Night Stone

Rating:
Summary: MASTERFUL
Review: Hautala has mastered his art in this eerie and intense novel. Not sure what the previous reviewer was reading, I was unable to put this one down. I had no problem understanding the story at all, this was purely a great read. If you love horror, or just love a a book with the ability to grab you and hold you, this book is the one. Even when delving into issues of the para-normal, Hautala keeps a firm grasp on reality and character development, lulling one into the belief that what is happening to the people in the book could happen to you. The writing unnerves, with a palpable doom lurking from page one.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal!
Review: I had read "Night Stone" at 13 years old and was well into horror novels by that time. After a few years of reading novels by writers like Stephen King, I found myself engulfed in the characters and storyline. I was completely mesmorized and frightened. I had never thought I could get so visually into a book like this nor did I feel like by that time I could become so terrified. I wrote a letter to Rick Hautala stating how much I enjoyed his book. He responded back politely and thanked me for enjoying his work. He is a true genius in the world of horror.

Rating:
Summary: Huh--What-Huh?
Review: That was my reaction during much of this book. Utter confusion. If you're hoping to find an explanation for what the Night Stone is exactly, then you should hope for a sequel.

The main character, I've already blocked out his name, is a shop teacher who has just moved his wife and 13-year old kid into a new town and a new house that was owned by his grandmother. Now immediately their kid starts to act weird and carry around this wooden doll she found in the house, not that the parents noticed. The dad is too obsessed with digging up these stones sticking up out of the back yard, ala King's The Tommyknockers, and the wife is too obsessed with finding a job to get her out of the house and away from the family. The kid, well she's obsessed with horses, oh and a little on the possessed side with whatever the spirit of that wooden doll is. Don't expect to find that out either. Everything bizarre that happens to the dad, like seeing his daughter fly through the air in her P.J.'s, he convinces himself that it was just a dream. Sure. I've had dreams like that too, but they were almost always chemically induced. The mom simply decides to ignore her experiences. Yeah, that's a great dramatic tool.

Though there was some intrigue to the story and the haunting, the characters were just so unlikeable that I didn't care. And just for good measure, the writer threw in some vague pedophilic reference in the beginning that had me waiting for the other shoe to drop and being suspect of the dad throughout. H-Whaaa???