Aurealis Award 2017 Best Horror Novel

• Author: Lois Murphy
  
• Title: Soon
  
• Genre:  novel
  
• Published: 2017
  
• List of Challenges 2018
• Monthly reading plan
• Trivia: Aurealis Award 2017 Best Horror Novel

Introduction:

1. Soon is the story of the death of a haunted town.
2. It centers on three main characters.
3. These neighbors are the survivors who deify the haunting.
4. Milly – unable to leave memory of her dead husband.
5. Li – refuses to leave the farm she worked so hard to build up.
6. Pete – has nowhere else to go, divorced and estranged from his daughter.
7. I’m not revealing anything else about the narrative or its subplots.
8. You must discover this yourself.

Strong point:  very likeable character Milly Pryor (graceful) retired schoolteacher. She has a  no-nonsense manner mixed with amused cynicism. Her clothes have limpness, her eyes radiate arthritic pain and she keeps a hip flask of brandy close by.

Strong point: I enjoyed the dogs in the story! Lois Murphy must own a dog(s) because she gave some great descriptions of these rascals …and life long companions. Gina, Pete’s dog, is an important character in the book!

Strong point: Murphy keeps the tension palpable. The characters are under constant pressure to return to their safe homes before sunset. In the darkness the deadly ghouls appear.

Strong point:  There is a lot of foreshadowing in the book…you just have to find it! In 6 of the 7 chapters there are dream scenes read them carefully. But the most cryptic clue lies tucked in chapter 3!

Weak point:  So where’s all the horror ?

The descriptions of the ghoulish chimera  in the mist weren’t that scary!   This book  did not leave me white-knuckled…scared out of my wits. There were a lot of snaking, uncurling, lassoing and winding tendrils. There was a convoy grey vehicles in town with anonymous dark-suited men who left no footprints. The mist spoke in whispered hissing, sinister crooning, mesmerising chants and muted shrieks of laughter.  There was a lot of  scratching and tapping on the windows while  terrible faces leered in  the house.  Now that is nothing that makes me recoil in fear.

Conclusion:

• Leaving my comfort zone is not easy.
• But I had no trouble reading this horror novel.
• It is a well written story (60%)
• and Murphy has interjected the narrative with
• unsettling paranormal elements. (40%)
• This is good news if you just want to dabble in this genre
• …taking fear in small doses, one chapter at a time.
• The law cannot cope with the supernatural.
• Ghosts are often rooted in past events
• …and they demand vengeance.
• Sometimes…
• bad things happen to good people,
• circumstances are beyond our control,
• somebody or something wants to take over.
• #C’estLaVie