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Really Random Tuesday is hosted by Suko.





Hello everyone. Halloween has come and gone, that was fast.



Well, I really got into the swing of things and read some spooky books and short stories for the R.I.P. V. Challenge. Here's what I read:

3 books:

*Relentless


* Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

* The Darkest Pleasure



7 Short Stories (I discovered Edith Nesbit along the way):

*The Fall of the House of Usher

*Autopsy Room Four

*Ligeia

* The Violet Car

* The Mystery of the Semi-Detached

*Voluntary Committal

* In the Dark



I also reviewed my Top 10 Favorite Scary Films.


All in all, I'd say I did pretty well. My favorite book for the challenge was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. I also discovered Edith Nesbit and liked reading her short and creepy stories. I enjoyed posting about all these reads and getting some great responses from my blog readers.



Special thanks to Carl for hosting this awesome challenge!

And I'm not quite done reading scary stories. I'm in the middle of Pet Sematary by Stephen King . If you've seen the film version of this one, rest assured, the book is much scarier. In the introduction S.K. says this is the scariest book he's written, so much so, he terrified himself. He says that after he wrote it, he put it away in a drawer, thinking he finally had crossed the line.

I have to agree with him, this book is definitely disturbing.







Lastly, here's a few Halloween photos as promised.



Thsi year I dressed up as Red Riding Hood. I wore this to work...lol.



Diego was a Wizard. He is such a good sport. As soon as I put on his costume, he stood still so I could take pics. But I can only imagine what goes through his mind...besides 'mommy is crazy'. lol!














My daughter was a bunny but she kept getting mistaken for a ballerina for some reason...lol. It was really chilly outside so we went trick-or-treating for about 40 minutes, then we came home and gave out candy to trick-or-treaters.






And my son was 'too cool' to dress up. *sigh* Teenage boys...lol.


Enjoy your Tuesday everyone ;O)

title: The Darkest Pleasure Book 3 in the Lords of the Underworld Series

author: Gena Showalter

genre: paranormal romance

published: 2008

pages: 374

first line: Reyes stood on the roof of his Budapest fortress, five stories up, his feet balanced precariously on the highest ledge.


rated: 3 1/2 out of 5

Reyes is a man possessed. Bound by the demon of pain, he is forbidden to know pleasure. Yet he craves a mortal woman, Danika Ford, more than breath and will do anything to claim her—even defy the gods.


Danika is on the run. For months she's eluded the Lords of the Underworld, immortal warriors who won't rest until she and her family have been destroyed. But her dreams are haunted by Reyes, the warrior whose searing touch she can't forget. Yet a future together could mean death to all they both hold dear.…

The Darkest Pleasure is book 3 in Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underworld Series. In this series, after opening Pandora's Box, a group of immortal men have been cursed to house demons for eternity. They live in a remote castle in Budapest.


Just to name a few, Maddox is the Keeper of Violence, Paris is the Keeper of Promiscuity, Reyes the Keeper of Pain and Lucien is the Keeper of Death.




Each one of these immortals keeps these demons inside himself, the demon always part of his thinking and awareness, almost like an inner voice. These demons make life for these men nearly unbearable and love almost impossible.
Each book in the series involves all of the immortals, but centers on one in particular and adds a heroine to the mix.



Book three centers on the immortal Reyes, the Keeper of Pain. I've actually been interested in reading Reyes story since I read the first book in the series.
Reyes houses the Demon of Pain which will not rest until Reyes injures himself, badly. *see the first line quoted above* His demon craves agony and Reyes finds himself craving it as well. It's almost like an addiction. He'll injure himself, heal quickly, only to have to do it again and again, for all eternity. Small injuries don't please his demon. Reyes jumps off buildings, shatters bones, has his spleen removed, stabs himself...stuff like that. If he doesn't injure himself on a regular basis, Reyes will have to injure others.




Reyes falls for Danika Ford the first time he sees her, in book 1. Danika and her family are on the run after being held captive by the Lords themselves.



One of the Lords, Aeron, has been ordered by the Titans to kill Danika and her family. Aeron however, does not want to kill the family, but his demon is craving it. He begs Reyes to trap him deep underground, near Hades, where he won't be able to do harm. This is where the storyline with Danika and Reyes begins in book 3.


Danika also finds herself unable to forget the beautiful and haunted Reyes since she first sees him. She is confused however as to whether the Lords are friends or enemies.





