Nightshade

February 1, 2000
When his grandmother moves in, bringing with her a terrible secret regarding his mother and dead aunt, teenaged Matt finds himself staring down the forces of evil.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2000
Old Emily Moore always was mean as a snake, but Alzheimer's just makes her meaner. It also makes her forget about the pan full of butter she leaves on the range. It ignites, and the fire spreads to the rest of the kitchen and beyond, putting her out of the house she has increasingly hidden in since the onset of symptoms and in which she has kept her elder daughter Cindy's room as it was ever since Cindy died. Emily thinks Cindy's coming back, and she thinks it all the stronger after she moves to her other daughter Jane's home and gets Jane to reassemble Cindy's room there. Then things get spooky, which is what is expected of a John "Saul yarn. Jane's husband, Bill, splits, "in extreme discomfort with Emily and her effect on Jane, who jumps to Emily's every call despite getting nothing but abuse for her pains. Jane's illegitimate teenage son, Matt, gets way moodier and surlier than a normal 16-year-old ought to and then becomes weirdly forgetful and starts imagining or dreaming or something that a woman is coming to his bed at night. Before Matt comes to his senses in the last pages, he drops out of his beloved high-school football team and seemingly murders Bill--and that's not even halfway through the book. Saul is good with teen characters, but this rather threadbare spirit-possession yarn comes to seem too much like history--one damn thing after another--well before it ends. Who's the spirit, you ask? Well, who's dead to begin with? Figure it out. ((Reviewed March 15, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2000
The life of high school student Matt Hapgood turns into the stuff of nightmares when his grandmother moves in with his family. She brings with her the terrifying spirit of her dead daughter, Cynthia, the beautiful, beloved, older sister of Matt's mother, Joan, who had been the tormented, abused younger child. All the suffering of those early years is brought into Matt's household from the moment his stepfather is shot to death while they are hunting together. Soon Matt, his mother, and his grandmother have horrifying visions of Cynthia in all her malevolent beauty, and they watch helplessly as she instigates brutal killings. But is it really Cynthia? There are hints that perhaps Joan has taken on her sister's persona, and the answer is left until the last page. It is unfortunate that Saul's leaden prose has turned a provocative theme into a boring novel. This book has little to offer, but the author is popular (e.g., Second Child), and librarians should expect large reader demand. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/00.]--Patricia Altner, Information Seekers, Bowie, MD

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.