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Barringer House
It was a moonless icy winter night when a violent accident on a lonely New England country road left lovely young Alison Collier lying senseless by her overturned carriage. When she awoke in the grim mansion of Barringer House, a tall powerful man stood by her bedside. He was a doctor, he said. He would take care of her until she was well enough to leave. Alison shivered at the man's voice, but that shivering would have turned into a scream had she known what satanic experiments this man pursued, and the fate that he intended for her. . . .
- GenresGothic
255 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 5, 2020
2.5, rounded down. There were some decent scenes, but overall it left an impression of wasted potential + lack of suspense + rambling dullness. It felt like a 180-pg pulp stretched into the Queen Size format -- lots of repetitious scenes to pad out an already thin story.
I've read "Barbara Riefe" (dude pseudo) before, but alas...the gothics are no better than the bodice rippers. Riefe was just a mediocre writer; his ideas aren't bad, but the storytelling is lifeless.
I've read "Barbara Riefe" (dude pseudo) before, but alas...the gothics are no better than the bodice rippers. Riefe was just a mediocre writer; his ideas aren't bad, but the storytelling is lifeless.
August 20, 2018
Some things....
The timeline did not smoothly flow with the characters whatsoever. Basically, you couldn't determine the timeline this actually was, aside from a coach accident; it could have easily been set in the 1950s without seeming anachronistic. Usually this wouldn't be a gripe, if the characterization is solid and the story is likable. I don't think costume decor makes a story at all. Not one of those peeps, yo.
When highly intense scenes survived the pitfall of the play-along storyline, it didn't last longer than apiece of driftwood in a gale storm. Point A to Point B slow-crawl write-ins took the place of any kind of real action.
A surprise death stickytaped another star to this, even though the death was unnecessary, convoluted, and would have put Shakespeare in an early recast of such dumbfuckery, but it was still out of nowhere, and that was the single-most SURPRISE, BITCH! moment the book can attest to. This and that the premise of the content was a new one for me.
Half of the cast itself was pure villainy, but they barely got any time at all. People were plotting the heroine's demise, but I believe the author forgot who was siding with who, and the only evil-leaning character who commiserated with the heroine faded into the back row, when he was supposed to be the mastermind itself. What in the shittin'asses is this? O.o This was an easy NO for me. :/
The timeline did not smoothly flow with the characters whatsoever. Basically, you couldn't determine the timeline this actually was, aside from a coach accident; it could have easily been set in the 1950s without seeming anachronistic. Usually this wouldn't be a gripe, if the characterization is solid and the story is likable. I don't think costume decor makes a story at all. Not one of those peeps, yo.
When highly intense scenes survived the pitfall of the play-along storyline, it didn't last longer than apiece of driftwood in a gale storm. Point A to Point B slow-crawl write-ins took the place of any kind of real action.
A surprise death stickytaped another star to this, even though the death was unnecessary, convoluted, and would have put Shakespeare in an early recast of such dumbfuckery, but it was still out of nowhere, and that was the single-most SURPRISE, BITCH! moment the book can attest to. This and that the premise of the content was a new one for me.
Half of the cast itself was pure villainy, but they barely got any time at all. People were plotting the heroine's demise, but I believe the author forgot who was siding with who, and the only evil-leaning character who commiserated with the heroine faded into the back row, when he was supposed to be the mastermind itself. What in the shittin'asses is this? O.o This was an easy NO for me. :/
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews