to move to a small town of St. Albans in Louisiana to fix up a recently inherited house and hopefully their marriage. Once they get there, they decide to convert it to a hotel or an inn but the only problem is due to the troubled and very dark history of this particular Conway house, the people of St. Albans don’t want anyone fixing it up since they think it is haunted.

From this point, some weird things start to happen. The younger people in the family start to have bad dreams, have visions, and generally have tough time distinguishing reality from a dream world. The boy in the family starts to behave in a weird way which his dad cites as a him just growing up and going through puberty. However, more things are happening to him besides him getting hair everywhere and getting shitton of zits.

Without spoiling anything else, this book was well written but not original by any means. Most of the book consists of characters assuring one another than nothing they experience is real, people having bad dreams and thinking it happened in real life or that it is some sort of an omen, or characters walking down a street or hallways and thinking they heard or smelled or saw something weird and creepy which usually turns out that it is their head playing tricks on them.

The end is very predictable. Bunch of stuff did not get explained and the book left it so it would mean a sequel might be at hand like in movies where a killer is supposedly dead but camera pans out and shows him twitching or opening an eye or something. This book would have been perfect for a Lifetime movie.

I would not recommend it since I think the author has much better stories that he wrote in the past. I think this was just a paycheck for him and nothing else.