Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay

linwoodbarclay.com

Released: September 2008

Linwood Barclay is my new favorite suspense novelist, so I couldn't help but read another title from his backlist and post the review for it before I moved on to my next Barclay (which will be happening today, hooray!).

Too Close to Home is the spookiest, most disturbing Barclay novel I've read so far. In the prologue, teenager Derek Cutter is at his best friend Adam Langley's house saying goodbye before Adam's family goes on a week-long vacation. Since Derek lives right next door to Adam, he has plans to hide in Adam's basement until the family leaves so he can disarm the house's alarm system and use Adam's house as a sort of sex-getaway for the week.

Addison House by Clare McNally

fantasticfiction.co.uk

Released: November 1988

I'm addicted to old-school horror novels. They remind me of my middle-school days, when I used to walk over to the library after school and check out stacks of horror novels by V.C. Andrews, John Saul, Dean Koontz, and any others I could get my hands on. (My reading list was NEVER supervised by my parents.)

I scooped up Addison House at my local indie bookstore. I thought I'd devoured every Clare McNally novel ever published, but this one somehow fell off my radar.

No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

linwoodbarclay.com / amazon.com

Released: September 2007

After reading Fear the Worst several weeks ago I've become hooked on Linwood Barclay, and my newest goal is to read his entire backlist. I chose to read No Time for Goodbye because its synopsis was irresistible. A 14-year-old girl wakes up one day to find that her parents and older brother have vanished forever without saying good-bye. Who could resist a story like that?

Also, No Time for Goodbye just happened to qualify for the January monthly keyword challenge over at Bookmark to Blog, so that gave me even more incentive to jump all over it.

Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton

laurellkhamilton.org

Released: 1995

Circus of the Damned is the third novel in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. Anita Blake is actually an animator who raises zombies for a living, but also has the ability to kill vampires as long as they are legally considered "criminals."

I originally read the first several books in this series shortly after they were released about 20 years ago, but lost interest somewhere around book #8. I've decided to re-read the series a few decades later to see if I would enjoy it more the second time around. So far, so good!

A Catch in Time by Dalia Roddy

fantasticfiction.co.uk

Released: April 2010

I decided to read A Catch in Time this month for the January Monthly Keyword Challenge over at Bookmark to Blog. One of the January keywords is "clock," so I figured the word "time" would work as an acceptable variation.

A Catch in Time is about a group of people who band together after the majority of the population dies due to a mysterious global blackout. For 3 minutes, everyone in the world falls unconscious during the blackout, but only a few are enlightened with visions that help them grasp and understand the true meaning of life.

The Glasswrights' Test by Mindy L. Klasky

mindyklasky.com

Released: June 2003

The Glasswrights' Test is the fourth novel in Klasky's Glasswrights' Guild series, which tells the story of how a young woman and artisan named Rani Trader tries to rebuild her beloved guild from the ground up after it was held responsible for the king's death and disbanded years earlier.

But, before she can become a Master Glasswright and rebuild a new guild in Morenia, Rani must travel to another kingdom and have her skills tested by her former guild members - all of whom still look coldly on Rani for betraying the guild years ago. Additionally, a secret society known as the Fellowship of Jair challenges Rani to kill the current queen of Morenia with hopes of restoring the kingdom's power - but Rani suspects that the Fellowship may not really have the kingdom's best interests at heart after all.