Monday 30 January 2012

LADY ELEANOR URBAN FANTASY REVIEW: The Drowning Pool - Syd Moore

Release Date: 29/09/11

SYNOPSIS:

After her world is shaken by a series of unexplained events, young widow Sarah Grey soon comes to realise that she is the victim of a terrifying haunting by her 19th century namesake!A classic ghost story with a modern twist by a talented new writer in the genre. Relocated to a coastal town, widowed teacher Sarah Grey is slowly rebuilding her life, along with her young son Alfie. But after an inadvertent seance one drunken night, her world is shaken when she starts to experience frightening visions. She tries to explain them as But Alfie sees them too and Sarah believes that they have become the targets of a terrifying haunting. Convinced that the ghost is that of a 19th Century local witch and namesake, Sarah delves into local folklore and learns that the witch was thought to have been evil incarnate. When a series of old letters surface, Sarah discovers that nothing and no-one is as it seems, maybe not even the ghost of Sarah Grey!


REVIEW:

To be honest with you this isn’t a horror story, it’s a tale for those who want a little scare with a “yummy mummy” type of character which really doesn’t do the genre any favours. The writing was clichéd, with no real attention to pace with a story arc that has been done too many times already without any real concentration almost as if it were done as a challenge to see what would get published.

Sadly for me, this title didn’t pick up and the first impressions I had after the first third were sadly confirmed by the last chapter which overall left me wondering who would spend their finances in this cash strapped time on this when they could get a Graham Masterton or early Shaun Hutson or even a James Herbert that will more than give you that decent chill. If you must read this, wait for it to appear in a cheap bookshop or perhaps borrow it from the library, trust me, you’ll appreciate the warning.

1 comment:

Natalie Westgate said...

Oh, that's a shame the book didn't live up to expectations. It sounded so good from the synopsis! One that I'll give a miss, I definitely do appreciate the warning :)