{"id":9327,"date":"2022-12-03T21:45:41","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T01:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=9327"},"modified":"2022-12-03T21:45:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-04T01:45:41","slug":"book-review-hell-spring-by-isaac-thorne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-hell-spring-by-isaac-thorne\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Hell Spring by Isaac Thorne"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hell Spring <\/em>by Isaac Thorne<\/p>\n

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Lost Hollow Books, September 2022<\/p>\n

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ISBN: 9781938271540<\/p>\n

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Availabile: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition\u00a0\u00a0(\u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a> |\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a> )<\/strong><\/p>\n

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March, 1955.\u00a0 A handful of residents in a small Southern hick town get trapped in a mom n’ pop convenience store by a raging flood.\u00a0 What could possibly go wrong?\u00a0 Well, when one of those people is a soul-sucking demon masquerading as a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, a LOT can go wrong, and it does.\u00a0 That’s the basic premise of Isaac Thorne’s Hell Spring.<\/em>\u00a0 It has its good moments, but may be a bit too slow and drawn out for most readers.<\/p>\n

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The setup chapters for each character before they become trapped in the store are the best sections of the book: well-written, and good enough to make the reader feel invested in the characters.\u00a0 They are an eclectic bunch, each with their own little secrets.\u00a0 The town piano teacher is hiding the fact that he’s gay, one lady isn’t mentioning that she just killed her abusive wretch of a husband\u2026each person has their own little bit of shame or guilt.\u00a0 These secrets, and the guilt they cause are what the Marilyn Monroe succubus feeds on while trapped with the townsfolk.\u00a0 It’s the middle of the book, a couple hundred pages long, where things slow down and get somewhat routine.\u00a0 Everyone is trapped in the store, and one by one, the demon Marilyn feeds on their guilt and reduces the victim to a chittering crawdad-like creature.\u00a0 No one notices the disappearances, since she somehow alters time and perception around everyone.\u00a0 People just vanish, and the others don’t even know they were ever there at all.\u00a0 It’s interesting the first couple times but then gets repetitive, and bogs the narrative down.\u00a0 The story does pick up again towards the end, and has a kicker of a finish set decades later.\u00a0 Graphing the book, it would look like a peak at the beginning sloping down to a long, flat plain, and then another peak at the end of the story.\u00a0 There are some quick peaks in the middle that involve characters outside the store; that help break up the slow pace and get a different setting involved.\u00a0 Whether those are enough to compensate for the rest will depend on the reader.<\/p>\n

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Bottom line:\u00a0 there are definite high points, but the somewhat long middle section may not be enough to keep the interest of most readers.\u00a0 This is a story that might have worked much better in a slimmed down form, with the middle section involving the store condensed.\u00a0 A novella of the narrative might have been a perfect fit.<\/p>\n

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Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Hell Spring by Isaac Thorne   Lost Hollow Books, September 2022   ISBN: 9781938271540   Availabile: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition\u00a0\u00a0(\u00a0Bookshop.org |\u00a0Amazon.com )   March, 1955.\u00a0 A handful of residents in a small Southern hick town get trapped in a mom n’ pop convenience store by a raging flood.\u00a0 What could possibly go wrong?\u00a0 Well,<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2595,5237,2747],"class_list":["post-9327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-demons","tag-locked-room","tag-small-town-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9327"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9432,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327\/revisions\/9432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}