While on the run and in disguise, Danika is captured by Hunters, humans who dedicate their lives to finding and capturing the Lords of the Underworld. However, these Hunters use extreme measures and aren't in their right minds themselves.


When Reyes finds out Danika has been captured, he goes to save her.
Danika and Reyes are instantly drawn to each other when they reunite but Reyes wonders if Danika is secretly working with Hunters to bring the Lords down.
He also wonders if his 'angel', which is what he calls her, can truly love him despite his demon constantly craving physical pain.



As the story unfolds the Lords discover that Danika has a special power of her own.

He was right and wrong wrapped in the same sensual package, with a kiss and flavor that transported her at once to the heights of heaven and the depths of hell.




He had sprung from her nightmares, yet he had become her fantasy, weaving gossamer wings of desire through her every cell. He was the only thing she wanted and everything she shouldn't have.

I like how Gena Showalter gives her heroes heart and soul and makes her heroines smart and sassy. These reads are fun. Plus I'm a sucker for Alpha males. Funny enough I don't read many paranormals, but this author has become a favorite.






I read and really enjoyed the first book in this series, The Darkest Night. I stumbled upon it at the bookstore one day and am very glad I did. The second book is called The Darkest Kiss, and was so-so for me mostly because of the influx of different characters and a plot that was a bit too busy for me. I didn't want to give up on this series and have been meaning to get back into it. I am glad I finally did.



I liked reading about Danika and Reyes and I wondered how these two would work it out. The love scenes were well written, thankfully they weren't 'over the top', considering Reyes loves pain. The author found a way for these two characters to be together despite the violent demon Reyes houses.


I liked how Reyes was torn between his love for Danika and just leaving her be. He's a great hero, tormented and sensitive. He didn't want to corrupt Danika, he considers her an angel.

The storyline was fun, the writing was fast paced and I do look forward to the next book in the series. I also liked how the author weaved in other characters to the plot, new and old. It wasn't overwhelming. One thing I disliked was the length of the book, I felt like it could have been 50 pages or so shorter. Other than that, this was a good read.




If you enjoy paranormal romance, Alpha males and lots of action, you might like this series. I recommend reading them in order though.


Next in the series is The Darkest Whisper, which centers on Sabin who houses the Demon of Doubt.










R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge

title: In the Dark

author: Edith Nesbit

genre: short story/supernatural/horror

published: 1910

first line: It may have been a form of madness.





In this short story by Edith Nesbit, the narrator, named Winston, and Haldane are best friends. They both dislike a fellow classmate named George Visger for being a know-it-all. Once the friends are grown men and off to college, they are still in contact. When Winston studies abroad for a year and returns, he finds Haldane is sickly and depressed. Haldane is packing and will be moving out of his apartment.
He won't tell Winston what's wrong with him, but leaves the next day, leaving no new address where he can be found.






When Winston finally sees him again, it is another year later, and Haldane looks worse. Over breakfast Haldane tells Winston that he is going to kill himself and wants to explain why.



Haldane tells him that he and Visger got into an argument over lies Visger told Haldane's girlfriend. Apparently the girlfriend died inexplicably afterwards. He wound up killing Visger himself by strangling him. He won't tell Winston where he put the body.

I had said nothing. It is not easy to think at once of the tactful and suitable thing to say, when your oldest friend tells you that he is a murderer.

Now Haldane insists Visger has been haunting him. He says before he killed him, Visger told him 'you won't be able to get rid of the body'. Haldane sees Visger everywhere he goes and is terrified he will die in the dark.



Winston tells Haldane it's all in his mind, there is no ghost, and takes Haldane away to try to help him forget. The two travel, and it seems Haldane is better.
He tells Winston that he is leaving everything to him in his will. Winston sees that Haldane isn't better at all, he is still afraid he will die in the dark soon.




They wind up staying at an Inn called Grande Vigne, with the initials G.V. stitched in large red letters on the bedsheets. The same initials as George Visger.


Haldane is very jumpy and is still fearful of Visger's ghost. He wants to get a glass of water in the middle of the night, but refuses to go alone and refuses to stay alone while Winston goes and gets it. They set off together to get the water, then return to their room.



When they get into bed, Haldane complains to Winston that his sheets are all missing and that he is freezing. He starts to freak out and yells for Haldane to light the candle.

