The Basement

Rating:
Summary: DARK, DEVILISH AND DISAPPOINTING
Review: "The Basement" is one of those books that when you finish reading it, you're not quite sure what happened. Ms. Wood has a very good sense of the vernacular and creating flesh and blood characters with believable eccentricities and hang-ups.

The eight friends in this book have been friends for years; they are all rich and seem to have little in life to worry about. The main character, Myra Ludens, has had an unhealthy fear of her basement for years and decides the best thing to do is to renovate it, and hopefully banish all her fears. Even her friends who come over for bridge every week don't like the basement---even after the $30,000 renovation job!

Myra's sleuthing reveals that the body of a woman hanged as a witch in the late 1600's is buried right underneath Myra's basement. The renovator admits later that they even found the woman's bones but didn't want to tell anyone in fear of losing business. (I'm not sure about that one?).

At any rate, Myra is then "possessed" by the witch's spirit or has gone mad, or perhaps even has her own paranormal talents. This is something Ms. Wood never fully reveals, thus leaving the reader unsure of the real reason behind the deaths seemingly caused by Myra's "wishes."

It's got some good points---excellent characterizations, some real suspenseful scenes and a few original twists---but overall, "The Basement" is a novel in search of a better ending.

Rating:
Summary: DARK, DEVILISH AND DISAPPOINTING
Review: "The Basement" is one of those books that when you finish reading it, you're not quite sure what happened. Ms. Wood has a very good sense of the vernacular and creating flesh and blood characters with believable eccentricities and hang-ups.

The eight friends in this book have been friends for years; they are all rich and seem to have little in life to worry about. The main character, Myra Ludens, has had an unhealthy fear of her basement for years and decides the best thing to do is to renovate it, and hopefully banish all her fears. Even her friends who come over for bridge every week don't like the basement---even after the $30,000 renovation job!

Myra's sleuthing reveals that the body of a woman hanged as a witch in the late 1600's is buried right underneath Myra's basement. The renovator admits later that they even found the woman's bones but didn't want to tell anyone in fear of losing business. (I'm not sure about that one?).

At any rate, Myra is then "possessed" by the witch's spirit or has gone mad, or perhaps even has her own paranormal talents. This is something Ms. Wood never fully reveals, thus leaving the reader unsure of the real reason behind the deaths seemingly caused by Myra's "wishes."

It's got some good points---excellent characterizations, some real suspenseful scenes and a few original twists---but overall, "The Basement" is a novel in search of a better ending.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating read.
Review: Even a $30,000 renovation doesn't stop the chill along the back of the neck and an overwhelming need to escape the basement. The basement was a joke among the bridge club members; they called it the black hole. Even the woman who designed the renovation summed everyone's reaction in a simple word: vile. So Myra Ludens must summons the courage to do something about it. Meanwhile, Myra also attempts to summon the courage to deal with the rest of her life. The neighbors have a noisy, yippy, obnoxious dog that never stops barking from early morning until after dark. The first time Myra attempts to ask her neighbor to do something about the dog, the Pastoris' rude behavior sends her scurrying back across the road. The second time, she finds herself uttering an ominous warning. Shortly thereafter, the man and his dog are dead. As other unnatural deathsfollow, they only have one thing in common; that is, every victim offended Myra. As Mrya researches her house, she learns that the woman named Goody Redman was hanged for witchcraft and buried on her land. Convinced that the spirit of the witch haunts her basement, Myra determines to do something about it. With the friends she grew up with, the other seven members of the bridge club, she attempts to banish the spirit that haunts the basement. The Basement is an addictive read that kept me up in the wee hours of the morning with the need to finish it. The quick pace and curiously detailed characterizations along with a marvelous authorial voice combine to create a tale of horror that both fascinates and repels. While I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending, The Basement is a fascinating read.

Cindy Penn Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Terrible, horrible! Not worth your money!!
Review: I read this book and had a really hard time getting as far as I could into it (I finished two other novels before getting back to this book). I was two or three chapters away from finishing it and I just could not bring myself to wasting my precious time reading something this awful. It has to do with a fat spoiled rotten lady who really has nothing better to do in life but THINK there is something in the basement. The characters were done okay, needed some improvement. Plot sucked, story sucked. I do not recommened this to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: it should have stayed in the basement!
Review: Wow - I got this book years ago and just recently picked it up to give it a read. It started out okay ... really ... but after the first 100 pages the plot really begins to unravel. The plot, horrible, no connection for how you got from the beginning to the end. It gets 2 stars from me because I enjoyed the writing style, as a matter of fact, the writing and charcter development was the ONLY thing that got me to the end! My recommendation is to wait for the movie!