Hometown

by Matthew Keville

Shadows walk in the autumn mist. It's the Fall of 1994 in the small milltown of Belford, New York. The leaves are turning, the kids are going back to school, and the heat of Summer is giving way to a cool, misty season. It happens every Fall. Only this Fall, people are disappearing into that mist. Some people are found torn apart, some people are found dead for no reason, and some people aren't found at all. Other people see strange things in the ghosts and campfire stories. There's something out there in that mist. Something old. Something that has slept for a long time, but has now woken up hungry. Maybe the people of Belford could resist it, but as the terrible Fall wears on, more and more of them start...changing. Acting bizarre and violent. In the end, only a small group of teenage defenders are left to make their stand.

Genres: Horror

771 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

People in New York City will tell you that it’s not what you do to pay your bills that defines you. That’s just your day job. It doesn’t matter if you wait tables or drive a bus or work as a stockbroker until you get your Big Break, you’re really an actor, or a singer, or a dancer, or an artist.

If that’s true, then I’m a writer and aspiring tabletop rpg designer who lives in New York City with my beloved wife, still working and waiting for my Big Break.

I’m a movie buff and a horror hound. My favorite season is Fall, which has somehow become a time of renewal to me. My music of choice is epic rock, and I love walking my city and finding all of its hidden wonders; I have a special love for Coney Island.

Most of all, I love the stories. I’ve loved the stories since I was a very small child, begging my parents to read me another book. The stories have been my friends at times when I didn’t seem to have any others.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many horror stories are cautionary tales for teenagers.....don't go into the woods alone at night, don't park in out of the way places to have sex in a car, parties can be dangerous, never pick up hitchhikers, don't talk to strangers, don't drink, don't do drugs.... I think the reason why books and movies based on this trope are entertaining is because we all (at some point) did all of those things. And made it out alive. But we eagerly read/watch the story unfold of the unlucky ones who get caught by the killer/monster/predator.

Hometown is a horror story just like that. I could almost see the story playing out as a movie in my head as I read this book. Belford, NY. 1994. Fall. The weather is turning misty and cool. And, the local teens are out doing what all small town teens do before it gets too cold to be outdoors being stupid. But, unfortunately, this time something is in the mist....something old, hungry and unfeeling has awoken....and its hunting them. It's open season on teenagers. Local legends about a creature in Black Lake are true.....

I found this story entertaining and engaging. But I love this sort of story! From the first two victims that die because they parked out at the lake to the bitter end where all is revealed, this book had my attention. The story had so many of the same legends that the small town I grew up in did -- a black car running people off the road, people disappearing at the lake, monsters lurking in the fog..... I'm glad that the legends from my town were all BS, but it was great to see those stories play out in Belford.

All in all, an entertaining scary read! Anyone who likes slightly cheesy horror stories will love this book. I'm definitely going to read more by this author. Totally entertaining story!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own. **

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a great evil growing in the small town of Belford. A group of high school seniors begin to suspect that the sudden uptick of strange disappearances, sudden deaths, and savage murders are more than coincidence. They're outsiders that are bullied by other kids and singled out unfairly by teachers. They go to various authority figures but are turned away and their concerns dismissed. Sometimes they won't even listen. They are indeed, entirely on their own. The kids find they're trying to fight a supernatural enemy, which makes it even less likely they are going to succeed. They later learn that their small town has a secret history of recurring blood and mayhem. The kids have so many issues ranging from alcohol to drugs, sex and abusive behavior. The book is over 700 pages. The story is good and interesting but way too long. One of the things I really liked was the way the history was worked into the story with paraphrases and commentary on old newspaper articles. It diffidently deserved the 5-star rating.

[Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately I will not be finishing this book as it is not doing anything for me. So I am laying it down for now. Maybe sometime down the road I will try it again.

My thanks to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the opportunity to read this book.

[Jenelle Compton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hometown reminded me an awful lot of IT, by Stephen King. A town completely overtaken by an old entity that fixates on the younger crowd of a smallish town. IT is my favorite book, so I couldn't help but compare the two.
Hometown deals with teenagers who manage to resist what is happening to the rest of their town, and honestly it captured teenagers PERFECTLY. Maybe it helped that I was a teenager during the time this book was set (mid 90's), but it took me right back to my youth.

I very much enjoyed this book, I'm glad that I randomly picked it to read!

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

This is more of a YA/Horror book. I wasn’t too taken with the booze, drugs and sex parts of the book. The horror part was well done and creepy though.

