Review: HORROR, TERROR, BLOOD...AND SHEER CLASS...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 8, 2014
At the beginning of this great novel we meet Shaun and Elle, still to consummate their relationship, staying at a small hotel . Apart from the obvious, one other reason they are there is so Shaun can pursue his obsession over a boy who killed his own parents, and the little girl who then caused that boy's own death. From this intriguing opening we are swiftly led into a series of fascinating encounters with and between trackers, mind-readers, fairies, witches, wolves and vampires, described with the verve and drippingly sexual overtones we have come to expect from Sharon Stevenson's work.  The author's smooth narrative style and ease of expression  imbues characters and settings with great authenticity and viability. A series of traumatic, tense episodes involving mind-reading, teleporting, spells, and, in particular, horrific, blood-splattered visions of the future, keeps the reader enthralled and gasping for more. We meet a host of characters, including Shaun's sister, Sarah, and witness the chilling re-emergence of the vicious, unrepentant Adrian, amongst others. This action-packed drama combines the immediacy of the at times gruesome and stomach-churning present with characters' re-examination of and discoveries about their pasts and, even more disconcertingly, extremely disturbing visions of the future. As mentioned, this is all further set against the intriguing background of Elle's and Shaun's faltering relationship and their romantic `brushes' with other partners from their pasts, presents and even futures. Classically, and beautifully done. A thriller, horror-story, whatever you want to call it, with that vital added ingredient. Namely, class.