Review of These Things Linger by Dan Franklin
A.E. Jackson Review Score: 4 / 5 Ravens
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Dan Franklin delivers a haunting romp through a town terrorized by an unstoppable lurking evil. Alex Wilson’s memories come calling to collect payment for actions he took as a hormone-fueled teenager. The story contains several uncomfortable and unsettling encounters along the edge of the supernatural world. This taunt terror-filled novel, by a horror author to keep watching, is worth the price of admission - and then some.
After Alex’s uncle unexpectedly dies, Alex resolves to try anything to make peace with the man who raised him. Even reaching out to the dead through a ritual a high school girlfriend taught him.
However, things more dangerous than ghosts haunt the quiet one-gas-station town of Fair Hill. Things that can consume the living and the dead too. And they’re all too ready to answer Alex’s call.
Eater of Gods acclaimed author Dan Franklin returns with These Things Linger. A twisting and unforgiving novel of desperation, depression, heritage, and other hungry, vicious things.
Franklin begins with a lot of exposition in order to build background and set the stage for the uncanny situations to come. Some readers may not be as forgiving, but those who stick with the tale are well rewarded.
The main character’s hot and heavy petting session morphs into a strange blood ritual with his high school girlfriend. What she taught him in that moment will later help bring his dead uncle back from the grave. Playing around with forces he doesn’t understand is a portent for disaster.
Alex has several encounters with his dead uncle and a strange dead girl. She can’t communicate well, but seems to blame the uncle for the injuries covering her body. It would seem his uncle was a lot darker and more trouble than Alex ever realized.
The story proceeds through a lot of exposition by Alex, the main character. There is not much action for readers to observe, or progress to the main plot. Much of the novel is a series of minor incidents, and Alex’s interpretation and thoughts about those moments.
The tension does increase through his encounters with the strange dead girl. As she continues to grow more menacing and threatening with every passing page, the plot begins to take form. In fact, the early story provides the background and setup required for later events to echo against. Readers will find the later story to be much more full, rich, complete, and satisfying.
Scenes of grotesque, horrific gore, fulfill their purpose to convey terror in the reader. Not a drop of blood is spilled without a deeper meaning or purpose by the author.
This rapid-fire thrill ride contains a cathartic ending that will linger with readers long after passing the book onto another victim to enjoy. Franklin delivers a story filled with terror that will grip you tight as a knot in your chest!
Dan Franklin wrote his first attempt at a horror novel when he was seven. It was terrible. He has, since, improved. The winner of several local awards for short stories and an occasional poem, Dan Franklin lives in Maryland with his extremely understanding wife, his cosmically radiant daughter, and a socially crippling obsession with things that creep. The Eater of Gods is his first published novel.
Read more from Dan Franklin at https://www.danfranklinauthor.com and find him on social media at Facebook(@DanFranklinAuthor).