There were many, many typos that I found distracting. I kept having to go “huh?”

I want to thank NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for forwarding to me a copy of this book for me to read and review.

[Jack Gerber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Read

Entertaining reading in Steven King style. Characters well developed along with story line. Right balance of personal relationships with horror..

[Sue Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hometown by Matthew Keville.
A slow but ok read with likeable characters. I just found it slow and couldn't really get into it so I just took my time. Only 3*.

[Sue Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hometown by Matthew Keville.
A slow but ok read with likeable characters. I just found it slow and couldn't really get into it so I just took my time. Only 3*.

[Queen of Kings · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally got through a book that took me a week to read. A.Week. It wasn't abnormally long, or poor writing. Just lack of chapter structures on my download got me lost a few times, and time shifts of dates messed with me. By the end, trying to figure out how each character fit into the storyline near the end. Every named person plays a part. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. I felt the concept of corrupt ground would actually have some form of mythology base to it. Nope. Decent story, I feel there were parts that could have be axed(intended pun), places it could have delved into the belly of the beast(another sad pun), and felt the ending was rushed. It comes out soon for people to read. If you want to know the title, message me and I'll let you know once it is available for the public to read. A solid B story. It is lower due to reasons listed above. It is as high because it really does touch on how mob mentality can affect an entire town in the matter of weeks. Set in the 90s, relevant now. This is a quintessential, long drawn out campfire story.

[Jessica (Read book. Repeat) · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, BooksGoSocial, and the author via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Belford. 1994. The fall that no one would ever quite get over, if they survived it at all, of course. This fall isn't quite like the others. School is back in session, the weather is starting to cool down, and people have started to disappear. Some don't come back, others are found brutally torn apart, and some are found dead with no apparent cause or reason. As the season marches on, more and more townspeople are giving into IT, whatever it is, they're changing, becoming different, violent. Soon all that's left is an unlikely band of teenagers who haven't been changed, they must band together to defeat this centuries old being, whatever it is, because if they don't, then they won't have a future to look forward to. The thing that has awoken lives in the mist and preys on the town. Can they defeat it and live to tell the tale?

This is hard one for me to review and rate. I requested this book almost a year ago. It was one of the first ones that I requested when I first joined up to Netgalley and became an ARC reviewer. I love horror stories. I don't know why, I just always have. I love the creep factor, the unknown, the chills, the goosebumps, and all of the stuff in between. I just love a good scary, creepy story. So when I read the synopsis for this one, it was a bit reminiscent of The Mist by Stephen King, but it still seemed to have it's own identity. I began reading it and had a bit of trouble getting into the story and connecting with the characters. After it took me days to get even 5% through the gargantuan novel that this book is, I let my impatience win out, and I decided to DNF it and put in on the back burner for a while. Lately, for whatever reason, this book and another longer novel from Netgalley have been popping into my head, so I thought, why the hell not, lets give it another go. I'm not going to lie, I didn't magically fall in love with it, it was a hard slog for a while there.

Firstly, I had issues with the overall culture of the world that Keville had created. Yes, it's a horror story, but it's so centred around sex, drugs, boys who think it's totally fine to bash their girlfriends into submission, girls who are so low in self confidence that they'll part their legs for any guy who asks and who don't seem to understand how they are worth so much more than just a piece of arse for a guy who needs to get off. So I struggled a bit with this. I'm all for strong female leads, so this was a totally different angle for me. The main thing that kept me interested enough to actually become connected to the characters was one character called Angelina. She's a strong female lead in every sense of the term. She's doing her best against boys who think they can own her, her father's misguided hopes for her, racism from boys she won't sleep with, and any other number of things that fly at her from left field. She's the one thing that kept me invested long enough in reading through this book so that I actually reached a point where I gave a shit about where the story was going and what was going to happen to these characters.

So yeah, I struggled a bit with the other parts that are so central to this story, as sure, growing up you run into character like those in this story. Rough heads who are into booze and drugs and copious amounts of sex. People who's intentions aren't the best. But for me, I didn't grow up in a society that normalised it. There were rough people around when I was growing up, but there was no way in hell I was going to let them treat me worse than they expected to be treated by any number of people. So it took me a little to be able to relate to a fair few of the characters. In the end, I still couldn't relate to some of them, though I understood where their lack of self confidence and drive came from.

I ended up enjoying the main group of characters so much. I really had such a soft spot for Vicki, she was a great character, and I kinda love how her issues weren't really spoken about, you kinda had to keep reading to find out what her deal was. She was a great character and I really enjoyed her.

