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The Nightmare Club #2
The Initiation
Eager to fit in at the Cooper Riding Academy, Kimberly Kilpatrick turns her back on her boyfriend, Griff, and joins the popular clique, but when kids start drowning in a nearby lake, she begins to question her decision.
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 1, 1993
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105 people want to read
About the author
Nick Baron
16 books3 followersPseudonym for author Scott Ciencin .
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 20, 2023
So when I finished reading the first Nightmare Club book, Joy Ride, I read the preview for the next book and knew I had to have it. Eventually I found a not too expensive copy on Thriftbooks and purchased The Initiation.
That short preview couldn't prepare me for how great it would be.
A teenage girl has her boyfriend meet her in the woods. She goes to the Cooper Riding Academy, an all-girl school in Cooper Hollow, so she says she has a surprise for him which turns out to be...a horse.
Not to keep but for them to take for a ride since he use to live on a farm and loved horses. It's a beautiful gray horse and it seems like a romantic evening at first but it goes oh so wrong when the horse's eyes turn a demonic red.
It lets out a screech like a demon and takes the couple for a ride before throwing them into a lake.
The teenage boy doesn't see his girlfriend come up for air so he dives down below the water to save her. Unseen on the shore, the girl and the horse watch the young man drown in a torrent of blood, water and viscera. The horse truly is a demon and the young woman passed the test like all of the others by sacrificing the life of the one she loved.
We go forward five months and are now focused on Kimberly Kilpatrick, seventeen. She goes to Cooper Riding Academy after convincing her guardians, her aunt and uncle, to send her there for her senior year. Anything to be away from them, they never wanted to be saddled down looking after her but her parents died when she was nine and there was no one else.
Not that the all-girl school is any better. Ever since she got there, Kimberly's grades that were great in public school are barely passing here and she can't even enjoy riding the horses when not in class. That's because of the other reason that Kimberly wants to pack up and go home to her horrible relatives: Sharon Cruise.
Filthy rich and stuck-up Sharon who tried to make Kimberly take the blame for her act of vandalism on a teacher's car the very first day she arrived. Kimberly stuck to her guns and refused, Sharon almost got expelled but her daddy fixed that and she has made Kimberly's life a living hell since then.
Her latest dirty deeds have been buying the horse Kimberly loved most at the school all out of pettiness and Sharon now plans to make Kimberly the new girl to be tormented and shunned at school, replacing current punching bag Thelma Hopkins.
Kimberly is soon rescued by Ashlyn McConnel, another rich girl at the school. Kimberly can't understand why since they have never spoken before but it's also because she and her friends have quite a reputation at school. They have good grades and good looks but no one seems to mess with them and especially Sharon, who is told point blank by Ashlyn to stay away from Kimberly.
Kimberly gets introduced to the two other girls, Tanya and Nikki, and sees nothing really wrong with any of them. Their clique has a name, Beauty's Daughters, from a poem by Lord Byron but they are called by another name, Predators. They take Kimberly under their wing and proceed to torment the daylights out of Sharon until she comes begging them to stop.
Kimberly doesn't take the apology...she's quite a mean girl now. She sneaks out with the other girls past curfew to go to The Night Owl Club but have a rather harrowing time getting there at first.
It's Ashlyn's anniversary with her boyfriend, Gregory Rose, who is in a band. He looks like a punk but shows that he isn't as dumb as people may believe him to be by quoting Nietzsche but shows what a jerk he is by hitting Kimberly in the jaw for no good reason!
Ashlyn sends him off and breaks up with him but now with Gregory gone, the girls have no way to get to the club or even anywhere close to school or to town to get any kind of pain medicine for Kimberly's jaw. Whether it is fate, a car soon pulls up and comes to their rescue.
Or more to Kimberly's because he goes past the other girls and asks her if she needs help. He is very handsome and Kimberly falls hard for his brown eyes. He introduces himself as Joel "Griff" Griffiths and it is clear that he is interested in Kimberly even while still being polite enough to the three other girls.
The night takes another sharp curve when it seems that Griff and Gregory have some sort of bad blood between them and they almost get into a fight at The Night Owl but Mr. Demos ends it before it can escalate to punches. The only positive thing to come from this is that Griff asks Kimberly out for another date on Friday with her weekend pass...it's love.
Kimberly has gained confidence thanks to her new friends and developed a relationship with Griff that seems out of a romance novel. The dream soons turns into a nightmare when people start turning up dead and they all have connections to Kimberly, Griff and the Predator girls.
Kimberly is also having dreams of a gray horse with demonic-red eyes, taking terrified children to the lake and throwing them into red, churning waters. Drowning them.
What does it want with Kimberly? It wants her soul. If Kimberly passes The Initiation like her friends, she will be a part of their world. She will be powerful thanks to the darkness behind the creature that has existed for centuries.
All Kimberly has to do is destroy the only thing she has left to love...Griff.
