Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Blood Harvest-S. J. Bolton

The Blood Harvest
S. J. Bolton
Minotaur, Jun 8 2010, $25.99
ISBN: 9780312600518

Alice and Gareth Fletcher and their three young children (ten years old Tom, six years old Joe, and two years old Millie) move to remote Heptonclough, England. Soon after their arrival, Tom and Joe dodge a gang of nasty boys at a graveyard and church. Later Tom informs his parents that a girl in the shadows seems to be spying on him. Alice and Gareth assume their oldest is letting his imagination play with his mind. However, when Millie is almost killed in what looked like a deliberate action to her older brothers, Tom and Joe vow to watch her.

New vicar Reverend Harry Laycock also senses something is not right. Psychiatrist Dr. Evi Oliver introduces the Reverend to her patient Gillian Royle, who has never recovered from the death of her toddler Hayley in a fire three years ago. Harry finds out about two other similar deaths of young girls (Lucy and Megan) and begins to fear for Millie, but it is Joe who goes missing.

Readers will appreciate this scary psychological supernatural saga as the locale seems serene yet bizarre deadly events occur in which mostly the newcomers as strangers in a strange setting are the only ones truly seeing the horror. Fast-paced, the audience needs to set aside time because S.J. Bolton’s thriller is extremely difficult to put down as fans will want to know what the Blood Harvest of little children (three dead in one coffin, for instance) is.

Harriet Klausner

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