Fear Book

Book Review

John L. Byrne's

Fear Book

Plot - Sam and Joanne are thirty-somethings who have used bought their dream house in Connecticut. A beautiful old Victorian who's past owners have been missing for years. With a baby on the way everything seems perfect...until a strange red catalog arrives in the mail. A catalog with no sender address or markings. A catalog that feels as warm as human flesh, and has something different to show to each person who picks it up and reads it. These pages who a deadly spell that begins to slowly crumble to once peaceful neighborhood. 

Low Down -  I got this book while in NH at this woman Ruth's barn which she has in the middle of this flea market that's opened through most of the spring and summer. Here a friend of mine showed she had a pretty impressive collection of horror VHS tapes, + thousands of books. Digging through the shelf's, I stumbled upon some gems. Fear Book was something that reminded me of an  R. L Stine book. In fact that's what I first thought it was since I've been trying to track down his Fear Series book for some time now. Seeing the very cool cover I picked it up completely blind. It was a quick read, about 200 or so pages. I was very impressed that this was the first novel for this writer who usually worked on D.C Comics. The movie had a very cool story, which had building tension. I'm actually stunned this hasn't been made into a movie. This book was published back in 1988. It's a creepy story, but the only thing that lost me was the last twenty pages or so. A bunch of characters who we've never met before who have come in contact with the catalog are all grouped together. This had me pretty confused, but it had a decent ending. The one story line I found the most unsettling was the weird next door neighbor's teenage son who is a complete pervert and looms over the lead character's wife. All in all this was a cool book and a really good quick read. 

Three stars