Everything about this book is just right up my alley. There is romance, drama, horror, ancient lore and it is intriguing and entertaining.
There are characters to cheer for like Kimberly and Griff, characters to hate like Gregory, Sharon and Kimberly's awful aunt and uncle and even the antagonists seem to have at least some reason for being conflicted and victimized...slightly.
It is a The Craft meets Highlander kind of mash-up vibe and if that sounds to your liking, I highly recommend The Initiation.
Out of the first three books in The Nightmare Club series, it is my favorite one since those are the only ones I have read...so far.
The debut was good and the sophomore effort was great and the third one was okay I guess so I'll just have to wait and see if any other entry or entries I find are just as intriguing as this one.
If you can get your hands on this series, it's a thumbs-up from me.
That short preview couldn't prepare me for how great it would be.
A teenage girl has her boyfriend meet her in the woods. She goes to the Cooper Riding Academy, an all-girl school in Cooper Hollow, so she says she has a surprise for him which turns out to be...a horse.
Not to keep but for them to take for a ride since he use to live on a farm and loved horses. It's a beautiful gray horse and it seems like a romantic evening at first but it goes oh so wrong when the horse's eyes turn a demonic red.
It lets out a screech like a demon and takes the couple for a ride before throwing them into a lake.
The teenage boy doesn't see his girlfriend come up for air so he dives down below the water to save her. Unseen on the shore, the girl and the horse watch the young man drown in a torrent of blood, water and viscera. The horse truly is a demon and the young woman passed the test like all of the others by sacrificing the life of the one she loved.
We go forward five months and are now focused on Kimberly Kilpatrick, seventeen. She goes to Cooper Riding Academy after convincing her guardians, her aunt and uncle, to send her there for her senior year. Anything to be away from them, they never wanted to be saddled down looking after her but her parents died when she was nine and there was no one else.
Not that the all-girl school is any better. Ever since she got there, Kimberly's grades that were great in public school are barely passing here and she can't even enjoy riding the horses when not in class. That's because of the other reason that Kimberly wants to pack up and go home to her horrible relatives: Sharon Cruise.
Filthy rich and stuck-up Sharon who tried to make Kimberly take the blame for her act of vandalism on a teacher's car the very first day she arrived. Kimberly stuck to her guns and refused, Sharon almost got expelled but her daddy fixed that and she has made Kimberly's life a living hell since then.
Her latest dirty deeds have been buying the horse Kimberly loved most at the school all out of pettiness and Sharon now plans to make Kimberly the new girl to be tormented and shunned at school, replacing current punching bag Thelma Hopkins.
Kimberly is soon rescued by Ashlyn McConnel, another rich girl at the school. Kimberly can't understand why since they have never spoken before but it's also because she and her friends have quite a reputation at school. They have good grades and good looks but no one seems to mess with them and especially Sharon, who is told point blank by Ashlyn to stay away from Kimberly.
Kimberly gets introduced to the two other girls, Tanya and Nikki, and sees nothing really wrong with any of them. Their clique has a name, Beauty's Daughters, from a poem by Lord Byron but they are called by another name, Predators. They take Kimberly under their wing and proceed to torment the daylights out of Sharon until she comes begging them to stop.
Kimberly doesn't take the apology...she's quite a mean girl now. She sneaks out with the other girls past curfew to go to The Night Owl Club but have a rather harrowing time getting there at first.
It's Ashlyn's anniversary with her boyfriend, Gregory Rose, who is in a band. He looks like a punk but shows that he isn't as dumb as people may believe him to be by quoting Nietzsche but shows what a jerk he is by hitting Kimberly in the jaw for no good reason!
Ashlyn sends him off and breaks up with him but now with Gregory gone, the girls have no way to get to the club or even anywhere close to school or to town to get any kind of pain medicine for Kimberly's jaw. Whether it is fate, a car soon pulls up and comes to their rescue.
Or more to Kimberly's because he goes past the other girls and asks her if she needs help. He is very handsome and Kimberly falls hard for his brown eyes. He introduces himself as Joel "Griff" Griffiths and it is clear that he is interested in Kimberly even while still being polite enough to the three other girls.
The night takes another sharp curve when it seems that Griff and Gregory have some sort of bad blood between them and they almost get into a fight at The Night Owl but Mr. Demos ends it before it can escalate to punches. The only positive thing to come from this is that Griff asks Kimberly out for another date on Friday with her weekend pass...it's love.
Kimberly has gained confidence thanks to her new friends and developed a relationship with Griff that seems out of a romance novel. The dream soons turns into a nightmare when people start turning up dead and they all have connections to Kimberly, Griff and the Predator girls.
Kimberly is also having dreams of a gray horse with demonic-red eyes, taking terrified children to the lake and throwing them into red, churning waters. Drowning them.
What does it want with Kimberly? It wants her soul. If Kimberly passes The Initiation like her friends, she will be a part of their world. She will be powerful thanks to the darkness behind the creature that has existed for centuries.
