God knows how many novels about ghosts have been written in the past century alone. Enough to last an eternity I bet. Fool of me to even try to enumerate some of them. You all have a favorite. Mine this time around is HAUNTED by Tamara Thorne, out now from Kensington (pic below). The plot, no need to elaborate too much really. We’ve all seen it before. But contrary to many sub-par offerings, this one works. Why? Simple enough: Thorne gives a new twist to an old genre.
A cross between Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and FIFTY SHADES OF GREY by E. L. James, HAUNTED titillates with its offbeat horror, humor and sexual approach. Forget about things that bump solely into the night. In this novel the specter goes at it whenever it pleases her; whether directly for the jugular or for the crotch; but mostly the crotch. Because she’s a horny little thing, you see, and can’t get enough of our male protagonist, a best-selling horror writer who wants to test the doings of this supposedly haunted Victorian Mansion. Along with his wise-cracking teen daughter and his opportunistic lady realtor, not to mention his cool ex-wife whom he still has the hots for, they will experience what we call paranormal activities. And not any kind of activities, mind you, but those that leave heavy traces on the body and psyche.
Let it be said that I scarcely got the heebie-jeebies while reading this fine novel (I don’t scare easily), but I did get caught up in the whole thing. Thorne’s plot of let’s get rid of the mean old ghost who keeps lost souls in vintage dolls, works on every level (horror, humor and sex, remember?). You don’t have to hold onto one theme for a novel to shine, as long as your sense of savoir faire is as keen as Tamara Thorne’s in HAUNTED. She brings it all to a slang bang conclusion that may even make you go awww once the dust settles. Not me, however. I’m a guy. I don’t have any feelings.
I have kissed a lot of frogs disguised as horror novels in my lifetime but Tamara’s HAUNTED is not one of them. It delivers what it sets out to do, give its readers a great old time, and to me that’s more than enough. So who cares if it’s not on the same level as THE SHINING or GHOST STORY? Just as long as the author does her thing in bringing back the dead. So here’s to you Tamara Thorne. Looking forward to review many other titles with your name on it.
Until next post—Martin
