|
In a way, you’ve got to hand it to Leisure. With their newer releases they seemed to have taken a cue from the small press and are publishing more horror novels that push the envelope with scenes of extreme terror and adult themes. While it’s true that Leisure’s stable has always had notable author’s such as Richard Laymon, Brian Keene, and Gary Braunbeck to delight their readers with uncommonly good, entertaining, and thought provoking scares, they now have authors like John Skipp, Ed Lee, Ray Garton, Gord Rollo and Wraith James White who have joined with those aforementioned authors to become the signature face of Leisure horror. And with Sacrifice, you can add one more name to this list… John Everson.
Sacrifice is a sequel to Everson’s first release, Covenant, which was also released last year by Leisure Books. Where Covenant’s pace was such that it built tension slowly while it delved deeply into characterization, Sacrifice is its opposite. It is a ball’s to the wall, action packed, take no prisoners follow up. This book will have you at the edge of your seat with its scenes of supernatural horror, excessive gore, and debauched sex.
In Sacrifice, we find Joe, one of the main characters from Covenant, leaving the island where the first novel took place in order to protect his love who was possessed by a demon. It seems that in order to save her life back on the island, Joe made a covenant with the demon. Joe’s sacrifice for the covenant entailed that the demon now reside inside of him. And since everyone knows that demons can’t be trusted, Joe left the island fearing that the demon would somehow leave his body and repossess his girlfriend.
As Joe travels the country looking for a new place to settle down (with the demon tagging along), he picks up a young girl named Alex who is hitchhiking. We soon find out that this young girl can see and speak to the dead. We also learn that she took an axe to her parents and cut them up into little pieces. In spite of this, love blooms between the two.
All the while Joe and Alex are in the act of finding each other; it seems that there is a serial killer roaming the country in the form of a young woman named Ariana. Ariana goes to sex clubs and then lures men into her hotel room where she promptly kills them and eviscerates them. Apparently, Ariana is preparing her own sacrifices to a group of demons called the Curburide who want her to open a doorway into our world so they can enter and kill every living thing. For reasons never explained, the demon inside Joe alerts him and Alex to the threat and tells them that they are the only two who can stop the Curburide from crossing over. From this point forward, it’s a race to find Ariana before she makes her final sacrifice.
While reading Sacrifice, you’ll find that Everson’s novel zips right along, not only because of his fast paced plotting, but because he gives equal time to his antagonists in the book. The reader doesn’t have a chance to get bogged down in any one characters storyline at the risk of being bored, because Everson seems to know just when he’s given us enough to chew on and then he moves on. And Everson gives his readers plenty to chew on.
For those who enjoy supernatural horror, they will find many tasty bits that are sure to please. In Sacrifice the dead are everywhere, some willing to assist our hero’s, but some may not. The demons are particularly nasty and terrifying, as those innocent people who are dragged through the doorway discover as they are pulled into hell.
And gore hounds will have a field day with Sacrifice. Each of Ariana’s sacrifices are explicitly rendered, with one in the middle of the book that has to be read to be believed. Add to that the detailing of the scenes leading up to where Alex plays Paul Bunyan on her parents, and you have one gruesome novel in your hands. This is not a book for those who are squeamish or take offense at women being brutalized.
It’s not often when a sequel feels as fresh and entertaining as Sacrifice does. John Everson has done a fantastic job with this book and I look forward to his future offerings. This is one Leisure Publishing book that I would highly recommend.
Tt
|
