Furnace

by Muriel Gray

Alchemy: the summoning and control of demons. Those who cross the alchemist are in danger of being disposed of. The easiest way to do this? Cast the runes: strips of flesh made from the dried skin of a child sacrifice and inscribed with the time the victim has yet to live...When trucker Josh Spiller pulls his rig into the small town of Furnace, Virginia, all he wants is a decent meal before getting back on the road and away from his memories of a bitter quarrel with his girlfriend. Instead, he witnesses a baby's violent death and can't convince the sheriff that the upstanding, well-dressed woman he saw leaving the scene was responsible. Shaken by his experience, he rolls out of Furnace, stopping to pick up a desperately attractive, female hitchhiker who seems to have the answers to some of his questions about the inhabitants of Furnace--and who is just as anxious to get out of town as he is.

Soon after, Josh begins to feel eyes watching him--the burning eyes of misshapen creatures. Is it possible to have nightmares while you're awake? And just as his grip on what's real and what's imagined begins to slip, he makes a bizarre discovery: someone has slipped him what looks like parchment, inscribed with the words, "five days alive permitted." Something unnatural is happening in Furnace, but will Josh be around long enough to unravel its secrets?

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

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author was recommended to me by a friend and I'm always on a lookout for female horror authors to see how they fare in a male dominated genre. This one fared just ok, at no point did it wow me with a turn of phrase of a turn of plot, but it kept my interest enough. I liked the way Gray worked her scottish heritage into the story, the backstory was in fact the best part of the book, but the characters were not particularly engaging and the world of truckers can only hold so much appeal. Josh, the main character, was supposedly the sensitive trucker, because he did find beauty in the changing scenery and was not as horribly offensive with his language as the rest of them. The only really interesting semi complex characters were the alchemists. There was a decent plot twist that pretty much made the book. On the whole, based on the plot itself, it could have been a lot better than just pretty average. Another odd thing, a HC from a major publisher that celebrated 100 years of publishing excellence (from a front page blurb) made a major mistake when describing the plot. Someone fell asleep. Overall impression is unimpressive.

[Marissa Farrar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book a couple of times now and have enjoyed it every time. It has such a great twist at the end that I wish I had written it.
There are not enough decent female horror writers around and Muriel Gray certainly doesn't let the side down. I only wish she would write some more!

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant story that had me eager to read every word. Characters I cared for. A plot that kept building with a crucial time element. A few twists and turns. Everything a great thriller needs for me to recommend it to everyone that likes thrillers, suspense, and some surprises. (I’m not going to give any away.)

I’m not just eager to read more by Muriel Gray, I’m obsessed.

[Mary Havens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best true horror book I've read in a a long time. There's a lot of books that are labeled horror but, as in any genre, there are different levels of horror. I think of most subcategories based on place (haunted house), monster (vampire), or maybe even time period.
But this book is what I consider true horror. No punches were pulled, nothing was smoothed over with humor or any other kind of plot finagling. It's definitely possible that I shy away from true horror since, like any genre, I'm only going to read books that interest me. Similarly to a formulaic romance, there is formulaic and poorly written horror. You can make anything disgusting but there has to be a reason behind it. Again, I might shy away from books that are considered true horror simply because the plots are too similar to other books I've read.
For this one, I don't even know how it got on my list. A 1997 book from a Scottish author set in rural America where the main character is a long haul truck driver?? I used to indicate where I found the book on the Recommended part of book's Goodreads records but that feature went away. So who knows where I found this one! I had to buy it, I know that, and it was cheap.
I likely won't read another Gray novel: the first one has Native American characters and I feel like we should leave those stories to actual Native Americans. The second one sounds like it is all about trash??
If you want a solid horror read AND have a desire to learn trucker speak, this book is, likely, the only one for you!

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really like this and the accident at the beginning is hard to read, even for a hardened horror fan like me.

[Sheila Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't the scariest horror novel I ever read, but I enjoyed it. Muriel Gray created some interesting characters and the plot keeps building the tension until the very end.

[Plum-crazy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was quite surprised...but pleasantly so...that this was written by a woman, if the cover had simply said M. Gray I'd have thought "man". Maybe it's because it reminded me in style of Stephen Laws or maybe because all the other horror I've read by women have been of the ghost/vampire/para-normal romance variety & it seems unusual to find a woman writing in this style...& about demons (my favourites!) But back to the story itself...

Overall it was an entertaining enough read, though maybe a tad overlong, personally I could have done without some of the trucker/CB stuff but appreciate that it did do it's job of setting the scene. The characters were well enough filled out & credible enough for the purpose of the story (we are talking demons here after all!)

I'll happily read more by this author, can't say fairer than that ;o)

[Rosemary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was an absolute chore to get through. There were a few (VERY few and far between) interesting sequences, and the protagonist is just... very unlikable. He's a rude, selfish jerk who doesn't seem to really care about anyone but himself, despite the author's insistence on him being a "nice guy." An uninteresting protagonist basically kills the book for me, but there were a lot of other issues: at least two-thirds of the book feels like pure filler, and the villain made some really nonsensical and downright stupid decisions. Perhaps it would have been more palatable as a short story. I give it one and a half stars because of the one scene at the truck scale where they tell Josh what the problem is. Nicely ominous, but sadly, the book can't live up to it.

