Bloodstone

Fine debut novel from Nate Kenyon. Stephen King-esque setting (small Maine town with secrets) has good, strong characters, an atmospheric location and a literary device that works really well. Bloodstone, for me invoked the vintage /old school horror written in the 70/80s by King, Straub, Masterton et al ( )

Bloodstone is a plodding supernatural tale that never got off the ground for me. I struggled to get through the first 200 pages and should have stopped at that point and moved on to another book. I kept going only because a number of reviewers noted that the book improved dramatically during its last third. Well, maybe that was true, but not enough for me to give the book more than one star.

The book contained characters that I really didn't care about, and frankly, found unlikeable. The story, at least in my humble opinion, certainly didn't match the book's exciting and provocative cover. Kenyon's novel has been compared to the work of Stephen King; in my estimation the only thing "Bloodstone" has in common with anything that King's written was that it used Maine as the setting for the story. ( )

I had real high expectations from this book based on the high reviews from Amazon. Unfortunately I was very disappointed. Half way through the book I found myself having to force myself to finish the book. The book moved at a very slow pace and very little happens until the end. And I am OK with that as long as the characters are interesting or the plot is interesting. In this case the characters were as bland as the story itself. I felt nothing by the end of the book. The tag says reminiscent of Stephen King, which I disagree with, I found no similarities to Stephen King whatsoever. I did find it similar to some of Peter Straub’s stories which move at a slow pace. ( )

We've seen it all before in books: people mysteriously drawn to towns; ancient evils and talismans; spontaneous and unexplained eruptions of violence; shadowy figures stealing through the night; historical letters from the ones who started it all. Bloodstone has all that and more, but it pulls it off in a fresh and amazing way.

The dread kept building over the course of the book, resulting in a masterful climax. It was sick, it was twisted, it was seriously creepy. Kenyon's descriptions were wonderful, the plot was great, and the climax was totally hardcore. I never saw the twists coming. I thought I knew and had it down from the very beginning, but I was completely wrong, and I love it when that happens and I get blindsided. The only thing I didn't care for was the epilogue. Kenyon wrote an out of control crazy scary book, then had to go and happify the ending.

Even so, Bloodstone was so good that I bought a copy. It's weird that The Reach was so awful and Bloodstone was brilliant, but I can forgive Kenyon if the next book he writes is wonderful like this one. ( )

Nate Kenyon takes the time and care to develop the cast of characters and establish the history and setting of the small town environment, and then allows the story to unwrap itself slowly. The result is one heck of a debut novel. I will certainly be reading his follow up novel The Reach and am eagerly looking forward to his upcoming release in 2009, The Bone Factory. ( )