Dark Hollow | Brian Keene | Wow, Keene is steamy!

Dark Hollow | Brian Keene | Fauns and Trees and Doggies, Oh MY!

books:

Dark Hollow

	Dark Hollow Brian Keene Leisure Books, 2008 - 305 pages average customer review:based on 27 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Wow, Keene is steamy!

If you like horror and suspense and reading how books are written then this will be a double treat. The main hero, Adam Senft is a decently successful writer who decided to give up his other job to write that great story that would be his ticked to solidified fame. With his wife Tara he settles into a quiet lifestyle in a home in Pennsylvania. His wife carrying the burden of commuting to work gave him time to sit back, enjoy the quiet, walk the dog and write those hot selling books. Little does he know but that peace is shattered with the arrival of spring. From the very first page the story hits off and then drops the reader back on Earth to catch up. Adam finds his neighbor, an attractive female involved in some strange activity in the LeHorn woods. Embarrassed and freaked out he starts a chain of events that brings upon him strange lust, bad luck and a horrific creature that is after every wife in town. When people start to disappear and those left act strangely little time is left before Adam's wife and his entire life is thrown into a well of chaos. Along with his friends he must get to the bottom of a mysterious nemesis that shakes his reality and to defend his territory from a menacing male - something.

Brian Keene surprised me this time, I didn't particularly like "The Conqueror Worms" and after reading it I was afraid that his style was set in stone; that another story would have random additives and would be scattered, but not so with "Dark Hollow". Was it literary genius? No, but it was darn addictive and enjoyable, it did what a good, gripping fiction book should - it enchanted the reader and gave satisfaction for reading it. I felt my teeth sink into the story until I absorbed its contents. It took me in and hardly ever stopped being great. The reason for 4 stars versus 5 ( since I am gushing about it ) is really simple; as I get older I get little tougher when I judge a book, and really only give 5 stars when it stirs my guts with a stick and makes me obsessed with what I just read - hard task, so 4 stars is not too shabby, trust me. Some of my favorite parts were reading about Adam's preparations and how he did his writing, it felt real and was such a treat.

Before I finish I must just say how proud I am of Keene for making this book steamy; he was very liberal with all sorts of naughty scenarios and wrote his book fulfilling his fantasies about just putting out that salty novel out there into the world. I saw no holding back and hopefully he can always write like this, but obviously only when necessary to the plot, gratuitous use of sex is plain fake, when the story doesn't scream for it; don't include it to avoid embarrassment- unless you're Richard Laymon. He was the king of lascivious books - at least to me and it's hard to knock him of that throne in my head. Like Laymon, Keene tapped into that channel and produced a decent read; I really enjoyed it tremendously and will try to read his other works. I know I criticized him heavily in my last review so I am trying to redeem myself, but it feels right only because this book deserved it. Fun, raunchy and actually interesting, good change from the usual gore and bloody horror, I read it on the bus, after dinner and then in bed; it was good stuff.

- Kasia S.

for more information click here

Fauns and Trees and Doggies, Oh MY!

Keene is quickly working his way into my heart as a favorite author, and "Dark Hollow" may have clinched it. If you had told me two days ago that I would read a horror story about satyrs or fauns and actually like it I probably would have cocked an eyebrow at you and asked if you were feeling okay. But I more than "Liked it," this book was an absolute blast!

Short Summary: Adam Senft is a mystery writer who lives with his wife Tara and their dog "Big Steve" in a nice house in a quaint town, bordering an ancient mysterious wood. One day while walking Big Steve though the woods, Adam and Big Steve come across one of their female neighbors performing questionable acts on a statue... or at least it looked like a statue until it turned its head and stared at Adam. Suddenly the women in town are disappearing and the men are turning up headless... Adam and his neighbors believe it has to do with something that happened many years ago at the LeHorn farm... in the center of the dark and sinister woods.

My favorite character by far is Big Steve (yes, he's the dog) who at times seems to be the most human of characters, and unlike most stories that include a dog, Big Steve is always there, being a good boy. The characters in this book are very real, flawed, scarred, and honest. I have always like that about Keene, his people are believable. This book grabs you right from the beginning and it's very hard to put down. At just over 300 pages you can feasibly read it in a day. I stayed up way later than I had intended to finish this book. And the ending is typical of Keene, no the world doesn't come crashing to the end, but there is that sense of apathetic loss that even his "happy ending" books leave you with. I wondered if Keene would have the courage to go where this book needed to go, and he did. There was quite a bit of sex and gore (the gore comes in mostly at the end) though not as much as a Laymon or Lee novel.

Now don't get me wrong, this is no work of literary genius... what it is however, is a fun, fast paced read with a single story line (unlike many of his other works) that the reader can't turn their eyes from. This is one of the few horror novels I've read in a while that makes you actually care about most of the characters, you become involved in their lives, and their routine and truly worry about them... particularly if you have read other Keene novels and know that there is a very high chance that most of them won't make it through the book alive. I highly recommend this book to Keene fans, it is my favorite of his works so far, and I feel that this book is the type of read that fans of old school Steven King would really enjoy.

for more information click here

Thoroughly entertaining!

Brian Keene's success in telling a story is based upon his ability to create characters that you care about. I think this is an area where so many horror writers fail. In Dark Hollow, we meet writer Adam Senft, his dog, and his good 'ol boy neighbors that are the kind of salt of the earth every-men you know in your own neighborhood. The plot could take us in any direction at this point because we care about these people and we are even interested in the minutiae of their daily lives. Keene exposes us to the surreal very early in the novel and it captivates our attention immediately. The other facet of Keene that makes his writing enjoyable, is the fact that he creates a pretty detailed mythos behind every novel. In fact, if you are reading one of his novels, there is a good chance that it began as a short story in the early stages oh his career. While Brian Keene is not writing literature, his writing is entertaining throughout. Great Summertime reading! Beneath the Surface: 13+ Shocking Tales of Terror

for more information click here

Loved it!

I found The Conquerer Worms disappointing so it took me a while to pick up Dark Hollow by Brian Keene. And once again I'm disappointed, but this time it's because I put it off reading this book for so long.

Dark Hollow is the tale of a small town in Pennsylvania, once a farming community, now home to Adam, a midlist mystery writer, his wife and their dog. But their town is also home to something else, an other-worldly creature, summoned long ago and finally awakened again with the first day of spring.

Dark Hollow is a very compelling tale. Sure there's a monster in woods, and some creepy carnivorous demon trees, but the real horror is in the effect the events of the story have on the characters, particularly Adam and his wife. Keene is able to drive a man's loyalty into very dangerous places, pitting his own nature against his ideals. The conflict made Dark Hollow hard to put down and held up through the very last line.

It's easily my favorite Keene work so far. While it counts as horror, there's less gore and violence and far more dread and conflict, which is exactly why Keene seems ready to cross the line into a position rare for a horror author-mainstream acceptance.

for more information click here

Dark Hollow by Brian Keene