'Light the candle, light the candle,' he said, and his voice broke, as a boy's does sometimes in the chapel. 'If you don't, he'll come to me. It is so easy to come at anyone in the dark. Oh Winston, light the candle, for the love of God! I can't die in the dark.'

Haldane starts yelling that Visger is in the bed beside him. Once Winston finally lights the candle, he sees Haldane dead on the bed, with another dead man beside him. It turns out the two friends came back to the wrong room after getting the cup of water, and Haldane got into bed in the dark, with the corpse of a man who died of a heart attack in that room recently.



Shortly after the death of his friend, the police deliver Winston a large metal box, left for him by Haldane. He opens the box in private, only to discover the body of Visger is inside the box alongside the body of another dead man.



I like Edith Nesbit's creepy short stories, this is my third time reading her and I think she's pretty good. However, In the Dark was definitely scary and had me really interested in what was going to happen next, but also a bit confusing. I didn't like how Haldane's girlfriend mysteriously dies with no explanation. And I didn't like how in the end there was a second corpse inside the large metal box. I felt it wasn't explained fully and I ended up re-reading a few bits of the story to see if I could understand it. Another thing that bothered me was how Winston simply accepts that his friend is a murderer and wants him to move on with his life.



But then again, the last lines in this story do let the reader know this one is left up to interpretation:

Explain it as you like. I offered you, if you remember, a choice of explanations before I began the story. I have not yet found the explanation that can satisfy me.

All in all, a good, creepy short story, if you don't mind an unresolved ending.





You can read In the Dark free online here.

English poet, journalist, and short-story writer, perhaps now best-known for her children's books (the twice-filmed Five Children and It, The Railway Children and The Wouldbegoods) and the over-anthologized horror tale "Man-Size in Marble." She also published works under the joint pseudonym (with her husband) "Fabian Bland."


-quoted from The Literary Gothic

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge

title: Voluntary Committal

author: Joe Hill

genre: horror/short story

published: 2007

first line: I don't know who I'm writing this for, can't say who I expect to read it.





Voluntary Committal is a short story from Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts. I read this collection of short stories a while ago and I did enjoy it very much.



In this story Nolan tells the tale of his younger brother Morris, who was a schizophrenic that went missing three weeks ago. Nolan's friend Eddie, was a troublemaker at school and had behavioral problems, also went missing years ago when Nolan was still in high school.



Morris builds these amazing tunnels out of cardboard boxes in his basement. Within these tunnels exists an almost surreal other world. Morris's tunnels are elaborate. He draws inside the walls, adding different effects to make them seem maze like and otherworldly. However, Nolan is creeped out by these handmade creations and dislikes being in the basement alone or entering the forts himself. The few times he's entered them, he's been disoriented and a bit shocked.

The box at the center of Morris's cardboard kracken was roomy enough to provide shelter for a family of five and their dog. A battery-operated lava lamp bubbled in one corner, red globs of plasma rising and sinking through viscous amber fluid. Morris had papered the inside of the enormous box with silver foiled Christmas wrap. Sparks and filaments of light raced here and there in trembling waves, sheets of gold and raspberry and lime, crashing into each other and vanishing. It was as if in the course of my long crawl to the center of the fort, I had gradually been shrinking, until at last I was no larger than a field mouse, and had arrived in a little room suspended inside a disco ball.

When Eddie does something terrible, and involves Nolan in the crime, Morris overhears the two discussing it afterwards. Morris knows Eddie will never leave Nolan alone and he wants to get rid of Eddie himself, permanently.



This is when Eddie mysteriously goes missing and only Nolan and Morris know where he went. When the boys are grown up and Nolan goes away to college, Morris moves out on his own and gets an apartment. However, shortly after that he voluntarily commits himself to a psychiatric hospital only to mysteriously disappear himself soon after.



All that is left is Nolan trying not to think about Eddie and his brother Morris, but being the only one to know exactly where they went.

In the end, people usually get a bit more of what they want than they can really handle, don't they?

I enjoyed re-reading this short story. I could imagine Morris's magical and creepy forts. As I was reading I did get the chills while author Joe Hill describes the basement and Morris's huge creations made out of simple cardboard boxes, yet leading to other dimensions. It was very much like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Joe Hill is the author of a novel, Heart-Shaped Box, a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, and an occasional comic book series, Locke & Key. His second novel, Horns, will be available from William Morrow, in February of 2010. He lives in a small stone cell at the bottom of a chasm; there is only one steep, treacherous trail leading down to it, and the way is protected by fierce goats.