The story itself was good, but I feel like it became so convoluted. It was probably made worse by the formatting of the copy that I received as there's no real chapters as such. There's different POVs but in my copy they weren't bold or underlined or even separated from the body text at all, it was like the characters name had just been typed twice, it took me a little bit to realise that this wasn't in fact a typo, it was meant to be formatted differently. Another thing with the formatting was, we are reading about the story happening in present time, but we're also getting information from a couple of different sources that were written after the happenings at Belford in 1994, these headings were not bold or set apart from the text. The entire book literally just flowed through in one giant text block essentially, there were no page breaks no heading breaks no nothing. So it made it a pretty damn hard slog to get through it in that respect. If I had have been reading a properly formatted version of this story, I feel like I would have succeeded in finishing it 12 months ago when I, by rights, should have. So I'm sincerely hoping that any ebook copies of the book was properly formatted and edited so that paying readers don't have this problem.

The story also was SO FREAKING LONG. We're talking 771 pages. That's long. I don't care who you are or how much you read. I read a fuck tonne, and that's a long book. I felt like in a way it was good having the story run that long because it meant that we got every single little niggly bit of information in a story that really needed information to work properly. However, I also feel like, on the other hand, that it should have gone through at least another 1 or 2 rounds of editing because it did not need to be this long and include this much information. I know that Keville and his editor probably wanted the reader to get a real feel for the characters in this town and therefore empathise with their plight more, but it just needed more editing. It did not need to have that much information in it to work. Also, at one point, I began to get so annoyed because of the amount of damn characters that we were being introduced to. I started not even caring about people's names at one point because we were getting thrown a lot of different characters and the cast seemed way too big. I know that I was having trouble keeping the characters straight at one point, but I soon got passed that and was able to remember who was who. I get that a big part of that was because, this wasn't just a story that followed a handful of people, this was a story that was, for all intents and purposes, about a town and the evil that happened in that town and the trials and tribulations that the townsfolk went through. I get why there were so many people and stories being woven through the main story line, but once again, another couple of rounds of editing I think would have really helped this book out.

This book deals with a lot of issues. It's essentially a coming of age story set against the backdrop of a horror story. It deals with love, love, grief, sex, eating disorders, racism, LGBTQ+ and the prejudices that come with it, it deals with domestic abuse, violence, abuse, rape. It's a heavy story and that's even without the underlying thing that was at the crux of it, which I'm not going to go into lest I ruin it for someone else. I'm hoping I'm not the only one who saw through the horror part of the story to the reality of it.

All in all, this book turned out to be a decent read. I was sceptical a couple of times whether or not I would actually finish it this time, but I'm really glad that I did. To be honest, it's probably not something that I'll read again unless I can get a decently formatted copy, then maybe I will just so I can pick up stuff that I'm sure I missed on the first read through. I do admit that I think this would make a fantastic movie, and even though the stories weren't really anything alike at the core, I couldn't help but compare certain aspects of this story to The Faculty, a 1998 sci-fi movie staring Josh Hartnett, Jordana Brewster, and Clea DuVall. There were SO many similarities that I think I enjoyed it more because of them. If you like an in depth horror story that deals with more than just your run of the mill scary monster and looks at the deeper horrors of real life, give this one a shot, you may like it.

[Sue Blanchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thankyou to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and the author, Matthew Neville, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of Hometown in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
This book is a good read. The storyline was well thought out and written. It certainly held my interest. Will definitely be reading more from this author. 3.5 stars

[michael kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book

This novel reminds me of some of the early works by Stephen King, the first half of It comes to mind. It is a coming of age story about a group of teenagers from different backgrounds and social circles who come together to fight an evil entity that is not only killing there friends but threatens the entire town. Well written with complex characters it tackles prejudice, bullying and how young people can be become victims of being labeled. I read several books a week and I enjoyed this book more then any book I have read in a long time. Good luck to the author I hope to read your next book!

[Lolapaige · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this book could have been much better had it been half the length. There was so much "filler" and it took a while to get started. I also found the overabundance of sex to be obnoxious. We get it, teenagers have sex- but it seemed like there were sexual situations every few pages. The character interaction seemed a little strained at times as well. As a teacher and a mom of teens myself I found myself rolling my eyes at certain situations.

[Mimi Davis Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

FEARS

This is a very good story, that it's very well written. Fabulous plot,a storyline which keeps you seeking more. Characters who are well defined, and who make this story great.

[Barb Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best YA horror novels of the last year.

Rated it high because I was engrossed from start to finish. Could not put it down. Characters that you get invested with. Small town horror and not just supernatural but those that arise from human frailties and prejudice. I can say all the usual things about this book like gripping, atmospheric, etc. but it is all of these and more. Gave me a few quotes that I actually wrote down including the last few pages such as “people so rarely notice the price heroes pay, unless they make a holiday or a parade out of it.” There were a few gems like this interspersed throughout the book.

[randy truxell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great horror story

If you can get past the teenagers and get to know them they are essential to the book. They do everything typical terms do and perhaps a bit more. It is a book of horror that runs around and has for hundreds of years. People die, disappear
and old haunts come to life. Who will love and who will die or will it be the whole town. Head on over to Belford N.Y.., join the fun. Stop by the high school. You will.spend a good bit of time there. Most of all enjoy a very readable book.

[Lola Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure Genius!

I'd never asked myself what it would look like if "It" and "The Mangler" had a lovechild. But, I know for certain that I just read it.

This book kept me guessing every single step of the way. No matter how much I thought I'd figured out, I was almost always wrong and shocked when each revelation came.

This is a tale of childhood triumph that will keep you up at night turning page after page.

If you're not reading Matthew Keville, you are seriously missing out+

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book

I really liked this book. The characters and setting were very realistic and uncontrived feeling. It had a feel of "It" without seeming like a knock-off. In many ways I liked this better. There was a nice blend of visceral horror and hope, not too much of either. I especially liked the ending where what happened to the survivors was explained. Many authors choose not to do that, but I like the closure. There were a few editing errors, but not too many, so they did not detract from the tale.

[Rosann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tried to get into the book, but just could not.
I think it has a good plot line going but, the Spanish and English mix did it on for me.

For the most part I did not know the meaning of a Spanish word that some of the characters said,
Not everyone knows the English definition to those words and I just got tired of opening up the dictionary to see what that word meant in English,

Oh well onto the next book 😊🙃

[Amanda Bischoff-hepworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book in ages

I really enjoyed this read. It's unlike anything I've read in a long time. I found it to be very relatable to anyone who would read it. I couldn't put it down, it moved at an incredible speed but never jumped past things, and it kept me on my seats edge. I felt like I was really learning and knowing the characters, I hurt when they hurt, happy when they were. I just really liked this book.

[Carson Carlisle · Rating 5 out of 5]

i really loved this book. it was a bit intimidating, being nearly twice as long as the books i normally read, but it was truly beautiful, and didn’t for a second feel as if it was dragging on or feeding unnecessary filler. i was honestly rooting for the characters, and although some of the best didn’t make it, it still ended on a satisfying note. the horror and dread was visceral, incredible, and suspenseful, and the outcome was well worth the nearly 800 pages. i really loved this book.

[Eileen Trainor · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the fog rolls in ...

This book is interesting. It was a bit slow in places and r e a l slow in others. There seemed to be multiple plots and offshoots that complicated comprehension. The last half of the book was pulled together nicely, and the ending was masterful. I hope the next book is shorter.

[Julie Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read

A great story that propels you along and girls you. I found I could not put it down. The characters grow and evolve and you begin to care about them. Great imagination from the author. Very fresh. I recommend that if you like suspense and supernatural to8 read thi7s book.

[Lynn craycroft · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpless thru the whole book…..until the end

I made alot of tears thru this book. Quite frankly an exhausting read. I kept hoping for the end to come soon…. Couldn’t handle so much tragedy. Story was great and different, characters were very real and believable. Totally unputdownable!

[Jennifer Boehm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scary, original and good

This book scared the sleep out of me. The story was unique and well plotted. The characters, you either love or hate in the end. A very good scary, 'ghost of the town' / urban legend, tale with enough meat to bite. Deserving of the rating!

[Linda Luong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth reading

This was entertaining, and at times it was hard to put down. I did get tired of the seeming obsession of female breasts in the story. Also needs some proofreading. But overall worth a read.

[Ruebuf32yahoo.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad I read this book

It was hard to put down. I read all the time, even while cooking or waiting for my son to get out of school. I am hoping there is another book of his to read next

[julianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy and definitely wants making into a movie.

The typos drove me nuts though.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a digital copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

[Sandra Collin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring. Leave out sex and the F word, and nothing much is left. Finally gave up on this novel three quarters of the way through and deleted.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

A great read in the tradition of It and Stand by Me. A coming of age horror. I loved it