Title: The Village of Last Hope
Author: Stephen B. King
Genre: Thriller/Suspense/Horror
Book Blurb:
Dazed and confused, Michael wanders the streets in the rain, depressed to the point of suicide. He found his wife in his brother's arms when he arrived home earlier. Michael has always had issues of paranoia, much to his wife’s annoyance, but this time, he knows what he saw.
Waiting for the next bus, a stranger appears, offering him a raincoat and somewhere to spend the night where he will be safe. Gabriel eventually leads Michael to a door in a concrete wall under the Interstate, and they enter a hidden village. He is introduced to Peter, the gatekeeper, who demands to know what Michael did. Michael can’t remember anything from before leaving his home earlier and doesn’t understand the question.
Michael has three days to remember and answer Peter’s question. Too late, Michael discovers he is a prisoner, but is it of his own making? Has he gone completely insane, or has he done something so evil, he is damned forever in The Village of Last Hope.
My Review:
Horror comes in many forms and readers get scared by those things that go bump in the night. There can be true terror much closer to home. One doesn't need to pry open a crypt door at midnight on Halloween to find horror. One simply has to have the crypt door over the dark recesses of their mind opened. The greatest and most intense horror can come from your own fevered brain.
The descriptive world building is so intense that the reader begins to feel the atmosphere in their bones. Such rich and lavish descriptions make it so easy for the reader to get deeply into this story. In some ways, it is the impressive world building inside the mind of Michael that makes this book such a compelling read.
Distortion can be a huge part of horror. There is also something so scary for the distortion to be coming from one's own mind and not an outside factor. Isn't losing oneself everyone's greatest fear?
Destined to be a modern horror classic, this book is one that will take you in and not let you go. I will not spoil the incredible ending. Simply get this book and get ready to face horror like you rarely see.
My Rating: 5 stars
Buy it Now:
Free to read on Kindle Unlimited.
Author Biography:
I was born in the UK, what seems like an epoch ago, and moved to Australia at age 16. I was a long-haired rock guitarist and poet/songwriter before real life got in the way, and I gave it all up for love.
I've always felt I had tales to tell. I won short story competitions and wrote poetry in my wilder, younger days, but always wanted to write novels. I've now published eighteen books. While some are Police procedural thrillers, mainly focusing on Serial killers, all my stories have a love theme running through them.
I believe love and family are everything. Anything else you gain in life is a bonus.
I live in Perth, Western Australia, and am fiercely patriotic. My wife is amazing in that she not only puts up with living with a writer but encourages it. I've been blessed with five children, and I adore them all.
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Reviewed by: Mr. N