Book Blurb: The Woman in Black

Title: The Woman in Black

Author: Susan Hill


Genre: Horror, Gothic


Synopsis: A lawyer from London travels to a remote village to collect papers from the home of a deceased client. Everyone in the town seems scared of the house, but no one will say why...


Stars: 4/5


Lauren's Review: A quick read, finished in one sitting. Not the scariest ghost story every, but still very entertaining. I love the Gothic style, but it’s not for everyone. Looking forward to the movie!

Book Blurb: The Girl in a Swing

Title: The Girl in a Swing


Author: Richard Adams (of Watership Down fame)


Genre: Horror? Romance? I dunno.


Synopsis: A man meets a woman while on a business trip and falls head over heels for her. They get married after knowing each other only two weeks and live happily ever after...until strange things begin to happen.


Stars: 3/5


Lauren's Review: I decided to read this book because someone I know listed it among their favorites. I picked up a used copy that had the same cover as above...which is why I need to tell everyone that this book is NOT a "beautiful, haunting, erotic love story and absolutely terrifying ghost story."

First things first, this book IS well written. Wonderful prose, and of course I loved that it was set in the English country side (I'd even been to a few sites mentioned!). That being said...

It is NOT a beautiful love story! It's like Romeo and Juliet (not the ending), these people have known each other TWO WEEKS! I just can't cheer on their decision to be married! And as for erotic...call me pervy, but in this Nora-Roberts-Danielle-Steel age, this book fell far short of erotic.

Which brings me to the most disappointing part...the horror aspect. This book just didn't scare me. Richard Adams is not a ghost story writer. At one point I was telling John what happened and he said "that sounds scary to me!" and I thought "yes, this should be scary...but it's just not."

It's a good book and worth the read, but that quote on the cover just left me expecting so much more than it offered. The irony is that this book is very similar to Rebecca, one of my all time favorite books. Two strangers meet, soon get married, weird stuff happens, scary ending. But with Rebecca I had no expectations so I really enjoyed it. With this book I expected so much, and it just fell flat. I blame the cover.

So...I guess you should never judge a book by it's cover? And don't read this book when you want a horror story.

Book Review: The Strain

Title: The Strain

Author: Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Synopsis: A plane lands at JFK airport and stops dead on the runway. All the shades pull down and the power goes out. Crews outside are confused as to what has happened, even more so when they open the airplane to find that everyone on board is dead...or are they?

Stars: 2/5

Lauren's Review: Holy crap, I think John Grisham quit doing legal thrillers for a day and squeezed out this turd. Which is to say, I hated it. Who knew you could make a horror thriller so...boring?

First of all, I didn't give a crap about a single character. They managed to make them all sound like over-used Hollywood stereotypes.

Second of all...ok this is a mini spoiler but everyone who read the book jacket knows it...they're vampires. You think, 'that's kinda overdone, but cool,' right? WRONG. They manage to make vampires the least cool thing ever. There is nothing cool about these vampires, they're boring and don't have any super powers. They're even lamer than Edward Cullen (who at least sparkles and can run really fast).

So when the vampires aren't cool and the characters are as interesting as rocks, I think it's time to give up. I finished this book but I will not be reading the rest of the trilogy. I just don't care.