All Kimberly has to do is destroy the only thing she has left to love...Griff.
Everything about this book is just right up my alley. There is romance, drama, horror, ancient lore and it is intriguing and entertaining.
There are characters to cheer for like Kimberly and Griff, characters to hate like Gregory, Sharon and Kimberly's awful aunt and uncle and even the antagonists seem to have at least some reason for being conflicted and victimized...slightly.
It is a The Craft meets Highlander kind of mash-up vibe and if that sounds to your liking, I highly recommend The Initiation.
Out of the first three books in The Nightmare Club series, it is my favorite one since those are the only ones I have read...so far.
The debut was good and the sophomore effort was great and the third one was okay I guess so I'll just have to wait and see if any other entry or entries I find are just as intriguing as this one.
If you can get your hands on this series, it's a thumbs-up from me.
November 22, 2020
I much preferred Slay Ride. This got a bit nuts at the end. Some fun sections, though.
March 27, 2022
The 2nd Nightmare Club book I've read, and this one was a marked departure from the 1st doozy I read (Joy Ride). A fun read, but BOY there's a lot going on here. Ghost girls. Ghost horses. HP Lovecraft references. Lake monsters who eat children. Ancient curses and dark family sagas. "Book of the Dead"-style incantations and black magic. Cute boys at the club and wet sloppy (eww!) make out sessions in the parking lot. There's a lot packed in here, but I'm just waiting to get to all the pop culture references, so here we go!
Random notes and observations:
-Stephen King's "The Shining", Nine Inch Nails, and The Chipmunk's Christmas Album all get mentioned, which is the way to get the party started, in my humble opinion.
- As a prank, the snobby girls at school take our protag Kim's favorite childhood stuffed animal and stuff him full of bloody intestines and organs which explode onto Kim when she grabs her cherished toy. That's fucked up, man.
- Over at the Nightmare Club, the dance floor is pulsating with the sounds of an industrial pop song, which then segways into a syrupy Vanessa Williams ballad. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. Please let me find this DJ and so I can give them a good swift kick in the pants for effing up my vibe.
- "Reanimator" and "From Beyond" shout outs, while giving credit to HP Lovecraft, I mean WHAT. This book was obvs for the 1993 teen with DISCERNING taste!
- It is mentioned that the evil girl's mom was once married to Donald Trump. One star is deducted for this.
3 out of 5 little kids sacrificed to the hungry lake monster in exchange for everything your heart desires....Popularity. Power. Witchy Magic and all the money to buy out the Cooper Hollow Mall if you feel like it. Who's in with me?
Random notes and observations:
-Stephen King's "The Shining", Nine Inch Nails, and The Chipmunk's Christmas Album all get mentioned, which is the way to get the party started, in my humble opinion.
- As a prank, the snobby girls at school take our protag Kim's favorite childhood stuffed animal and stuff him full of bloody intestines and organs which explode onto Kim when she grabs her cherished toy. That's fucked up, man.
- Over at the Nightmare Club, the dance floor is pulsating with the sounds of an industrial pop song, which then segways into a syrupy Vanessa Williams ballad. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. Please let me find this DJ and so I can give them a good swift kick in the pants for effing up my vibe.
- "Reanimator" and "From Beyond" shout outs, while giving credit to HP Lovecraft, I mean WHAT. This book was obvs for the 1993 teen with DISCERNING taste!
- It is mentioned that the evil girl's mom was once married to Donald Trump. One star is deducted for this.
3 out of 5 little kids sacrificed to the hungry lake monster in exchange for everything your heart desires....Popularity. Power. Witchy Magic and all the money to buy out the Cooper Hollow Mall if you feel like it. Who's in with me?
January 18, 2024
Avg book at best. The main protagonist being bullied and a group of girls coming to her rescue was okay. The water monster is our lord and gives us all these powers was definitely a different take on “the craft” like group. A little too convoluted for my taste. The connection of the night owl club and the owners having some sort of power is definitely intriguing and I can’t wait to see more how that pans out. I know after a while the nightmare club series was phased out for stand alone books but I know a couple still mention the club.
After the 10 nightmare club and 8 scream books there were 20 more zfave. I’m curious which ones were originally going to be part of each series. If anyone knows I’d love some info haha.
After the 10 nightmare club and 8 scream books there were 20 more zfave. I’m curious which ones were originally going to be part of each series. If anyone knows I’d love some info haha.
July 24, 2018
I grew up reading this teen horror fiction, and pretty much enjoyed The Nightmare Club series. The horse on the book cover is actually the "evil" that controls the people riding it, like something out of old folklore.
October 17, 2025
A bit convoluted, but bonkers in a good way. It's a bit darker and less humorous than Fear Street or most of the Point Horror series. I only read this book as a kid but I'll have to track down the rest of the series.
March 15, 2010
Another strange loan from my wifey. Teen horror. Well-written and focused on its storyline. It has hints of true terror which keeps the story interesting. A good read if you like teen horror.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews