February 21, 2005
Anxieties over marriage, home and work amplify the eeriness of Golden's engrossing suburban horror novel. Michael and Jillian Dansky are heading home from a Halloween party when they give a young girl on the road a lift to a strange old mansion. She leaves them with the injunction to "come find me," and suddenly their lives are no longer the same. Michael, art director at an advertising firm, begins to incorporate the girl's features into his illustrations. When he tries to locate the house and its road, he can't. Then a coven of grotesque, wraithlike women attack him and Jillian, who's transformed into a brittle and bitchy harridan. Michael realizes his survival depends on retracing his steps on that fateful night and finding the elusive girl. Golden (The Boys Are Back in Town
, etc.) knows how to craft suspense, but the bizarre incidents create expectations that the climax only partly satisfies, and the horror, once explained, has a preachy, politically correct edge. Still, this above-average stab at Stephen King–style horror draws the reader irresistibly into its mystery. (Apr. 5)
FYI:
Cemetery Dance ( www.cemeterydance.com
) is publishing the cloth edition ($40 ISBN 1-58767-119-0).
April 15, 2005
After attending a Halloween masquerade, tipsy, tired Michael and Jillian Dansky head for home, Jillian sleeping in the back seat and Michael driving and struggling to concentrate. Along the way, Michael nearly hits a young girl. He stops to check on her and get her home. When he follows her into her house, he feels something is desperately wrong. He flees the house and awakens the next morning in his car, puzzled as to what exactly happened the night before. Inexplicably, he starts to see the little girl everywhere, repeating a request to him: "Come find me." Michael tries to find the little girl's house again, at first to no avail. Someone doesn't want him to find it: coming upstairs one night, he finds a circle of ghostly women surrounding his wife, stealing her essence, and leaving behind an angry, bitter woman. This forces Michael to find the girl and to fight for his wife's soul. Golden, author of " The Boys Are Back in Town" [BKL F 15 04], delivers another spooky thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)