Review of The Cursed Among Us by John Durgin
A.E. Jackson Review Score: 4 / 5 Ravens
How was this review scored?
John Durgin opens the novel with a bang! Readers watch in horror as a man buries his dead wife. Who is he? Why is he doing this? How many times has he done this before? Then, like a movie reel, cut to twenty years later in the same quiet small town where this coming-of-age tale takes place. Fans of Stephen King’s IT and The Body (Stand By Me) will find this modernization of those novels enjoyable. Durgin even manages to fold in elements of Stranger Things!
Twenty years after The Black Heart Killer terrorized the town of Newport in 1979, life has mostly returned to normal. All the townspeople have to do is stay out of the woods where the bodies were abandoned-their chests ripped open, and their hearts torn out...
Howie Burke and his friends decide rules are meant to be broken. That's what fifteen-year-old kids do. On a beautiful fall day, they decide to go out in the woods to film a horror movie when they stumble across a mysterious grave.
What they don't know is that they are about to release an evil on the town unlike anything in their home-made movies. They will soon uncover the secrets of the Black Heart Killer, and what it truly means to be cursed.
The year is 1999. The author does a fine job of placing readers in the time period. The masterful use of themes from that decade include references to pop culture, electronics found in middle class homes, and movies popular at the time.
Howie Burke, the main character, is well-developed and Durgin uses good point of view throughout the story. There is also a strong narrator omniscient voice utilizing exposition that feels active without getting boring. There is never too much telling, and plenty of Durgin showing them what’s happening, which readers will enjoy.
The novel parades a series of murders past readers to demonstrate the main antagonist’s powers. In true horror film style the setups are traditional tropes, the suspense is palpable, and the final moments of the victim are - well - entertaining. There’s Tommy the town drunk stumbling along the train tracks; Lucas the video clerk on a drive in his car; and Ray the school janitor who is brutally attacked. Among others, the encounters provide good tension which builds with moments of the person being alone, scared, threatened, and then attacked - good scenes overall.
As the story progresses, the parent’s old friendships clash and long-buried issues resurface as the evil threat rises from the forest floor to take revenge on the entire town. Everything leads up to the big High School Homecoming event.
Readers will be captivated by John Durgin’s storytelling mastery through the epilogue which contains an exceptional twist ending!
Growing up in New Hampshire, he discovered Stephen King much younger than most probably should have, reading IT before he reached high school—and knew from that moment on he wanted to write horror.
He co-founded Livid Comics in late 2020, and also launched a podcast with fellow Livid founder Joel Vanpatten called The Livid Comics Lair. They talk with many of today’s best horror authors, comic creators, and all things that go bump in the night like UFO and paranormal investigators.
His true passion was always to write horror novels, and in 2021 he started submitting short stories in hopes of getting noticed in the horror community and launching a career. He had his first story accepted in the summer of 2021 in the Books of Horror anthology.
John has multiple stories to be released in the prose and comic world, including a story in the horror anthology Beach Bodies from DarkLit Press. His debut novel, titled The Cursed Among Us, released in the summer of 2022.
Read more from John Durgin at https://johndurginauthor.com and find him on social media at Twitter(@jdurgin1084), and Instagram(@durginpencildrawings).