Dying Light

by Frank Coffey, Evan Chandler (Pseudonym)

Eve Blackman was lovely, gentle, fantastically talented, and pregnant with her first child. She was returning to her New England hometown of Edom to bear that child. But she was bringing more than a mysterious new life about to enter the world. With her came her eerie, haunting, prophetic visions of macabre evil that turned Edom into a place of nightmare carnage—and made Eve a beautiful, bloodstained angel of death....

Genres: Horror

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 2, 1979

About the author

Frank Coffey is the author of the critically praised humor books The Complete Idoit's Guide for Dumies (sic), The All Time Baseball Teams Book, and The Wit and Wisdom of George Steinbrenner, as well as grownup books like 60 Minutes: 25 Years of Television's Finest Hour. He is the author of four novels, has written for television and movies, and been a book, newspaper and magazine editor. A New York City native, Frank lives in chilly Venice, California and is currently editor/publisher of the sports parody website eTrueSports.com.

Reviews

[Supratim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would give it 2.5 but not 3.

The prologue describes some blood ritual/sacrifice in a church. Then we move to New York and introduced to our main character Eve - an established artist but she is also the eternal victim. Very unhappy childhood, husband jealous of her fame etc. This husband has died in an accident and pregnant Eve decides to leave everything behind and go back to some "decaying" town where her dying aunt - who had literally made her childhood miserable, lives.

The town contains all the mandatory characters such novels contain - the mean-spirited biased old lady, the friendly doctor, a sheriff trying to uphold the law, a couple of spoilt brats, folks suspicious of outsiders etc. We also have the ingredients essential for making a horror novel - mysterious deaths, blood-thirsty preacher, a parapsychologist who of course falls for dear old Eve, murderous town folks -- but despite all this the book did not deliver.

For most parts the book was pretty slow and what I want most in a horror novel - an atmosphere of fear and suspence was hardly there. Having said that I have to agree that mostly towards the end the pace did pick up a bit and there were a few scenes which did create some sort of fear/suspence.The end had a twist which I don't want to reveal but I liked it.

Overall, I would not really recommend this book to anyone - there are plenty of good horror books out there. I had found this book in a second hand book shop and purchased it by reading the blurb only - I have a thing for terror in small town type of books. Luckily, the book was pretty thin and I did not spend too much time on it.

[Jp992751 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather slow, it would pick up pace and go right back to being slow. There were some moments when it looked like it would get really good but it never took me anywhere.

[Mr James · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a slow burner,the ending was ok,the book is well written but for me not that exciting in parts