Tutsak

The Curburide Chronicles #1

by John Everson

2004 Bram Stoker Ödülü

Eğer ruhunu şeytana sattıysan ölüm bir kurtuluş değil, tutsaklığın ta kendisidir.

Uçurum!
Uçurumdaki ses seni çağırıyor.
Şşhh! Ses çıkarma!
Kaçmak mı istiyorsun? İşte o iş biraz cesaret ister. O'nunla sözleşme yapmışsın bir kere! Nereye kaçıyorsun?
Bu mücadelede sahip olduğun zekân seni yarı yolda bırakabilir; çünkü bedenen ve ruhen O'na aitsin.
Eşlerini seçemeyeceksin; ama fantezilerin ve onlardan yaşayacağın haz doruğa ulaşacak.
Eline ve koluna hükmedemeyeceksin. Belki hayatında asla birlikte olmak istemeyeceğin bir kadından çocuğun olacak, belki de yerde kokuşmuş bir leşin!
Ve daha da kötüsü bunların hepsi tutsaklığının sadece bir başlangıcı olacak!

Temelinde korku ve gerilim barındıran lanet olası güzel bir kitap!
-Horror World-

Tutsak, John Everson'a 2004 yılında Bram Stoker ödülünü kazandıran bir kitap. Bu sürükleyici kurguyu okuduktan sonra farkını görecek ve neden ödüle hak kazandığını daha iyi anlayacaksınız.
-Rue Morgue Magazine-

Eşit derecede gizem ve gerilim dolu kitap. Sonuna kadar sizi nefes nefese bırakacak, sürükleyici bir okuma tecrübesi.
-Creature Feature-

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Supernatural, Fantasy, Adult

432 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2004

About the author

John Everson is a former newspaper reporter who writes thrillers filled with erotic horror and supernatural suspense. He is the author of the Bram Stoker Award winner Covenant, and finalist NightWhere, which reviewers called "50 Shades Meets Hellraiser!" He is also the creator of the characters Danika and Mila Dubov, seen in the Netflix series V-Wars, based on the books created by Jonathan Maberry. Booklist said his recent New Orleans novel, Voodoo Heart, "is a solid blend of supernatural horror and hard-boiled detective fiction, and should appeal to horror devotees as well as mystery buffs” while Living Dead Magazine called him "the master of dark and sexy."

Follow John on the BookBub: John Everson page for information on book sales and new releases as well as on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For information on his fiction, art and music, visit John Everson: Dark Arts at www.johneverson.com.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 1 out of 5]

reporter moves to small town and comes across a rash of suicides. are they actually suicides? is there some supernatural presence lurking at the cliff that is the site of those deaths? and is there some sort of shadowy cabal that has formed a pact - a covenant - with that supernatural presence?

I guess I'm ok with reading a graphic rape scene in a horror novel. or at least I don't get so horrified and upset that it becomes hard to continue reading, like I do when coming across a graphic scene of child murder or abuse. I wonder why that is, how I can be okay with one thing but not the other, like I am prioritizing atrocities. so yeah, I can deal with an explicit rape scene in a horror novel, sure. but to have to read one incredibly horrific rape scene... and then, not much later, read another even more horrific rape scene that takes place 18 or so years later... to the same character? why, why, why. it just seems so gratuitous, so cruel just to be cruel. ugh, gross.

the protagonist is almost ridiculously unappealing. it appears as if he is intended to be some sort of Everyman but I doubt every man in his mid-20s would think that it is alright to repeatedly ply an 18-year old with booze in the service of his queasy crush on her. ugh, gross. there is also the basic illogic of his backstory: reporter blows whistle on corruption, specifically singling out his own girlfriend. er, conflict of interest much? I doubt any big leagues newspaper would allow this. the author seems unaware of how lame, repulsive, and unrealistic this guy is.

the villain talks like the sort of demonic super villain that a 14-year old would think up. actually, the villain sounds just like a demonic 14-year old. this is some ageless supernatural menace? I think not.

and the writing is often abominable.

