Nightshade

Rating:
Summary: horror in the family
Review: at first i thought: ok. a bit slow. not much descriptions, but ok. heh! actually, JS was setting the stage to make the psychological horror greater. and he was waiting for the descriptions untill later, wanting development first. when the descriptions came, they were great. i liked the plot. enjoyed the suspence. enjoyed the ending too. the psychological horror was really good. most horror writer fails when it comes to The Family. it gets tedious, irrelevant, even mushy. JS makes the family his strength here. the sudden insecurity. the unsaid. the tension. The Family makes the story better, which i find uncommon. a mother with alzheimer burns down her house. she comes to live with a family of her daughter the husband and the son (sort of). she insists on witing for her other dead daugher and arrange a room for her. after a while, mysterious things occur. the tension grows. disaster strikes. i cannot say more without giving away something. let's just say that there is an act of violence treathening to destroy, some strange sightings. this was plot-driven and loaded with suspence, and i found it to be great just one note: DON'T READ THE EPILOGUE. the ending is good enough. THE EPILOGUE IS AWFUL. it's a robert bloch-cliche of the worst kind. you don't NEED to read it. it tells you nothing. it's just stupid and awful to read. tear it out or ignore it. i'm serious. if you read it, you WILL be disappointed, i GUARANTEE it.

Rating:
Summary: Spooky!
Review: 1) Lee Merriweather does a great job with reading this audiobook. She had the voice of Emily Moore matching exactly with my imagination that I got chills.

2) Saul has all the parts working well together in this story. Wonderful plot twists, engaging characters, and great scenes of suspense. He stays consistent with using children/teens as major sympathetic characters with a mix of the supernatural.

3) I've read a couple other Saul books and have always thought they were fair reads when you have nothing else available. This one I would say is much better than a fair read.

Rating:
Summary: Terrifying Psychological Horror
Review: John Saul proves once agian with this book just how intimatly he understands the human mind. He's always known what makes us scared and with Nightshade he shows just how terrifying the past may be. This excellent horror novel starts off as seeming to be nothing more then your average ghost story, but by the end of the book the reader realizes that it is much more then that. By the time I finished I realized that in this terrifying story there really isn't anything supernatural at all. I don't dare to say more out of the possibilty of ruining it for those who haven't read it. I think this book has somethign important to say about dealing with the past before it fully conquers you. Although I haven't read many of John Saul's novels I believe this is by far the best out of all that I have read. I highly reccomend it for anyone who's in the mood for a scary book but would like a different sort of ghost story.

Rating:
Summary: chilling
Review: This book was easily my favorite Saul book. Fifteen year old Mathew Moore's grandmother moves into his house ,which consists of him,his mom, and his dad, after a mysterious tragedy.Matt's father, Bill Moore, can not standy Cynthia and his relationship with his family crumbles because of her. Matt wakes up one day with a missing seat at the dining room table. Could life get any worse? It could, and it will.

I reccomend this book to anyone who loves suspense and horror. Be sure to keep your lights turned on at all times. Also, be prepared for an all-nighter, because this book is a real page turner.

Rating:
Summary: A Trilling story
Review: Nightshade is a story about a boy named Matt who's life changes . Matt had it all a loving mom and a stepfather who care for him , and who loved him just as he was his
own son. He treated him very good. Everything was going well besides Matt having a nice parents he had his friends and his girlfriend named Kelly. Everything was going
well for Matt until one day when his grandma's house accidentally burns down and his family is force into taking her that's when all of Matt's problems started. Fist of all his
grandma is an old lady who suffers from old time's disease that was how her grandma's friends use to call it which meant that she was losing her memory. Emily that was her name, all of her life have loved and favored her daughter Cynthia . Cynthia was all for her, she didn't care for Joan Matt's mom or Matt at all . She would always treat them bad. Emily insist to her daughter Joan in recreating the bedroom of Cynthia who die tragically a decade ago .For her , her daughter was going to come back soon.
Not only does Matt have to leave with the fact that his grandma is leaving with them ,but also had to live with the fact that thanks to his grandma his mom and his stepfather Bill had a argument and he left the house.When all of this happens we
can see that Matt's personality changes from a boy who did good in school to a boy who couldn't concentrate anymore in school and got bad grades . Matt's life changes when on his 16th birthday he and Bill go haunting and Bill dies and everything accuses him of doing it.. Matt is not sure what happen , all he knew was when he open his eyes he saw his stepfather lying in the ground dead and people were appointed at him. Now Matt has
to live with the accusations many people would give him . Matt is alone in the world , he no longer has any friends because everybody accuses him of doing it. Every day since the
accident everything Matt goes to school everybody ignores him and accuses him daily. Matt has to prove that he is innocent to everyone and that it was just an accident.
For Matt proving that he is innocent of the death of his stepfather is hard
because as the story goes on more weird things happen like the mystery of his
grandmother's disappearance and of Kelly and of course people think that Matt had to do
with this too. Matt can't sleep no more because he always hears the voice of her aunt
Cynthia accusing him of everything that happen.. Is was like her aunt Cynthia was
always there , he sees her and he can even smell her nightshade perfume. Not only can
Matt see her but also her mom can see her too. She has painful flashbacks to a childhood
that she wanted to forget. A murder and three disappearances befall the small town, Matt
spirals into depression, and Joan loses her mind. At the end after a long hour of trying to
find Kelly , they found her . She has been in the basement all alone. When they found
her she was weak but she told her dad that the one responsible for all of those things have
been Matt's mom. The police couldn't believe this so he question her and Joan told the
police how she was not Joan but was Cynthia and that Matt's father was Bill and she
made her sister kill him because her sister wanted to take Matt away for him.
I like this book a lot a recommend it to people because this book is fill with
mystery and as you keep on reading the story you start wandering was going on . Onces
you start reading you can't stop because you will want to know what happens next . I
like the fact how the story was been told and the descriptions they use is so makes
interesting to read.

Rating:
Summary: one of the best
Review: once i started reading, i couldn't put it down. the book is filled with twists and turns that even i wasn't expecting. it is by far one of the best horror books i've ever read and would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: knocked me off my feet
Review: I am a fan of his. When I read this novel it was very interesting from the beginning to the end.I just could not put this book down even if I wanted to. I have given it to my mother and my co-workers. I truely recommend this book for anyone who loves the super natural.

Rating:
Summary: More mystery than horror
Review: While this book is a mix of mystery and horror, there's more mystery than anything else. The book starts off giving a glimpse into the hell a woman, Joan, must have endured as she grew up with a mother who despised her, and the sister, Cynthia, that her mother favored, but who is now dead. Joan has an illegitimate son, Matt, that her mother also despises. It's clear from the beginning that her mother doesn't like her or Matt. Fortunately, Joan met and married a man that has accepted Matt as his own, and helps Joan to escape the hell that she and Matt had lived with her mother. It also doesn't hurt that he's wealthy and his family has been a pillar of the community for years.

...

The general focus of this story is the dysfunctional relationship Matt's mother has with her mother, and the effect it has on their lives. After his grandmother moves in, secrets best kept in the family closet begin to spill out. Before Matt knows it, he has to confront these secrets in a battle to save his life.

The "story" in this book starts almost immediately, and simmers throughout with threats of the danger to come. While I liked the book and found it entertaining, it's not the best book I've ever read and it's not one that I would insist anyone read right away. I was expecting more of a horror story, but found there's more of a mystery here instead. That isn't bad in and of itself, because the mystery is interesting, and there were some spooky moments. But just don't expect horror and you'll be okay.

The dialog was good, as were the descriptions of the scenes and setting. Some of the action didn't seem plausible, but it wasn't totally unbelievable either. I may be being a little hard on this book because I've read other Saul books that I found more enjoyable, but this one isn't bad at all. It's just not as good. If you're done with all of those "can't wait" books on your "to-read" list, than this book would be a good way to pass the time.

Rating:
Summary: Nighshade - Great Book, gave me goosebumps!...
Review: I couldn't put this book down...it was a thriller and I could picture every scene in my mind....gave me goosebumps just reading it! If you haven't read it - at least get the audio and listen on your next road trip. It will make the drive go alot more enjoyable. My teenagers loved it too!

Rating:
Summary: Unexpected twists
Review: For the last ten years of Joan Hapgood's life has been going well. She is happily married to Eric who has accepted her son, Matt, as one of his own. Everything changes forever when Joan's mother, Emily Moore, moves in with them. Emily is suffering from the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease. It has caused her to be completely paranoid as well as obsessed with the return of her favorite daughter, Cynthia, who has been dead for at least a decade. Ms. Moore's behavior is very abusive and it causes a rift in the family.

Matt's life is taking a turn for the worse every day. He turned from a popular jock to a social outcast almost overnight. He is accused of shooting his stepfather, Eric and suspected for the disappearance of Kelly Conroe, Matt's girlfriend. Emily is not being helpful toward Joan. She is constantly belittling her and claims that she has been talking to Cynthia for the last few nights. Matt also believes to have seen the ghost of his dead aunt but he cannot explain it.

John Saul brings in another story with twist and turns together with the requisite creep factor. He knows how to startle his audience and he does a good job of it. The surprises in this book are unexpected and welcome. The past plays an important part in the story and no matter how many times one tries to escape, it will always catch up with you.