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A review by weaselweader
Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky
4.0
Not your average haunted house!
Jacob Logan is drawing a deep mental breath and trying to use a change of pace to gather his thoughts and restore some peace, calm and order to his life. Five years after his mother died and with a business venture in Boston having just failed, Logan returns to small town Mayfield, North Carolina to take up residence in his childhood home. But a series of inexplicable events overtake him and it's clear that nobody is happy about Logan's return to a town and a lifestyle that he had summarily abandoned many years earlier. Ultimately Logan comes to the conclusion that his departed parents have not fully departed and, from within the house, are trying to communicate with him. He just isn't understanding the message but he knows that he'd better figure it out before someone is hurt!
Haunted houses and paranormal communication with the dearly (or even not so dearly) departed are old hat for horror novels. So when an author goes down the road of choosing this particular sub-genre for a horror novel, the writing, the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue and the resulting shiver factor had better be up to the task of building a readable story from such prosaic foundations.
Although I'm not generally an avid reader of this type of novel, I have to admit that FIREFLY RAIN succeeded in making me turn the pages of a brief but quite enjoyable gothic style novel in which the house and nature itself are major players. Author Richard Dansky creates a creepy setting in which the very fireflies in the fields choose to abhor the presence of death. The air in Mayfield is thick with the flickering lights of the summer firefly population but they steadfastly refuse to cross the border onto the Logan property. And, even when Logan experiments by carrying them onto the property in the confines of a jar, the fireflies die! I mean ... really ... how surprising, unique and truly innovative is that?
I'm still not a salivating convert to the horror genre but I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to read another novel by Richard Dansky. I think it's also safe to say that afficionados of this style of novel would be more than pleased with Dansky's efforts.
Recommended.
Paul Weiss
Jacob Logan is drawing a deep mental breath and trying to use a change of pace to gather his thoughts and restore some peace, calm and order to his life. Five years after his mother died and with a business venture in Boston having just failed, Logan returns to small town Mayfield, North Carolina to take up residence in his childhood home. But a series of inexplicable events overtake him and it's clear that nobody is happy about Logan's return to a town and a lifestyle that he had summarily abandoned many years earlier. Ultimately Logan comes to the conclusion that his departed parents have not fully departed and, from within the house, are trying to communicate with him. He just isn't understanding the message but he knows that he'd better figure it out before someone is hurt!
Haunted houses and paranormal communication with the dearly (or even not so dearly) departed are old hat for horror novels. So when an author goes down the road of choosing this particular sub-genre for a horror novel, the writing, the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue and the resulting shiver factor had better be up to the task of building a readable story from such prosaic foundations.
Although I'm not generally an avid reader of this type of novel, I have to admit that FIREFLY RAIN succeeded in making me turn the pages of a brief but quite enjoyable gothic style novel in which the house and nature itself are major players. Author Richard Dansky creates a creepy setting in which the very fireflies in the fields choose to abhor the presence of death. The air in Mayfield is thick with the flickering lights of the summer firefly population but they steadfastly refuse to cross the border onto the Logan property. And, even when Logan experiments by carrying them onto the property in the confines of a jar, the fireflies die! I mean ... really ... how surprising, unique and truly innovative is that?
I'm still not a salivating convert to the horror genre but I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to read another novel by Richard Dansky. I think it's also safe to say that afficionados of this style of novel would be more than pleased with Dansky's efforts.
Recommended.
Paul Weiss