Review of The Horror at Pleasant Brook by Kevin Lucia
A.E. Jackson Review Score: 4 / 5 Ravens
How was this review scored?
The Horror at Pleasant Brook by Kevin Lucia is the Halloween, Salem’s Lot, and IT mash-up you never knew you wanted, but can’t do without now that you know it exists!
CONTENT WARNING
This novel will NOT be for everyone. There is a bit of adult language and some themes or character actions that may trigger readers. Consider this your Content Warning.
This contemporary classic horror novel opens with an exciting gory bang. Fans of splatter look no further - Lucia has got you covered. Quite literally… readers will feel like flicking the dripping entrails off the pages.
The narrator dives straight into backstory and character development. The delivery is clever and pleasing for the reader. Through conversations and interactions with one focus character at a time, Kevin Lucia delivers several characters' facts, traits, and desires. These mini-short stories skirt exposition in favor of action and serve the author well by painting well-formed, believable characters.
A bit of exposition creeps in to help paint the picture of where the story takes place. Aside from that, this novel utilizes a solid, deep point-of-view for each character's perspective readers enter.
The Horror at Pleasant Brook, by Kevin Lucia
This Halloween, a malevolent, creeping horror invades a small, isolated town nestled deep in the Adirondacks. It cares nothing for this town’s secrets, prejudices, or flaws. Its only desires are to consume everything in its path and spread until nothing else remains.
A small group of people stand in its way. They are the leftovers, the ignored, the excluded, and the dismissed. However, as the evil grows, they prove to be the only ones strong enough to stand and fight.
But how can they prevail against this power? It is ancient, pitiless, and unstoppable.
It is The Horror at Pleasant Brook.
Readers will be pleased to see familiar tropes galore, but they’re done with style. The lurking terror that plagues Pleasant Brook is displayed early on as a mask worn by killers - ala Michael Myers from the Halloween films. Later the entity reveals that it stalks and attacks victims, converts them to its malevolent army, and then rests in a nesting area - ala Salem's Lot. The mash-up is executed quite well.
Plus, there is some great social commentary on the global pandemic and its impact on small communities. The entire story takes place in the Fall of 2020 when the way people interacted or retreated from interacting, changed day by day. Lucia's tale is timely and relevant to the issues everyone faced in the last three years. His weave of fact with fiction makes the story feel even more real. But it also reads and feels like a classic horror story from the 1980s!
There are plenty of good scenes of terror that will escalate the reader's heart rate, and they always pay off with classic horror movie murder scenes. Fans of those well-loved, genre-defining films won’t be let down.
But WHY has this horror descended on this sleepy little town? What does the mask creature want? How did it come into existence - and what can stop it? Readers get solid answers about halfway through the novel, and a plan to confront the evil comes together. That’s when the story goes over the top of the roller coaster and speeds towards its exciting conclusion.
Themes of purpose and fate are wrestled with by the character Julie, and her thoughts feel like the author’s voice coming through. The message is simple - everyone has a purpose, there is more to life, and there is an afterlife. The author’s intrusion isn’t overwhelming or unwelcome, but it is bare and visible like the mask on the latest victim’s face.
All of the characters are believable. Each carries a rich, intertwined history with others in the small town. Just as anyone living in a small town will tell you is true.
The novel is fast-paced but still feels full. A complete ending awaits readers who give this one a try. This well-told horror tale wraps up with a strong cathartic conclusion!
Kevin Lucia is the eBook and trade paperback editor at Cemetery Dance Publications. His short fiction has been published in many venues, most notably with Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, David Morell, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, and Robert McCammon. His first novel, The Horror at Pleasant Brook, is forthcoming from Crystal Lake Publishing, in October 2023 (https://www.crystallakepub.com)
Read more from Kevin Lucia at https://kevinlucia.substack.com and find him on social media at Facebook(@CDebookpaperbacks), and Twitter(@KevinBLucia).