Lizzie Borden
-Lizbeth- yes, ax wielding Lizzie Borden- and her invalid older sister Emma
live quietly a Maplecroft, a large house in coastal Fall River, MA. At least
that’s how it seems to outsiders. The house is far away enough from neighbors,
to conceal a lot. Like a basement laboratory, a large gas fired ‘cooker’
beneath the basement floor, and the strange things that come creeping around the
house at night, pounding on the walls, seeking entrance. Because there was a
lot more to the story of her killing her father and stepmother with an ax. Her
father and stepmother were long gone when she took an ax to the bodies that
still shambled around.
In the same
vein as ‘Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter’, Priest has taken a historical personage
and inserted a horror tale into their biography. In this case, it’s not run of
the mill zombies or vampires. Priest has created her own monsters, albeit ones
that seem like they would feel right at home in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu
mythos. Somehow, people in the town are being infected by… something. Something
that changes them slowly to have razor sharp teeth and glassy, dull eyes. To
lose their wits and become violent. What is infecting them? Is it supernatural?
Lizbeth and
Emma have been trying for two years to figure it out when they run out of time.
Suddenly it’s not just an isolated person or two. They are forced to take the
town doctor into their confidence, and soon there is an out of town inspector poking
around. To complicate things further, Lizbeth’s actress girlfriend is staying
with them, a woman who is intensely nosy.
This was a
really fun book to read- yes, I think reading creepy things at night is fun. The
fact that the monsters are never totally explained adds to the creepy factor. People
changing into beings that defy the laws of physics adds to it, too. There is a
constant, palpable menace. I have to admit that I was dissatisfied with the
fact that things weren’t well explained until I found out this is the start of
a series. It makes sense to leave things to explain in later volumes. The story
is told from different points of view: Lizbeth’s, Emmas, the doctor, a
professor who Emma-posing as a male marine biologist- sent a sample of unknown
sea life, and others. This creates a fuller picture of the action, and of the
characters. A fast, absorbing read.
The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something, Amazon will give me a few cents. This in no way affected my review.
No comments:
Post a Comment