Chills and Thrills!

Backstory:

As Halloween approaches, the town of Pine Deep starts having bodies pile up and something is still not right in the town as bodies that were dead start coming back to life. Things have escalated in the town since all the horrific trouble went down in the first book "Ghost Road Blues". The citizens of the town are trying to learn what is really going on and why bodies that are supposed to be dead are up and wandering the town!

What kind of evil is hiding out in the town of Pine Deep? Why are bodies not staying dead? Who or what is behind the slayings of the town citizens? Can anyone stop what is happening in Pine Deep?

No spoilers here as you will need to read this trilogy!

Thoughts:

This second book picks up exactly where the first one left off and the main characters that were in the first book are back in this second installment. The town is in a continual upheaval with bodies being killed and no one seems to know what is really going on or what is actually killing the towns people.

The author keeps the mystery of what is really happening within the town a secret and the story is slowly built up with suspense. The pace picks up the more I read of the story and I learned more of what is exactly happening to the towns people the closer I got to the end of the book. By the end of the book I knew what was causing the havoc by the description of what was happening to the bodies. But the how and why of it all was wrapped within the mystery of the story.

Looking forward to reading the last book in the trilogy to learn more of the secrets and mysteries of the town of Pine Deep. Giving this book five "Creeped Out Chiller" stars!

Highly Recommend!


Note to readers: The books are not stand alone - they must be read in order to understand the storyline as each book runs on the heels of the previous book. :) ( )

Did I ever say how much I hate series books? The ending here was even worse, suspense-wise, than the first volume; you actually could have quit after [b:Ghost Road Blues|125965|Ghost Road Blues (Pine Deep, #1)|Jonathan Maberry|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388231808s/125965.jpg|121320] but here the cliff-hanger is so unresolved that there is no way you cannot read the next book in the Pine Deep series, [b:Bad Moon Rising|2314130|Bad Moon Rising (Pine Deep, #3)|Jonathan Maberry|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388195588s/2314130.jpg|2320556]. This trilogy is going to make [b:It|18342|It|Stephen King|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309376909s/18342.jpg|150259] look like a pamphlet before it's over.

I had to lower my rating for this one, probably actually 3-1/2 stars. It was too slowly paced and seemed to have a bit of filler that didn't move the plot forward much. Good character development in a couple of new characters and one old one from GRB. The other weakness over GRB is that there just isn't the sense of novelty and the unique plotting ideas that there were in GRB, with the gangsters coming to town, etc. This seems to be devolving into a conventional vampire and werewolf fest. I'm not all that keen on most of the standard horror tropes and there just isn't the creativity in the plot here that there was in GRB.

Still, well written and with enough suspense thriller elements to keep you turning the pages. It is not a "deep" book so reading it fast isn't going to leave anything behind. [b:Ghost Road Blues|125965|Ghost Road Blues (Pine Deep, #1)|Jonathan Maberry|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388231808s/125965.jpg|121320] was just so much better I think Maberry may have made a mistake by stretching this to three 500 page volumes. Some people just can't get enough of the characters they love, but I'm not one of those. I don't read for that. We'll see if volume 3 justifies my fears or makes me a liar.

Accompaniment: Willie Dixon, Slim Harpo, Robert Johnson. ( )

Maybe there's a groove we readers need to fall into with certain authors and I certainly needed to find it here, or at least for the first novel, but fortunately, I had no problems with this one.

Maybe it's just the fact that the established MC's that I've grown to love are still alive and kicking and raising hell when the time is right. That's pretty satisfying in any book, but this does a really fine job of characterization. The evil men aren't quite so cardboard here. My sympathies are only strengthened in the pain soup Val undergoes. And Mike? I'm always loving the hell out of him. Crow's a geeky dream, but I'm equally horrified and rooting for Mike.

This is shaping into a horror that SK could be proud of. Hell, just thinking about putting all these books together into one long story gives it exactly that kind of edge. Epic Horror! That is: a huge cast of characters in a small town besieged by an old evil that will consume them all if something isn't done kind of horror. :)

I'm quite happy with this. :) ( )

Audiobook narrated by Tom Weiner. ( )

The terror continues in Pine Deep and I am scared, nervous and excited to see how this ends. I love the characters and can't wait to see others get what they deserve. This series is written by Jonathan Maberry who I love. I first enjoyed his writing in the Rot & Ruin series. I was excited to find that he has written other books and I love them just as much.

This book is part X-files, part Stephen King and all enjoyment.

I'm now moving on to book 3. I can't wait to see what happens next. ( )