Monday, February 27, 2017

The Lovecraft Squad: All Hallows Horror; John Llewellyn Probert, Stephen Jones

"There has always been something wrong about All Hallows Church. Not just the building, but the very land upon it stands. Reports dating back to Roman times reveal that it has always been a bad place—blighted by strange sightings, unusual phenomena, and unexplained disappearances.
So in the 1990s, a team of para-psychiatrists is sent in to investigate the various mysteries surrounding the Church and its unsavoury legends. From the start, they begin to discover a paranormal world that defies belief. But as they dig deeper, not only do they uncover some of the secrets behind the ancient edifice designed by “Zombie King” Thomas Moreby but, hidden away beneath everything else, something so ancient and so terrifying that it is using the architect himself as a conduit to unimaginable evil.

After four days and nights, not everybody survives—and those that do will come to wish they hadn’t. Imagine The Haunting of Hill House, The Amityville Horror, The Entity and The Stone Tape rolled together into the very fabric of a single building. And then imagine if all that horror is accidentally released . . .
"


Title: The Lovecraft Squard: All Hallows Horror
Author: John Llewellyn Probert, (Created by) Stephen Jones
Genre: Horror
Publish Date: March 7th, 2017
Rating: 3 out of 5
Fave Character: Thomas Moreby
Least Fave Character: Karen
Where to read: At night in the dark






Hello Fellow Readers,



Is it weird that I am ending February, the unofficial love month, with a horror book? In my opinion it seemed like the perfect way to round out my reviews.



So folks, I really, really, really wanted to love this book, especially since I am a big fan of Lovecraft and his universe. At the risk of sounding like a total dweeb (although I may have already failed because who says dweeb nowadays?) I even played the Call of Cthulhu table top game because I love Lovecraft horror so much. The beginning of the book shows two teenage boys breaking into a construction site, H.G. Wells old home to find some treasure. My mind played it out like a movie and I loved that, Probert has such an amazing way with words and horror writing in general that when those creepy parts came up I actually cringed at it as if I was seeing it in real life. While this book did not give me nightmares (that would take a lot to do), anyone who was not used to horror genre may have trouble.



The beginning of the book had such great pacing, it seemed as if things would settle down, then it would come back, settle down again and take you for another ride. The story itself was great, the setup, the backstory, the creepiness of the church. I loved that he used characters I knew of to set the history. I even recommended that my husband read it and I don't ever do that. The newspaper articles, the scribbled notes, the transcripts from news shows added major depth to a already great written book.



While I loved the story, and Probert's writing, his characters just didn't do it for me. When the story would turn it's focus to a character I hated it. I didn't like anyone of them. Honestly if they all died I think it would have made the story for me. Karen and Chambers the two main characters annoyed the hell out of me, their emerging romance, their dialogue, Their actions just made me scoff as well as want to just skip pages. I couldn't connect to them in anyway that made me root for them. I really wanted to like Chambers considering he is a forensic pathologist a field I want to get into, but I just still couldn't like him.



Anything thing that bothered me was even though this book is the first in it's series I felt as if I was missing a book, as if this was not the first but the second in a ongoing series. The characters would mention a person or a event that had occurred and I wondered if I have accidentally skipped something, I even made a search just to double check that this was the first book. It didn't give me the setup or backstory I needed, maybe that's why I couldn't connect to the characters because I felt like I was missing something.



 *Thanks to Netgalley for letting me read the book in exchange for a honest review*

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