The Immaculate

Rating:
Summary: A different kind of ghost story
Review: I always thought of Mark Morris as a good, if not what secondrate British horrorwriter. I don't mean that in a negative way, but he always had the footsteps of people like Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell and James Herbert in which to follow... and that's not an easy task!
It's perhaps ironic that those writers also seem to have had a big influence on him. I remember his book 'The Secret of Anatomy'to be an entertaining Barkeresque romp and his 'Doctor Who' novels were lighthearted, not all too serious fun.

The Immaculate changed all that...

I can't help but have the feeling that the story is strongly autobiographical (the parts about the writer anyway, offcourse not the supernatural bits...I hope).
The book is about a writer who returns to his hometown after his abusive father passed away. When he starts having bad dreams and hears his father's voice through the phone I just knew it was going to be THAT kind of story.

I was wrong.

I couldn't for the life off me have expected where this story'd wind up. I won't spoil it for you, but it was brilliant, and much more mature than similar efforts from someone like Herbert, who always likes to have the blood and guts flying. You wont find that in this novel.

The Immaculate is by far Mark Morris' best work. I am an aspiring writer myself (aren't we all?) and I totally got pulled in by the world in which the main character lives. For example, I loved it when he pulled found this old case in his attic and started flipping through the pages of all the books he so adored during his childhood. Marvelous!

Like I said before, this doesn't go for the gross-out, but it's good supernatural horror, with strong psychological and social overtones.

Rating:
Summary: A horror that plays on all our fears...or memories!!!
Review: I really enjoy the way Morris writes (having read 'Toady' and 'Mr Bad Face') and this book was no exception. He cleverly makes you care about one of the characters in this book and feel compassion and horror like the other one.

He succeeded in horrifying me on the simplest level without the need for blood and gore.
It was one of those books that you just have to keep reading even though you're shattered and know you need to sleep, just to find out what happens. The ending was an interesting idea and wasn't at all what I expected.

Rating:
Summary: about the stars
Review: One star if you read it all the way to the very last page. Some sentences in that book are just wonderful, I wrote them down in my notebook so I could read them later! But unfortunatley I did not loose the book and I did read the ending, and it ruined it all. So, seriously, if you read this book- and you should, its fantastic, but towards the end, when your thinking "how are there that many pages left? this is the ending, right?" stop there. rip out the rest of the pages. burn them.