He could almost taste the scent of death in the air. It stank of the bloody tang of brine and betrayal.

there is so much that is wrong with those two sentences that I don't even know where to start. and there's much, much more where that came from. ugh, gross prose, that's the worst!

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book as it revolves around a town called Terrel Point. There are some legends that need to be left buried in Terrel Point. The legend becomes unearthed when a reporter "Joe" who has come to the area starts digging around into the past and finds that there have been suicides that have taken place in the town. But that is not the only thing he digs up as there is also a demonic presence that has buried itself into Terrel Point.

The more "Joe" delves into the secrets of the town, the more he is turned away from the residents as they do not want him digging too deep as he might find something that they do not want the world to know. The book gains momentum as I became move involved in the story.

This book is not for the faint of heart as it delves deep into the core of gory, sexual violence along with some creepy, twisted horror. This is the first time I have read this author and I am looking forward to finishing the rest of this series. Four stars for this one.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

While Everson's Covenant picked up a Bram Stoker Award, to me that proves different strokes for different folks; I may be the minority here, but this book is a mess. It read like Everson tried to pack too many horror tropes into one novel, including some ones I have little affinity for (e.g., brutal, graphic rape just to move the plot), and left too many plates in the air and enough plot holes to make my head spin. Where to start?

Horror readers are quite familiar with a trope of 'big evil in a small town' and should feel right at home with this one; where our main protagonist Joe Kieran, a crusading reporter from the big city (Chicago), moves to the sleepy coastal city of Terrel (maybe in the Carolinas?). After settling into his new job at the local rag for a few months, he feels the paper, and indeed everyone in town, is suppressing a major story-- why are people throwing themselves to death off a cliff by the ocean on a regular basis? His first inkling is when a local boy does it on his watch at the news desk at the paper. The local cops tell him 'no big deal' and his boss tells him just to write a quiet obit. Can't they see what a tragedy this is? Well, Joe is determined to find out what is going on, as the only 'accounting' of the tragedy revolves around some demon in the cliff...

Everson brings together demons in some covenant with the town, other demons or something Lovecraftian (the Curburide) which seem to be set up for sequels of this, conspiracy, and our shining knight Joe (who is really something of an asshole) to uncover the mess and save the day. He also must have thought weaving in some cringeworthy sex scenes would have some appeal, but they reminded me of Laymon at his worst. Toss in some erratic pacing and stilted dialogue, and there you go. The (to be generous) workmanlike prose did not really help either. While YMMV, I did not dig this one, although I did manage to keep enough interest to finish it; unfortunately, the ending left so many strings untied it did not satisfy. 1.5 demons, rounding up as I finished it.

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic small town horror meets splatterpunk sex & gore in this page-turning debut of author John Everson.
Not for the feint of heart at all and I think it was far better if the mistery developed together with Joe's investigations instead of being revealed just after a few chapters, but I enjoyed the ride and devoured in a final session last 100+ pages.
Not bad at all for a first novel.

[Richard K. Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, after reading three; 5 star reads by Everson.....this one didn't make the mark for me. NOPE.
So, this book started out really interesting and I thought it was just going to get creepier and creepier, when I started to uncover the suicides of teenagers either on the same day in Spring or on Halloween! The way Everson descirbes visceral scenes of finding a young boys body, that is discovered 'speared through his chest' with 2 feet of ocean rock......so well written, it just did not keep up these kinds of scenes which is what has really made me love this man's writing! When he does HORROR he makes you look over your shoulder or get up and to turn a light on, 'Covenant' never gets there. It really had it's potential to be one hell of a scary book, but it took the yellow brick road to the local porno shop downtown. I went into this book last night only knowing that this was Everson's very first book and it had won the Bram Stoker award for first horror novel. I dont mind graphic sexual scenes in horror when it has to do with the story line as it was in books like 'The Entity' and others, however in this it just took over wayyyyyyy! too much of the story line of 5 pretty stupid women who pay their dues to a demon that lives in the cliffs and caves of Terrell Point, in the small town of Terrell. This book took the path of actually being more of a pornographic thriller and mystery than horror at all. I didnt even think it was a horror tale, as Everson's other 3 that I jsut read were! Now those were 5 star HORROR novels!! This book went downhill for me about a third into it, when I started to not care about what happened to Joe, Angelique or any others in this town of Ill Repute. Sorry, I guess there was just too many 'swollen vulva's dripping with sexual fluids..............' I would recommend this to a very HORNY 15 year old boy who is still a virgin! Believe me, he will know how to masturbate by the time he finishes this one.

WARNING; THIS HAD SOME OF THE MOST SEXUALLY GRAPHIC SCENES OF SELF PLEASURE I HAVE EVER READ. IF YOU DONT LIKE VIOLENT AND GORY SCENES OF RAPE, STAY AWAY FROM THIS ONE.

[Kenneth McKinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A covenant is an agreement between two parties to either do or not do something. If the word covenant sounds old and slightly sinister, you're starting to get a feel of where the story is going.

Joe is a young newspaper reporter that is escaping heartbreak and loss from the mean streets of Chicago and moves to the small coastal hamlet of Terrel. For a reporter, Terrel is pretty mundane and boring. There are no real stories to sink your teeth into. So when he gets wind that a local teenager took a swan dive from the top of the cliff overlooking the ocean, Joe is all about finding out what happened. When he discovers that people have been offing themselves from this spot since there was lighthouse perched up there a 100 years ago, Joe smells a story that gets his juices flowing. The problem is no one is talking. The sheriff and his editor want him to leave the story alone. Not one of the victim's parents will say a word and treat him like he's a disease. What is going on here?

Covenant won a Bram Stoker Award for First Novel for Everson and you can see shades of why. At times, the writing and story reminds me somewhat of Charles L. Grant. That's a good thing. But there are times when the marriage between old school eerieness and splatterpunk rape scenes don't seem to mesh all that well. Why many of the characters let themselves get into the covenant, in the first place, isn't entirely convincing. And you'll want to scream at the top of your lungs when it appears Joe has all the answers in the book he eventually holds in his hands and then acts as if he can't be bothered to read it. So yes, there are some warts. But, overall, Covenant is a pretty good offering by Everson that shows tell-tale signs that it is his first novel.

3 1/2 horny demons out of 5


You can also follow my reviews at the following links:

https://kenmckinley.wordpress.com

http://intothemacabre.booklikes.com

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5...

[Stacia]

For me, Covenant is going on the abandoned pile at 160 pages (approx. halfway point).

1. Misogynistic, explicit rapey scenes (with more later, according to other reviews). Apparently it's billed as "erotic horror", which doesn't appear on the book cover but rather in descriptions I've read after the fact. Just no.

2. Where the hell is this book set? The main character left Chicago to live in a small coastal town. I was originally thinking the NE, but then there's mention of a park with a statue of a Confederate general. So, the South then? But the southern coastline doesn't have the type of ocean cliffs described here. The mixed up descriptions drew me out of the story more than once. A hallmark of bad writing.

3. The main character is not likeable. Actually, nobody really is. Sometimes that's fine because the plot or other pieces are strong enough to carry the load otherwise. But that's not the case here.

4. I'm honestly kind-of shocked this won a Bram Stoker award in 2005. I guess times were different (& not better) then. While I enjoy pulpy fiction sometimes, this one will remain unfinished by me. Ugh.

[V · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved for a while, it was good and a little haunting, but about midway through I wanted to stop because it went downhill. First there was one sex scene then again and then the rape scenes began, first between two chars., then an orgy with one character fatally injured, all of this in great detail. The back half of this book is filled with useless sex scenes, graphic and disgusting rape scene in gory repetition. The ending is a graphic, highly detailed, rape scene with most of the main charters involved.
I'm not in no way against sex scenes, but this is repetitive, pointless and at times very sickening. It's a deranged serial rapists fantasy (Or maybe that was the point).

I'm going to go throw up now. Whoever gave this book an award is on crack. I am saddened that I bought this book let alone read it.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Small town. Big secrets.

The narration started a big sketchy for me, but I settled into it and it was very good.

Entertaining and somewhat predictable with plenty of sex and violence to keep it going.

[John Everson]

My first horror novel, first published by Delirium Books in 2004, and then released in mass market paperback by Leisure Books in 2008.

[Ravenskya · Rating 4 out of 5]

So you are a reporter who has already committed career suicide once, now you find yourself working at the local paper in the sleepy little town of Terrel. Bored to tears from covering garden parties, you finally catch wind of something interesting… a teen leaps to his death from the cliffs overlooking the town. When you ask a few questions you get very strange responses from the townspeople so you do a little investigation… suddenly discovering a string of yearly suicides going back over 1...more So you are a reporter who has already committed career suicide once, now you find yourself working at the local paper in the sleepy little town of Terrel. Bored to tears from covering garden parties, you finally catch wind of something interesting… a teen leaps to his death from the cliffs overlooking the town. When you ask a few questions you get very strange responses from the townspeople so you do a little investigation… suddenly discovering a string of yearly suicides going back over 100 years. Convinced you have a story on your hands, you start to investigate, even though everyone in the town warns you against it… because sometimes secrets are kept for your own safety.

From what I understand this is Everson’s first novel, I personally have never read anything by Everson before but I like to try new things, so I dug right in. The book itself is just under 300 pages with a teaser of his next novel at the back. This book is a very quick read that I started about 8pm and finished before 11 that night. The story is an interesting one, as the reader you know something is going on, and you are able to figure it out more quickly than our dear reporter, Joe Keirnan… just in time that you’ll know when he’s about to make a serious error. But who can he trust when everyone is hiding something. This book has a very supernatural edge to it, and though the grand finale felt that it should have had a few more bodies racked up… it was a satisfying conclusion. This book is not as gory as most that I have read, though there are several supernaturally induced rape scenes which may be upsetting to more sensitive readers.

The setup for the ending is fairly clear to guess from early on in the book, which takes out any chance of a “shocker” ending, but it really didn’t bother me all that much. The book was well written and managed to keep my attention from beginning to end. Though I always felt that I knew what was about to happened, it never really irritated me as it does with some books. Some of the characters could have used a little more meat to them, had he thrown in another 30 pages or so I feel the book could have been even better. The tale unfolds similar to a haunted house story, with the haunted house being a cliff instead of a house. I would have liked for a higher creepiness level, I never really had the vibe that the characters were truly in that much danger because it just felt like they were going to make it from the moment you met them. “Covenant,” though highly entertaining, and well worth the read to a horror fan, does not really break any new ground. I would be happy to read a second book about the incidents 100 years before, I feel that he had a very interesting tale there and actually the little blurbs from the journal were probably my favorite part of the book.

Recommended to fans of the general horror genre (King and Koontz), I’m not sure that the extreme horror crew (Laymon, Ketchum, Lee) will find as much gore here as they would like. In all this is a very tightly written novel with excellent pacing, and fairly descent characters for a horror tale. I consider this to be a wonderful first novel and hope that the author has many more in store for us.

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting and fun reading. I say this because of all the reviews I saw here that this book was sex all the way. Well it was not that sex involved. Well it had sex. A good horror story (movie or book) has a sex seen. This one had more than most.

It has rape scenes so to the faint of heart beware.

This novel deals with a reporter that after making a harsh decision leaves the city and goes working in a local newspaper where no "big" news will be presented... until a serie of suicides draws his attention. Then the same thing happens as other horror novels. The town people warns that he must stay way but he (Joe Kieran) wants to investigate.

It seems the town have a personal daemon that draws every year a victim, usually from outside town but it seems that now it's taking some children from the very town. It's quite interesting the tale and the supernatural it's excelent.

For some time you wonder if this is another scooby doo tale where there isn't any supernatural involved but "it" starts talking with each character. Interesting is that this daemon is quite powerful, even capable of using the body of several people at a time.

The rape scenes as I said are almost and handful and it helps the plot. First with Angelica with Kieran, then Angelica when she tried to leave town, then with Cindy, then the all bunch of six girls and in the end a couple more occasions.

