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  • Writer's pictureLafourche Parish Public Library

Van's Pick: Nightshade by John Saul


When 15-year-old Matt's troubled grandmother moves in with his family, he learns she harbors a secret about his mother and his aunt.


John Saul’s first published novel in 1977 was Suffer the Children and it immediately became a best seller. He has since written 32 horror novels and he is often been compared to Dean Koontz. His book Nightshade begins with fifteen year Matthew Moore who seems to have the perfect life. He has a loving family and lives in a beautiful home in New Hampshire. Things begin to crumble when his grandmother Emily moves in who is stricken with Alzheimer’s Disease.


Emily’s daughter, Matthew’s aunt Cynthia has died and the elderly woman has a fixation with the deceased. She even recreates Cynthia’s bedroom in the family home Soon members of Matthew’s family begin having terrifying dreams of Cynthia. Matthew begins to smell Cynthia’s perfume in the house. Then deaths begin happening and Matthew becomes a brooding loner. Is Matt the killer? Is Cynthia’s ghost possessing him or someone else and killing innocents? The book will not reveal this secret until the very end.


The novel like most of Saul’s works will keep the reader guessing until the very end as to the true culprit of the murders. The characters are well written and Saul creates a brooding, dark atmosphere in the novel. He makes the transformation of the very likable and personable Michael into a brooding loner very vivid and will have the reader truly routing for him to escape his plight. The deaths can be pretty bloody and descriptive. The novel does drag at certain points but compensates for this with its building tension and descriptive passages and scenes. Saul’s narrative is pretty straightforward and his plots are not overly complex as in many of Stephen King's and Dean Koontz's novels. Because of the slight sluggishness of the novel I give this book four out of five stars.


Availability: Book Rating: **** Stars (I really liked it) Reviewer: Van, Reference Librarian

 

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GENRE: Adult Books for Young Adults; Horror

PACE: Fast-Paced

STORYLINE: Plot-Driven

TONE: Atmospheric; Creepy

LOCATION: New Hampshire

SUBJECT: Aunts; Change; Cruelty in Women; Family Secrets; Fifteen Year Old Boys; Grandmothers; Mothers & Sons; Teenage Boys


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