Michael Rowe (1) (1962–)

This novella was a quick wild ride, once it got going. I think it could have benefitted from a longer and more thorough treatment, to give us a more nuanced view of our main characters, but as I understand this was originally a short story, perhaps this is really all the author had to say about his characters. But I felt for Mikey and Wroxy. I had a small, very small, taste of being bullied as a child, and I remember other children who were the constant targets of harassment, likely much worse than was done publicly. The ending… is the logical conclusion of Mikey’s choices, but not the one I hoped for. Sometimes, though, the ending that we, as readers want, is not the ending that is right. It was still satisfying.

Audiobook, via Audible. Joel Froomkin was the perfect voice for Mikey, although he reminded me irresistibly of George McFly.

I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo square New Release: mystery, suspense, horror or supernatural that was published after 10/31/17. Although it was based on a short story written in the late 1980’s, this novella was just published in February 2018.
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Wild Fell is a ghost story that starts out well with a scary scene right out of an '80s movie involving two kids late at night on the shore of a lake. Those kids will go on to become part of local ghost lore as the book moves forward in time. The setting involves a creepy old house, an isolated island, remote wilderness, and a small town--all of my favorite horror-story settings, so that all seems promising. There then follows an extended section about the main character, Jamie, as a child and the creepy little girl in the mirror who befriends him and takes care of bullies on his behalf. There is a scene with a turtle that will disturb animal lovers. I enjoyed this exposition and was looking forward to seeing how Jamie would connect back to the house on the island. He does as an adult but first there is quite a bit about him dealing with his father's Alzheimer's disease. By the time he does get up to the lake, after having bought the house unseen, we are running out of book. Jamie spends one frightening night in the house, does some research in town--again, all very standard for a ghost story. And then there is the end. Abrupt, bizarre, and unsatisfying. It feels like after doing all this work to set up the characters and setting and ghosts, the author just decided not to continue with the story. At the very least drop the illusion and show Jamie the ruined house. And I'm not really sure how I feel about the incest. Half a star deducted for the ending, but most of the book was very engaging.

By the way, I think Jamie's best friend, Hank, is meant to be a trans character, not a butch lesbian. Pronouns are wrong, but even though this book was published not that long ago, people were still figuring all this out at that time. It's hard to believe how much the culture has changed around trans people in such a short time. I wish Hank had played a larger role in the end as well.… (plus d'informations)

I've seen several reviews that state some sort of variation of "this is a rollicking vampire novel" and, sorry, I have to say no. I'm not saying it's bad, because it's not. But there's a protracted opening that ultimately pays off, then there's very little in the way of vampires until the last quarter of the book. That section from about 10% of the way in until about the 75% mark is a whole lotta characters talking.

All right, let me back up a bit and first indicate what I didn't like. There were a fair amount of punctuation and spelling errors in the first third (strech for stretch, misplaced quotation marks, etc.), but they evened out as the novel progressed. I also found much of the dialogue a touch stilted, or maybe a better way to put it is, I found it unrealistic. I don't know, I just found I kept getting popped out of the story when I read a lot of the dialogue, especially when the cops or Adeline Parr was involved.

As mentioned above, there was also a lot through the middle that simply was characterization. Jeremy's hand-wringing about meeting his former lover in the town (that never came to anything), Elliot's misplaced hatred of the Indian, Billy Lightning (that never came to anything), the revelation that Adeline had had inappropriate relations with another character (that never came to anything), and so on.

On the other hand, when it came to Finn, the twelve-year-old Tomb of Dracula reading kid with Sadie, his dog, the pages just sang. Finn is a brilliant character and the main reason I enjoyed this book. Any time he shows up, I perked up. The dialogue was great, his entire plot was great, Sadie was great, his mom was great. His father was a little underutilized, but I could live with that. His interactions with Morgan were also a highlight.

I also liked Billy Lightning, even if I could never actually buy into the reason he showed up in Parr's Landing.

And then there's the end of the novel. With no spoilers here, I'll just say I understand what Rowe was doing, I understand why he did it, but for me, it flat out didn't ring true. After the buildup of what the vampires were like, the ending just didn't work for me. And that's all I'll say about that.

So, for me, I could have used less of the existing subplots, I would have like more on the "thing in the mountain" subplots, as well as more of what the vampires were doing in town (it was kind of a this character turned into a vampire, that vampire turned into a vampire, then without warning, it jumped to, holy cow! Almost everyone's a vampire! with no illustration of how that came to be, or how it would be dealt with).

Still for all of that, I enjoyed the narrative voice, and, as I said, Finn. You got me with Finn.… (plus d'informations)