I enjoyed the supernatural, as I before and it had a backstory behind that help a lot the flow of the story.

The ending leaves an opening to a sequel (and I will buy it someday).

With less than 300 pages is a fast paced book that will leave you satisfied if you like this type of horror.

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very entertaining debut novel from one of my favourite horror writers. This was the perfect time to read this seeing as the third and last book in the series was just released today and I prefer to read the entire series back to back. This had everything that I enjoy in a horror novel. A clueless do-gooder yet insensitive hero, love, a decent amount of crazy kinky sex and violence, and a seemingly unstoppable antagonist.

[Eric Butler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know. It was fine. Took a while to get to the point, but I don't mind that if the development helps you connect with the characters. My problem was I didn't like any of them. I had no reason to care either way what happened to them in the end. Maybe that changes in the 2nd book - wish I'd realized it was a set before starting. It's well written and has some interesting moments. Maybe you'll like it more than I did.

[Randi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is pretty good. It was a bit rapey for my tastes but it was still decent. I love stories about small towns, legends and demons. I listened to this one on Audible and the narrater was really good as well.

[Cassandra Glissadevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 stars!
Another strong entry from Everson. Only "The 13th" is better.

[William M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why COVENANT won the Stoker Award for best first novel. It's an ambitious story on many levels, and for the most part, Everson pulls it off. A wonderfully creepy first third slides into some predictable patterns, but Everson throws so much danger, sex, and mythology at the reader, you're bound to enjoy yourself. I think he maybe gave too much information away in chapter three, because I would have liked to piece the story together myself as our main character begins his investigation, rather than have the secret given away so soon. I was also confused at some of the decisions some of the characters made... like witnessing an abduction and not calling the police when there was no reason not to, etc.


The author does a nice job keeping the fantastic material grounded in a reality that is believable and sympathetic. Everson's skill as a technical writer is just as strong as his storytelling ability and that is something I don't see very often. Usually someone is much stronger in one area. John Everson seems to have the entire package as a writer and his love for hardcore horror is readily apparent, and one I very much welcome. The pros heavily outweigh the cons in this story and I'm definitely looking forward to reading his new book, SACRIFICE, the sequel to COVENANT.

[Bee Turner · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book because it was going for a quid on Kindle as part of a special deal on "spooky" books. It had 4 and a half stars and the reviews said it was kind of trashy but enjoyable.

Well, it was trashy but not very enjoyable. The premise was simple and the reveal was so ham handedly foreshadowed that it lacked punch. Plus up to that point there was two options to the reveal and the author chose the much weaker one.

The sex in here is hugely salacious without being the least bit sexy or horrifying. It's mostly just gross. In fact none of the horror is horrifying because you don't care about any of the characters. The only thing I enjoyed was that due to a weird formatting error the word "panties" always came up as "pan ties" which made the already awful " sex scenes" hilarious.

The worst bit was instead of having the characters as interesting multi depth people it was all "evil is an outside force making these people do things" no personal responsibility for any of the characters.

Basically worth just about what I paid.

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This won The Bram Stoker Award for best horror novel of the year? No wonder horror novels are not the hot property they once were. This novel begins with an interesting premise and then slid into sexual deviancy of the demonic kind that does nothing to increase the horror or the dread. The story concerns a recently relocated Chicago reporter who has stumbled upon his new found town's little secret: every year someone falls from a specific cliff. Unstoppable in his pursuits, Joe Kieran comes upon a secret pact, or "Covenant", with a demon made over 100 years ago. Promising idea that becomes sexual claptrap. True dread exists for the first two books, but then it takes unbelievable, and unnecessary, trip to kinksville. Really disappointing. I'm glad I'm no longer a member of the "Horror Book Club" for Leisure Fiction, as this wasn't scary, just dumb. Sadly, this is what the majority of their selections were for me. Avoid this book and weep for the state of modern horror.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great horror novel. Really enjoyed it. John Everson is one of the most under rated authors on the market if you ask me. Sex, horror and good writing.

