gilda_elise | For Fear of the Night by Charles L. Grant

As Labor Day approaches, four inhabitants of a New Jersey shore town are preoccupied with upcoming changes in their lives, as well as with questions regarding the death of their mutual friend, Julie Etler, in a fire in a horror house on an amusement pier. The questions multiply when one friend, Devin Graham, receives a message on his answering machine from Julie and when another sees her on the beach. Other inexplicable accidents and deaths compel Devin to explore the burned horror house.

The book starts out pretty slow, to the point that I almost gave up on it. I’m glad I didn’t. There’s a creeping horror connected to the old horror house that now sits, burned and abandoned, on the pier. Dread slowly builds, as the four friends confront the evil that has entered their lives.

There are many questioned to be answered, though unfortunately not all are, which is probably the greatest flaw in the book. I want to know why things are happening and why Julie is appearing to her friends. I want to know why the house burned down, and why it has suddenly turned evil.

I did like how the characters’ backgrounds and hopes for the future are intertwined with what is going on. Somehow, who they are is very much a part of that future, just in a way they have no way of knowing.