-quoted from the author's website

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge

title: The Mystery of the Semi-Detached

author: Edith Nesbit


genre: short story/horror/ghost story

published: 1893 in a short story collection titled 'Grim tales'

first line: He was waiting for her, he had been waiting an hour and a half in a dusty suburban lane, with a row of big elms on one side and some eligible building sites on the other-and far away to the south-west the twinkling yellow lights of the Crystal Palace.




In the short story, The Mystery of the Semi-Detached, the narrator is waiting for his fiancee one May night at ten-o'clock on her street. When she doesn't come out of her parents home to meet him, he goes to her front gate. He sees that her front door is wide open and begins to worry. Upon entering the dark house, it seems abandoned, yet he has the feeling that he is not alone.



When he goes upstairs and lights a candle, he sees his fiancee wearing a gown, lying on her bed, her throat slashed. The narrator runs out of the house in hysterics and is picked up by the police for public drunkenness. After spending the night in a jail cell, and after his shock wears off, he tells the police what he saw the night before. That morning they take him to his finance's house only to find her alive and well. After he tells her what he saw, and describes that he even saw her calendar was dated October 21st althought it was mid-May, she tries to tell him he was imagining things.


She explains to him that she and her family went to the Crystal Palace and left the house alone.




He insists it wasn't a hallucination and moves his fiancee and her mother in a different house, all the while never forgetting what he witnessed that night.

He was a very ordinary, common place, young man, and he didn't believe in visions, but he never rested day or night till he got his sweetheart and her mother away from that commodious semi-detached, and settled them in a quiet, distant suburb. In the course of removal, he incidentally married her, and the mother went on living with them.



His nerves must have been shaken, because he was queer for a very long time, and was always inquiring if anyone had taken the desirable semi-detached; and when an old stockbroker with a family took it, he went through the length of calling on the old gentleman and imploring him by all the he held dear, not to live in that fatal house.

The narrator tries to convince the next residents, a stockbroker and his family, not to move into the house, but they don't take his warning seriously. That following October, on the 21st, the narrator's wife finds him one morning holding the newspaper, white as a ghost. When she reads the paper, she sees the headline. The stockbroker's daughter has been found inside the house, lying on her bed, her throat slashed.



I've become a fan of Edith Nesbit's short stories. This was a good, creepy, ghost story. The only thing I didn't like was that they didn't explain what the Crystal Palace is. Upon googling it, I found the Crystal Palace was a a cast-iron and glass building erected in Hyde Park, London, holding the Great Exhibition.



You can read The Mystery of the Semi-Detached for free online here.

English poet, journalist, and short-story writer, perhaps now best-known for her children's books (the twice-filmed Five Children and It, The Railway Children and The Wouldbegoods) and the over-anthologized horror tale "Man-Size in Marble." She also published works under the joint pseudonym (with her husband) "Fabian Bland."



-quoted from The Literary Gothic

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge

Hi everyone. Halloween is just around the corner, and that means the tv networks are playing lots of scary movies. I've actually been spending quite a few hours these past couple of weeks glued to the tv watching some old favorites.




I have quite a few favorites when it comes to horror films, I can't possibly list them all here. I have narrowed it down to my favorite 10.


Here they are in no particular order. The movies that have made me cringe, given me nightmares and made me afraid to be home alone.










1. Halloween

plot: A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood escapes on a mindless rampage while his doctor chases him through the streets.

This was one of the first scary movies I watched when I was a tween and it really scared me silly. First off, the mask is terrifying. The way Michael Myers walks after his victims, slowly but surely, always creeps me out. And the music is just plain scary. It's the perfect horror movie, a classic.














2.The Ring

plot: A young journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone in a week of viewing it.

The setting is dark and dreary, the plot disturbing and when that little girl came out of the television at the end, I almost peed my pants.













3.The Grudge

plot: An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.

Almost every scene in this movie scares me. And that croaaaaaakkkkkkkkk noise gives me automatic chills. I actually jumped a little out of my seat during some of this movie.











4. Scream

plot: A psychopathic serial killer is stalking a group of teens just like in the movies!

This movie is not only scary, but cool also. The characters are likable, they seem like everyday teens. Scream makes fun of scary movies, while being scary itself and keeping you guessing until the very end. I like that it is a "whodunit" type mystery. Fantastic.