[Estevam (Impish Reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining book, the character for the most part served their purpose the main character was interesting enough to grab my attention and carry the book on his back and his backstory was for the most part interesting and gave him the motivation to make the plot go forward, sadly i can't say that about the supporting cast that were very one note and were not developed enough save for the "gypsy" Angelica.
Now, the setting was well explored the reader has a good enough grasp of the towns history and the founder's dabble on the occult that put the characters in their predicament and the demon/spirit is a force that throughout the story is very palpable which helps a lot the horror side of the story.
All in all the book is competently written and the story is interesting enough to grab you from beggining to end and for that it receives a 4-star rating and my recommendation for those that like their thrillers with a small pint of horror.

[John Bruni · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first it's pretty easy to forget that Everson was the guy who wrote The 13th, because a lot of the material in this book is quiet horror. An evil spirit driving people to throw themselves from the top of a cliff is very much a Charles L. Grant type of story. But as you get through the book, it becomes darker and more grotesque to the point where you are very easily reminded of The 13th gore levels. It also has a neat little trick near the end, but a lot of it is fun but predictable. There is a sequel, which I'm sure I will enjoy, too.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mysterious spate of suicides that spans decades. A sleepy small town with secrets to hide. Whispers of a long standing Covenant with something that lives in the cliff outside town.

All this sets the stage for Covenant, a small town horror novel where a reporter digs to get to the bottom of a secret horror hidden beneath the town. Evoking stories like The Fog, The Howling, and the like, this is an old school 80's style horror tale.

The writing is good, not perfect, but a damn sight better than most. The dialogue is believable and the exposition is clear. The only time it stumbled was during the romantic elements where exclamation points seemed to pop unbidden from the woodwork to give the narrative a little bit of a juvenile feel. By and large though, it's up to snuff for most audiences.

The plot and characters are okay to good. The man character is best fleshed out, while the other characters float from well formed to a bit flat. Rightly though, the latter are secondary or tertiary characters, so the lack of development doesn't hit too hard.

The plot is good for 80% of the book, but near the end, some odd narrative choices in the form of throwing a very far reaching mythology into what had been to that point a story that was very much "small town with a dark secret" until then takes on a tone that was inconsistent with the rest of the book. The ending opens up more questions and fails to answer some others, which may irritate some readers. The one thing I would have liked was some more explanation of why everyone in town is so willing to ignore routine, clockwork suicides every year.

All of this is typical horror movie suspension of disbelief type stuff and has to be taken with a grain of salt. For the most part though, it's an entertaining, cheap way to kill some time.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Covenant by John Everson is a horror novel and the debut novel from this author. The cover trumpets this book as a winner of the Bram Stoker Award and after reading it I can see why. This is a nice taught story, well told, and briskly paced. It's the story about a young 20-something reporter named Joe Kiernan who has moved from Chicago to the small coastal town of Terrel. It's not long before he discovers the deep dark secret that is haunting the town: for some reason people are dying (usually leaping to their deaths from the cliffs of Terrel's Peak) once each year on the exact same day. Joe gladly puts on his investigative reporter persona to escape his usual small town assignments and soon gets in over his head. He is a pragmatist, certain that there is some sort of serial killer on the loose but eventually he has to embrace the idea of a supernatural nature to the tragedies.

This book, I must say, is not for the squeamish. Particularly, in the second half of the book, as the supernatural stuff comes more and more into focus, there is lots of blood and gore and sex, sometimes all together. Everything is on stage and leaves very little to the imagination. You've been warned. I compare this book to the works of Richard Laymon although Laymon's plots tend to be more teenage sexual fantasy whereas this is hard core horror. There is a sequel out called Sacrifice and I'll probably read that as well if it comes across my radar.

[Patti Barlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the past several years my reading has been of a technical nature, programming, the sort of books that are rather easy to put down. Enter COVENANT. I downloaded this to my Kindle to review COVENANT prior to giving a print copy to my daughter for Christmas.

