The Talisman

by Cameron Dokey

Anticipating joining her best friend, Diane Patterson, at the Medieval Faire, Gina Serventi is horrified when Diane turns up dead near the fairgrounds and discovers that an ancient talisman pendant possessing supernatural powers holds the key to Diane's death. Original.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Horror, Paranormal

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1994

About the author

Cameron Dokey is an American author living in Seattle, Washington. She has a collection of over 50 old sci-fi and horror films. Cameron was born in the Central Valley of California. Cameron grew up reading classical literature and mythology, perhaps due to her father, Richard, being a teacher of Philosophy, Creative Writing, and Western Literature.

Cameron has one husband and three cats, and is the author of over a dozen young adult novels. Her favorite read is J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, "The Lord of the Rings." Her favorite TV show is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

When she's not writing, Cameron likes to work in the garden and is learning to quilt.

Reviews

[Matthew MacIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is technically a Nightmare Club book, the club and its owners are kind of shoehorned into the story and if you removed them you wouldn’t be missing anything. While the book started out strong and was pretty exciting it really lagged in the second half and rushed to a final showdown in the last fifteen or so pages to a lackluster conclusion. This book follows Gina , who receives a letter and the directions to the talisman from her recently departed friend Diane. It turns out the talisman holds the magic power of the spirit of Jude who once held the power and is protected by Ian who both sacrificed their lives in order to keep the Talisman from the wrong hands. The whole bad guy is a group, the Household of Darkcloth, and the majority of the action takes place at a medieval fair. I don’t know I was really enjoying the book but nothing happens for such a large portion and then Spoiler the big bad is defeated in like five minutes. One thing that stood out is that they rented a movie and it was Addams Family Values, in my opinion a great movie and one I myself rented numerous times in the 90’s so bonus points for that one part alone lol.

[Lynette · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because I really like Cameron Dokey, but it was a lot different than other books I've read by her. It had dark magic in it and it wasn't a fairytale at all. I wouldn't recommend it...unless you like evil magicians.

[Rick Chiantaretto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was one of my favorite books as a teenager, and inspired me to write. It was dark, scary, original, and FUN.

I think I wore out my library's copy. Wish I had bought it when I had the chance :)