Bloodstone
Nate Kenyon
Five Star, Jan 2006, $25.95, 343 pp.
ISBN 1594144389

He was an alcoholic who didn’t care about much of anything until the day he was driving drunk and killed a mother and two children. Billy Smith spent ten years doing hard time for his crime but when he was paroled he was still in the prison of his mind. About a year after he left prison, he starts hearing voices and sees visions of a woman. He finds her on the beach, a prostitute and a junkie named angel

He kidnaps her and the voices draw him to the small Maine town of White Falls. Angel now stays with him willingly because she is having the same dreams and visions and hearing the same voices. There is a darkness to the town, an evil that Billy and Angel can sense even if they don’t know what it is or what it wants besides the two of them for reasons they don’t understand. This evil is going to culminate during the spring festival and only Billy can stop a malevolent spirit from coming through a portal and completing a plan set in motion almost three centuries ago.

Reminiscent of Salem’s Lot, BLOODSTONE is a terrifying horror novel that is action oriented yet doesn’t neglect the development of the characters that come across as believable to the audience. Even ghosts take on a new dimension in this chilling tale as Nate Kenyon’s concept of what they are is both original and frightening. This is the kind of horror novel that will make readers want to sleep with all the lights in the neighborhood shining brightly.

Harriet Klausner