Everson unveils a plot that takes its time to develop the setting and main characters, while keeping the story moving fast enough that you just don't want to stop reading. COVENANT starts off quickly in a small-town setting - sparking my interest with a young couple, a mysterious suicide, and a displaced big city reporter. As reporter Joe Kieran works through the difficulties of discovering Terrell's closely held fears and secrets, he learns that things are not as black and white as a reporter's logic requires. In the end, the hidden gem - the surprise - is artfully held by Everson and revealed with perfect timing.

My joy in reading is the creation of the mind's-eye image of every character and every scene. Everson provides just the right amount of details to guide me, as the reader, to create the images of my choosing.

I found COVENANT to be a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience and left me wanting more... with the stage perfectly set for SACRIFICE.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Covenant starts off with an interesting premise, but then devolves into sexual depravity. This reminds me of the movie The Last House on the Left, which depicts a graphic rape scene. Is rape horrible? Yes. But throwing a bunch of rape scenes in a story does not make it a horror story. It's weak, lazy, gratuitous, and totally bereft of art. Rape can be represented in art, but there has to be respect for the real life victims and situation, you can't expect to ride the coat tails of taboo. The demon in this story is just an excuse for graphic sex. The demon never manifests itself in any interesting ways- they all have to do with making women powerless and sexually traumatized. None of the female characters in the book are written successfully. The main character has a demon threatening him yet prioritizes dates with an eighteen year old where he questions the ethics of having sex with said eighteen year old whose boyfriend recently committed suicide but proceeds anyway, then when he finds out that the teenager he's fucking is the daughter of another woman he "magically" raped he again questions the ethics and continues to date her until the end of the book. The story is predictable and the characters are sexual objects.

[Rachael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring reporter man, Joe, moves into town after some crazy reporter drama he stirred up in Chicago. He meets a bunch of women, describes them disgustingly, has sex with a couple, and solves absolutely zero mysteries.

If the Average Joe man focuses on how fuckable various women are at funerals, they are as despicable as this Joe. Joe goes on to learn one of his sexy times was not actually consensual on the women's part (spoiler reasons). He's more bothered by whether she actually considered him attractive and good at the sex than that he was led into raping someone. I'm not certain that bothered him at all, actually.

Things happen to a lady and our dear Joe is witness to them. He wants to ride out on a white steed and rescue her. However, first he has to go to work, because rent. Then he goes on a date...two... Stops to read the first few pages about supernatural things that could actually have helped the situation if he'd bothered to finish it. Has answers handed into his privileged mediocre white man fingers.

What stops the thing I'm trying to be vague about? Pure f-ing luck. Joe may as well have fallen asleep post introduction and let the women at the center of the problem handle it themselves.

[Kaisersoze · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Everson may not write the type of horror I enjoy reading, but it's clear he can write. This Bram Stoker award winning novel is almost melodic in its prose as Everson peels back the layers of evil that undermines his fictional town of Terrel in a gradual fashion. The pace occasionally drags, but Everson's eye for detail helps fill in the lags as his (somewhat frustrating) protagonist circles ever closer to the truth. In the end there's plenty of Everson's trade mark sex scenes - some of which are far from consensual - a bloody confrontation, and a finale surprising only for its lack of finality.

A solid read, especially for those who enjoy demonic elements to their horror.

3 Fine Print Clauses for Covenant.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

I agree with what some have said, the book started a little slow but at no times was it boring. Everson packed in a lot of history and background in 300 pages and at times it seems he gives some very small amount of information into someone's story.
*Spoiler Alert!*
The story takes an unexpected sexual twist near the last 100 pages but I think it works well. I loved the small sections of the book where Joe is being used by the two women in his life who are being possed by the entity and he is so loved struck to notice it. I look forward to Everson's next book.

[Michelle DePaepe · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a wide variety of horror, but this book was just not for me. Any female or well-adjusted male would be sickened by the overly detailed rape scenes that just seem like snuff porn instead of adding to the story. More and more, I'm also learning that only William Peter Blatty (i.e. The Exorcist) can do a talking demon without it sounding silly. That being said, I support other authors' creative license. I also have Sacrifice (by Everson) on my bookshelf (also acquired from the Dorchestor Horror Book Club days)and will give it a fair chance when I read it down the line.