[Nelio Gomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The paperback edition I read weighed in at 481 pages, which seems unnecessarily long. In many books, secondary characters serve functional roles within the story, but both Elizabeth and Sim just seemed like filler to stretch out the narrative. And some passages (e.g. the creature climbing along Josh’s truck on pgs. 296-303) took far too long, and turned what should have been a breathless sequence into a monotonous one. At its core, Furnace was a fine idea for a horror novel, with demons, and alchemists, and bloody sacrifices of all sorts, but it didn’t need 481 pages to be told.

[Dawn Quixote · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the back of this book alone Gray is worthy of the comparison to King. Some scenes were deliciously disturbing and supernatural whereas the one downright horrifying one was also quite mundane.
As a Scot I enjoyed Gray's references to places and things quite unrelated to the trans-American tale. Only downside was that where her main male characters were well-fleshed out the females, whilst integral to the plot, felt slightly sketchy.
Definitely worth a read and probably several rereads too.

[Meagan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Literally quit three chapters in when the main character shed a tear over some guy noticing Mcdonalds over the landscape; a woman in the emotional turmoil of terminating a pregnancy notices the "enticing" breasts that pregnancy is, nevertheless, giving her; and when the main asshole character calls the woman a "selfish bitch" for wanting to end a pregnancy from a relationship that's one degree of formality above friends with benefits and roommates.

[Kaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked a really worn copy of this up at a used book store and then I couldn’t put it down. Super interesting and layered story with visceral and grisly twists that keep you locked in. I loved Josh as a main character, when I got to the last 100 pages I couldn’t stop. This was a really fun and wild horror novel and I had a great time.

[Laura Crognalo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea of the story line but, I thought there was to much filler that dragged the story line. If this had been a mystery story line I would have guessed in the first chapter who done it and the second to last chapter how the hero foield the bad guy or woman.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my laundry room read: something I wasn't heavily invested in that kept me amused.

[Joshua Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good page-turner about a trucker that stumbles upon a small town with dark secrets. I didn’t totally buy one of the plot twists, but overall enjoyed the ride.

[Bonnie Odin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An alternative reality, horror story. If you like Stephen King, then this is right up your alley (SK recommend from On Writing).

[Ystyn Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I wasn’t a fan of different aspects of its construction, overall I quite enjoyed this simple horror story.

[Coreking · Rating 5 out of 5]

the chapters defitely awesome

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story, great pace. Loved it 👍

[Billie's Not So Secret Diary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took me awhile to get through this one because I couldn't get into it that well, plus I was hoping for more, it sounded gory, but wasn't that spectacular.

[Adrienne Yee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago but remember liking it and am looking forward to reading other books by this author.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1998. Less gory but more creepy type of horror novel.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

One if my favorite supernatural thrillers.

[Salahuddin Hourani]

ملاحظة لي: لم اقرا الكتاب بعد

مقترح من ستيفين كينغ

[Aurora Dimitre · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[James Cooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This could easily have been written by Stephen King but it has subtlety so that the ending is dramatic rather than apocalyptic. A gripping horror that endures.

[Narzack · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eh, starts out okay, but then just gets worse and worse as it goes on.

[Jamie Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Furnace is an enjoyable read for those who are into the less gory and more creepy type of horror fiction. While not quite achieving Stephen King-esque complete lack of style, Gray does use very straightforward storytelling, which is so effective in horror novels. The story is generally engaging, despite being utterly predictable. Predictability in itself is not a bad thing (it's what puts the suspense in an Hitchcock film) but it loses its luster when you are not supposed to have "figured it out".
On a couple of occasions Gray is a tad too aware of the fact that she is writing a horror novel and embarrassing phrases like "It was Hell calling" sneak in. Characters are nearly three dimensional, but mostly boil down to walking stereotypes. The reader does get a sense of the main character, Josh Spiller, having some depth to him; however he is about the only one who does and it's not particularly well-explored.

Nevertheless, I did find Furnace to be an "page-turner" and would recommend it to others with the above caveats in mind.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tense, nail-biter of a story on the order of something Stephen King would write, but it's not his! The nuts and bolts of the story is about a long-distance truck driver who witnesses a violent accident involving an infant that will turn out to have far reaching implications on his life, but also upon those of several other characters in this twisty- turny story. There are a number of plot twists and turns up till the very last page which will keep you guessing and exhilarated.

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't have a heck of a lot to say about this horror novel. I reluctantly finished it as its a new month and hated to waste the first few days by not finishing a book. I disliked most if the characters including Josh the truck driver. I did not like his girlfriend Elizabeth. She knew he was a long haul trucker so what more did she expect by his absences? The evil town of Furnace seemed contrived. I read in reviews that people compared this to Stephen King and THAT I truly don't understand.