The problem with reading horror as a genre is that one cannot really judge until the book is read. "The Devil Crept In" actually started out promisingly, but then it went down a different path so suddenly I had no time to process the shift, and had to wade through a lot of bad writing and contrived plotting, before arriving at the connection between the two narrative threads.
Who the hell is Ania Ahlborn????????? And what makes her think she can write????? Besides poor writing and contrived plotting, she has the most morbid outlook. All the great horror writers offer some glimmer of hope, but Ahlborn's sense of morbidity is so acute it is downright disturbing. I had hoped to discover a new horror writer. Instead, I found one to stay away from!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And that is as far as you should go, if you plan to read this book. Though, believe me, my discussion will save you the trouble of doing so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stevie Clark lives with his mother, scumbag step dad Terry, and douche bag teen brother, Duncan, nicknamed, aptly, Dunk. Next to them, lives Aunt Mandy, his mother's sister, and her son, cousin Jude Brighton, and Stevie's best friend.
Stevie's mother is clearly in an unhappy marriage. She is an enabler, who needs a man to live off of, even if he abuses she and her son. Her husband, whom I suspect she loved, took off, because he could not cope with Stevie's emotional problems. He should have tried to raise me! He would have fled as soon as I sprung from the womb!
All this takes place in Deer Valley, Oregon, a fictitious locale, where animals have a way of vanishing so often there is no vet in town. Several years back, a kid named Max Larsen went missing, and was found dead. And now, in the present time, Jude has wandered off. At this point, the tale is operating realistically, and I bought into it. I was convinced the perpetrator would be either Terry or Duncan. That is when the story takes a decided turn.
Enter Rosamund Aleksander, an unattractive spinster looking for impossible happiness. She marries a doctor, Ansel, but desperately wants a child. So she goes to Malibu--getting this down????????--and spends the night at a retreat run by some over aged biker, who calls himself Ras. He asks her what she would give up to get what she wants. She says anything.
The minute she said that, I knew Ras was the Devil, or one of his acolytes. She returns to Ansel, becomes pregnant, but loses her husband, and gives birth to a deformed, Jason Voorhees like creature, whom she names Otto. For Otto Preminger? Hey, he was great as Mr. Freeze on "Batman!!!!!!!!!!!" Interesting that the other two women have lost husbands, too. Aunt Mandy's husband, Scott, like Ansel, was killed in a car accident.
I think you can see what is coming. Torn between love and guilt, Rosamund protects Otto in their isolated house in the woods, until he outgrows her authority, and begins wreaking havoc on the locals--animals and Max Larsen, a six-year-old boy.
You got it, dolls! Otto took Jude, but Jude escapes. Cutting to the chase, a battle ensues when Otto's personality possesses Jude, turns him into the monster, culminating in a big family fight fest that, unfortunately, leaves Terry alive, Jude dead, and Stevie confined to a mental institution, as no one will believe him. Followed by an Epilogue, implying the whole thing will begin all over again. Or worse, a sequel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ania, go work behind a counter, like Joan Crawford as Crystal Allen, in "The Women!" If this is your idea of horror, "then you're an idiot," to quote Bette Davis, as Baby Jane Hudson! If you were a grade school student, I would call this impressive. But a grown woman writing such rubbish?????????? You've wasted too much of my time, Ania; don't bother me with your crap again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"The Devil Crept In?" Ania, hon, Satan would be insulted by such garbage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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