5.The Shining

plot: A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

Everything about this movie scares me to bits. I think one of the most disturbing scenes is when Shelly Duvall's character finds her husbands supposed manuscript and all she sees is the phrase All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy typed over and over on hundreds of pages.















6. The Exorcist

plot: When a teenager is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two priests to save her daughter.

I watched this movie when I was little, I want to say around 11 years old. It both shocked and horrified me. That's all it took, just one time watching it. I'll never watch it again. The scariest thing is that it was based on true events.










7. Rosemary's Baby

plot: A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences.

How creepy was this movie? The way Rosemary's husband is trying to convince her suspicions all in her head. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) seems so innocent and she's such a victim in this film, you can't help but root for her. The poor woman is carrying Satan's Spawn for heaven's sake!






There's one scene where Rosemary is in the kitchen eating raw, bloody liver. Apparently from what I've heard, Mia Farrow insisted on eating real raw liver for the scene. She wanted to make it realistic.












8.The Strangers

plot: A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants.

I watched this one alone at night, curled up on the couch and I still remember how terrified I was about halfway through the film. When it was done, I just turned the tv off and was literally too scared to get up and walk around my house. I was scared stiff!
There's some scenes in this film where there's just utter quiet in the house and people think they are alone, but are being watched, and that can be terrifying in itself.












9.The Sixth Sense

plot: A boy who communicates with spirits that don't know they're dead seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist.

This movie scared the bejezzes out of me and had me a little paranoid that there were ghosts wandering all around us. The simplest things like a ghost child walking down the hallway would scare me silly while watching this film. The surprise ending was fantastic. And that famous line: I see dead people.









10.The Omen

plot: An American ambassador learns to his horror that his son is actually the literal Antichrist.

Damien is so cold and calculated, it is disturbing. And the way his mother figures it out, but no one will believe her...
The atmosphere is perfectly dark and dreary. This is a simple and shocking film. Another classic.

















R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge


What about you? Have you seen any of these? What are your favorites?

title: The Violet Car

author: Edith Nesbit

genre: short story/supernatural/horror

published: late 1800's-early 1900's?

first line: Do you know the downs-the wide, windy spaces, the rounded shoulders of hills leaned against the sky, the hollows where farms and homesteads nestle sheltered, with trees round them pressed close and tight as a carnation in a button hole?






The Violet Car is a short story by Edith Nesbit. It is narrated by a nurse in London, who is telling her story about being sent to a home in Charleston for a mental case involving an elderly couple.




Mr. Eldridge wrote to the nurse asking her to come attend to his deranged wife. Yet when she arrives at their doorstep, the wife acts like she is fine, but Mr. Eldridge is the one who is deranged. The Eldridge's live on a large neglected farm and from the getgo something seems odd about them.


After dinner the couple always has a cup of tea and goes for a walk, where they return sad and depressed afterwards, the wife crying. However, other than this, the seemingly odd couple does not seem mentally ill.
The nurse arrives at their home in November, and by February she decides she should move on, seeing as the couple seemes fine. She no longer wants to accept payment for her services if she isn't really needed.


Spying on the couple one evening during their walk, the nurse sees that Mr. Eldridge and his wife go down to the lane and he freaks out insisting that a violet colored car is coming. He screams and pushes his wife out of the lane so she won't get hit. Yet, neither his wife nor the nurse hear or see a car.



Afterwards, when the nurse questions the couple, she finds out that their daughter had passed away after being run over by a violet colored car on the lane. Mr. Eldridge has never truly recovered from his grief and he insists he can hear the car coming and there is terror inside. So the nurse tells him she is going down the lane by herself to investigate and to prove him it's all in his imagination. That there is no car coming and perhaps he should consider moving.

I walked up and down the lane in the dusk, wishing not to wonder what might be the hidden horror in the violet car. I would not let blood into my thoughts. I was not going to be fooled by thought transference, or any of those transcendental follies. I was not going to be hypnotized into seeing things.

Reluctantly the nurse walks down to the lane one evening, only to find out that Mr. Eldridge silently followed her and is standing further up the lane.
She sees him once again freaking out over the car, and to her amazment, she actually sees the car as well.

Mr. Eldridge is hit by the car, and by the time the nurse reaches him, he is dead. However, there are no tire marks on the ground and no marks on him. Yet she saw it with her own eyes, the violet car ran him over.
When the doctor arrives, he says Mr. Eldridge died of a heart attack. There is no sign of a car.




I thought The Violet Car was a creepy short story. It scared me in a simple way.
The writing isn't overly descriptive, leaving it up to the readers imagination.
There's no blood or gore, just an everyday seemingly normal older couple and a nurse who is trying to help them. I definitely got the chills when the nurse went down the lane to prove to
Mr. Eldridge that there was no car. She was secretly terrified of going, and was not only trying to convice Mr. Eldridge that the car was in his imagination, but she was also trying to convince herself.

English poet, journalist, and short-story writer, perhaps now best-known for her children's books (the twice-filmed Five Children and It, The Railway Children and The Wouldbegoods) and the over-anthologized horror tale "Man-Size in Marble." She also published works under the joint pseudonym (with her husband) "Fabian Bland."

-quoted from The Literary Gothic

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge

title: Relentless

author: Dean Koontz

genre: suspense/thriller

pages: 428

published: 2009

first line: This is a thing I've learned: Even with a gun to my head, I am capable of being convulsed with laughter.

rated: 2 out of 5 stars

As a writer, I succeed by deceiving readers into accepting that the story I'm telling as true is as true as their lives, that what happens to my characters should intellectually and emotionally involve them no less than they should be concerned about their real-world neighbors. But I have never been good at self-deception.

Relentless is about an insane book critic, it caught my interest right away.



34 year old writer Cullen Greenwich is married to Penny Bloom, has a 6 year old six-year-old prodigy son named Milo and a dog named Lassie.

Literary critic Shearman Waxx gives Cullen's latest book a bad review. Cullen is really upset by this, even though his wife keeps telling him to just let it go.
When Cullen finds out what restaurant the book critic frequents, he goes there for lunch with his son, and runs into Waxx. After an odd run-in in the men's room, Waxx takes notice of Cullen and says one word to him on his way out...'Doom'.



Soon after Cullen spots an intruder in his home, and identifies him as being the book critic. What ensues afterward is an all out terrorizing of Cullen and his family by this book reviewer. The family ends up on the run, not wanting to inform the police because of the media circus that would develop. With the help of friends and various connections, they are able to stay at different homes, but somehow Waxx keeps finding them.



You do need to be willing to suspend disbelief for this read. I just didn't feel like this book critic had enough motive to become hell bent on killing Cullen and his family.


Before you know it, Waxx is after the family, there's explosions and shootings and it's all kind of 'over the top'. Authorities don't notice all this mayhem?


I felt like the methods Waxx was using were just plain absurd. He was almost like a larger than life villain finding Cullen and his family no matter where they went.

The longer Waxx waited to speak again, the more I wondered what his game might be. I had no doubt that he had come here to harm us. That he wanted first to terrorize us seemed obvious, as well. But his boldness, the risks he took, and his eerie patience in the dark gave me the impression that his purpose was more complex than the psychotic thrill of torment and murder.

I also felt like two parents who are on the run from a psychotic maniac wouldn't be so calm and collected about discussing it in front of their 6 year old.


Here's Cullen speaking to 6 year old Milo about what the book critic threatened:

"All right, all right. He says he'll cut out your heart and feed it to your mother, Are you both happy to know that? Mmmmm?


"Don't worry, Milo," Penny said. "I absolutely won't eat it."


"What else did he say?" Milo asked.


"Then he'll cut out your mother's heart and feed it to me."


"This guy," Milo judged, "is a major sicko."

It's been a while since I last read a Koontz book. Years actually. And I've been meaning to pick him up again. Koontz is a favorite of mine, I tend to feel like he won't disappoint.


I'm really, really sorry to say I didn't really enjoy this one more.
I was curious as to what would happen next, and at 428 pages, I'm surprised I finished reading it. I kept putting it away and considered making it a DNF. I was set on finishing it though, because I hoped it would get better. He did make me laugh a few times while reading.

I have a 20-gauge pistol-grip shotgun. It'll stop any book critic ever born.

I still love Koontz anyway and will continue to read his work. This is my first time reading this author where I've been disappointed.




I think Koontz puts his heart and soul into his writing and I did find a few passages I enjoyed. As I read, I would find him throwing glimmers of hope into the storyline.

Among other things, my past had taught me that the very fact of my existence is a cause for amazement and wonder, that we must seize life because we never know how much of it remains for us, that faith is the antidote to despair and that laughter is the music of faith.

This book has been read as part of R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge