Rating: 
Summary: Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-Legged Beasties...
Review: ...and things that go bump in the mind...Fifteen year old Amy had a scare at the old building called Nazareth Hill, ten years ago. So did her devoutly religious insurance salesman dad, who was with her at the time. He is intensely arachnophobic, and thought he saw some kind of big spider. She saw something worse - something so bad, she blocked it from her memory until now. Having remembered, Amy goes on a radio show to relate her ghost story about Nazareth Hill, now an apartment complex where she and her widowed dad live, and ticks-off a lot of people who are afraid of her scaring-down the rent. Some of them believe her, though. Because they've seen things, too. And those people are just up and leaving all of a sudden, turning Nazareth Hill into something of a ghost town. Amy's dad is staying, though. So is Amy, because she's got no choice. She's doing research into the Nazareth Hill area, and finding its history as an insane asylum - and some sort of witches' coven spot. Her father doesn't like it. He's going quietly insane. All he wants is to shut her up - and he's getting less picky about how. Especially with all those spiders creeping around in the dark, making it harder for him to relax... This is a really great haunted house/ghost story, more akin to Stephen King's The Shining than anything else, only generally much, much more subtle. Nazareth Hill is a place festering with evil spirits, scampering about all but unseen, glimpsed just sufficiently out of the corner of one's eye to drive people mad. It's a psychological horror story as well as a supernatural one, and succeeds on both levels. It has a pervasive feel of menace and doom about it, and many genuinely creepy moments. Campbell has written several good horror novels, but this is his best to date. Not for the squeamish.
Rating:
Summary: Unnerving, devastating... unforgettably sublime
Review: A real gem of occult horror. Is teenage Amy psychically sifting in time to relive the torments of the dead of Nazareth Hill? Is it a vicious scheme to drive his fragile and stubborn dad out of his wits? Is this a revenge from beyond the grave? In the grand gothic tradition of James' "Turn of the Screw", the fine line between reality and nightmare is blurred, and soon enough the reader is trapped in a downward spiral that picks up speed to collide in a shocking, eye-widening and unforgettable conclusion. A must read for the horror fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Speechless in the dark: Inner Terror, Outer Terror
Review: Everybody today knows that real terror comes from within. It doesn't matter if it comes in through your own imagination, decaying relationships and subtle anxiety, as in Shirley Jackson's masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House - or if it comes running in your direction with a body made of bulging, retracting limbs as in Lovecraft, as in Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness. In his newest novel Nazareth Hill Ramsey Campbell does everything his clear prose can achieve in order to, in given time, leave the reader alone and speechless in the dark, face to face to the most horrid of the things: the reader himself, his/her own frailty and the supreme abomination of our own limitations. In the way, though, he submits the reader to both inner and outer terrors. In the beggining of the book the relationship of sixteen years-old Amy and her widowed father is already so psychologically tense that we immediately know that the entire book will be an excuse for its complete decaying. There are a lot of complex, self-conscious characters moving around and - of course - there is the house. Clearly there's a lot of Hill House in here, not so subtly designed but well-succeeded as well. But don't be fooled: there are bulging, pop-eyed, crawling terrors here too, and to Campbell it doesn't matter how real they are if he can make them can crawl in the corridors of your head and lurk in the shadow of a wardrobe. The climax comes wrapped in blood, fire, pain, darkness and possibly redemption, but - aren't all the climaxes the same? So if you want to be speechless in the dark take Mr. Campbell's hand and walk with him the gravel path that leads inside Nazareth Hill. For a number of reasons, I'm not going in there anymore. Or, as Shirley Jackson would know, whatever walks inside Nazreth Hill doesn't walk alone anymore.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant work by a brilliant man
Review: I'll keep this short...if you like atmospheric, truly disturbing horror, read this novel. As always, Campbell's use of language is both beautiful and frightening, and he succeeds in making the reader look over his shoulder. The horror works on two levels; a believable father/daughter conflict which gradually escalates into true terror, and a fascinating--and scary--haunted house story. The style is vintage Campbell, off-kilter but somehow more descriptive for being so. Stephen King once wrote that Campbell's style is so unique that it may as well be copyrighted, and I couldn't agree more. It's a good place to go to be frightened. I also strongly recommend Campbell's other work, especially Midnight Sun, The Parasite, Alone with the Horrors, Waking Nightmares, and Ancient Images. His entire catalog is truly worth exploring.
Rating: 
Summary: Not What I Expected
Review: If you're looking for a haunted house story, look elsewhere. While the house may be creepy and there are a few disturbing scenes involving the spectors and their victims, the novel focuses on the psychological tension between father and daughter more than it does on the eeriness of their home. I assume that it is somewhat their presence in the house that is causing this tension, but I don't get that from what Campbell writes; rather, it reads as if their conflicts are the result of the death of the mother and typical teenage rebellion, not the result of a tainted dwelling place. And, as one reviewer wrote, the ending is trite and predictable, surprising from an author who generally writes great horror stories.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Review: Nazareth Hill is without a doubt one of Campbell's finest works. The story is very well written and keeps the reader interested despite some moments that drag. The overall story makes you ignore the slow moments simply because the reader want's to find out what happens next. Now i should warn most of the horror fan's like myself out there that this really is not a typical haunted house story. When some of the events that take place in the book happen they will downright bother you, i sure know they bothered me a great deal. This is not for the faint of heart and the way this book ends will not please a great many people. I recommend this book to any horror fan out there simply because you probably won't read anything similar out there with the exception of King's The Shining, but even saying that King's novel doesn't hold a candle to the outright brutality that takes place here. Enjoy....
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Summary: An atypical haint story
Review: Ramsey Campbell's Nazareth Hill has most of the elements of a Caitlin Kiernan comic book. A haunted mansion sets the scene for an atypical haint story, where the protagonist is a teenaged punk/goth chick (Amy) who is tragically misunderstood by everyone, including her increasingly-bizarre fundamentalist Christian father (Oswald). So far, it doesn't sound that atypical, but the differences are in the details and language. The story is rather surreal. The religious school Amy attends is chock-full of teachers with good moral hygiene and strange grammar. Odd word choices occur throughout the novel in the conversations between Amy and her boyfriend (they're prone to uttering polysyllabic and biting one-word commentary). The strangest cadence belongs to Oswald, who speaks in an increasingly stilted and formal manner when he's not desperately reciting simplistic children's prayers. At first, the word choice made it difficult for me to immerse myself in the book, but after a while, it felt appropriate, although never natural. I'm certain this unnatural language is wholly intentional. Nazareth Hill is a story of mental illness, asylum history, and a dysfunctional family par excellence. None of the characters are likeable, but I could feel empathy developing, despite my personal dislike for Amy. The book has a perfect haunted house story ambience, and gathers creepiness as it goes, something like a woolly spider egg tottering down a dust hill.
Rating:
Summary: A truly terrifying book.
Review: Ramsey Campbell, one of THE greatest horror writers of all time (at that is not just hyberbole folks), has penned one of the most disturbing "haunted" house thrillers I have ever read, and I have read a lot. This story builds to its shocking ending with such slow methodicalness that it almost does not take you by surprise, it seems so inevitable. Be advised that fingernails should be allowed to grow long, the reader will need something to gnaw on.
Rating:
Summary: Unnerving and creepy
Review: This is my first novel by Ramsey Campbell, but most assuredly it will not be my last. Amy Priestly and her widowed father Oswald are headed toward a collision course with unnamed horrors, all of which reside in their home of Nazarill. I admit that it took me awhile to get into this novel, the style of writing is often difficult, especially the cadence of Oswald which only grows more archaic as the story progresses. The final few chapters are superb, with the level of tension building to an almost unbearable climax. If you are looking for a well written horror story that delivers, this one does the genre proud.
Rating:
Summary: Unnerving and creepy
Review: This is my first novel by Ramsey Campbell, but most assuredly it will not be my last. Amy Priestly and her widowed father Oswald are headed toward a collision course with unnamed horrors, all of which reside in their home of Nazarill. I admit that it took me awhile to get into this novel, the style of writing is often difficult, especially the cadence of Oswald which only grows more archaic as the story progresses. The final few chapters are superb, with the level of tension building to an almost unbearable climax. If you are looking for a well written horror story that delivers, this one does the genre proud.
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