Twilight Time

by Rick Hautala

Book by Hautala, Rick

Genres: Horror

Audio Cassette

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

AKA A.J. Matthews

Rick Hautala has more than thirty published books to his credit, including the million copy, international best-seller Nightstone, as well as Twilight Time, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, Impulse, and The Wildman. He has also published four novels—The White Room, Looking Glass, Unbroken, and Follow—using the pseudonym A. J. Matthews. His more than sixty published short stories have appeared in national and international anthologies and magazines. His short story collection Bedbugs was selected as one of the best horror books of the year in 2003.

A novella titled Reunion was published by PS Publications in December, 2009; and Occasional Demons, a short story collection, is due in 2010 from CD Publications. He wrote the screenplays for several short films, including the multiple award-winning The Ugly Film, based on the short story by Ed Gorman, as well as Peekers, based on a short story by Kealan Patrick Burke, and Dead @ 17, based on the graphic novel by Josh Howard.

A graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Art in English Literature (Renaissance and Medieval Literature), Hautala lives in southern Maine with author Holly Newstein. His three sons have all grown up and (mostly) moved out of the house. He served terms as Vice President and Trustee for the Horror Writers Association.

Sadly, Rick died on March 21, 2013.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good book.It was a little slow for me at first but once I got further into the book I got. the better and more interesting it became. I was expecting the book to make me jump at noises but it was more of being scared of what's in your head then the outside world. Going crazy is truly something to be scared of. It's about a guy named Jeff that lives in Colorado with his wife and Daughter but he has to go back to his hometown of Maine for his sister's funeral and he finds himself having to face old memories that he has suppressed for years, memories that no one the planet would want to remember nor go through in the first place. It was a very compelling read.

[Alan · Rating 1 out of 5]

After a suicide attempt by his sister, Jeff reluctantly returns to his old home in Maine, leaving his wife and daughter in Colorado. Though she's never had the easiest life, this attempt caught everyone by surprise, most of all Jeff, who finds out from her it somehow tied back to when they were children who messed around a bit after being tormented by their overly zealous religious aunt and uncle. When she finally does off herself, he's back to wrap things up, and thinks he sees a figure watching him, had the house broken into, the son of his old girlfriend goes missing, and some other shenanigans. And he's got multiple personality disorder.
I bought this blind because I'd read and liked some of Hautala's other books and found this one used in the wild. Despite all the things going on, this book was mostly full of nothing happening.

The whole split personalities thing ultimately added up to nothing, other than occasional interludes where Jeff had a convo with one or more of the "others" and slowly remembered how horrible his aunt and uncle made his young life. All the other things that occur, mostly.....they just occur. Some vandalism, Jeff thinking he's seeing things, but really nothing the least bit scary or even concrete. And nothing of any real consequence, Jeff's sister's off stage death aside, happens for over 2/3 of the book. The vast majority of the first half could/should have been left out, and massive chunks of the second half as well. Maybe a 150-page novella could have salvaged something from this overblown nothing of a story. There was nothing horror about it, only the slightest bit of thriller to it, mostly in the final couple of chapters, and worse, nothing interesting. This wasn't horror, wasn't thriller, wasn't mystery; at best it was melodrama and not worth wasting time on its 480 pages.