Throwback Thursday: All Hallow's Eve by Richard Laymon

Author: Richard Laymon
First published in 1985. 
Re-issued by Samhain Publishing in 2016

This sleepy town may never recover from this nightmare. Every town has as a past but the grizzly murder of the Sherwood family is one the small town of Ashburg barely recovered from. The Sherwood house has remained vacant for years so who is sending out invitations for a party there? The townspeople are intrigued and who can resist a party at the murder house on All Hallow's Eve? 

This title was previously published in 1985.

Find on  Goodreads

Buy links:

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Looking back through my list of "read" Richard Laymon books, I can definitely see a trend.  I think I always go into his books with high hopes that this will be the one to scare me, only to be extremely disappointed.  Well, it happened again.  All Hallow's Eve started out really promising but in the end it just didn't deliver.  

I thought the first part of the book was interesting.  The last 2/3...not so much.  The killer was revealed  about 1/3 of the way into the book. So, that took away a lot of the suspense for me.  The ending was so abrupt that all I could think was, " That's it?". It was like there wasn't even a reason for the killings other than gratuitous gore and violence. This book was originally published before the author died, so I can't chalk it up to an unfinished manuscript.  I'm sure there are better books by this author out there, I just haven't found one yet.  Have you?

About the Author: 

Richard Laymon was born in Chicago and grew up in California. He earned a BA in English Literature from Willamette University, Oregon and an MA from Loyola University, Los Angeles. He worked as a schoolteacher, a librarian, and a report writer for a law firm, and was the author of more than thirty acclaimed novels.

He also published more than sixty short stories in magazines such as Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, and Cavalier, and in anthologies including Modern Masters of Horror.

He died from a massive heart attack on February 14, 2001 (Valentine's Day).

Also published under the name Richard Kelly.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/83937.Richard_Laymon
Amazon: http://amzn.to/29nTro2

Books We Didn't Finish October edition

The Uninvited.  Normally I will not comment on the state a review copy is in, because it's a rough draft basically.  However, this book was nearly unreadable.  I don't know was going on but there were words that were missing half their letters and this was happening 3-4 times a page.  It was very annoying and the story wasn't holding my interest enough to tough it out.  It sounds like it could be a really good book though and hopefully the kinks will be worked out before final production.

I was hoping to use The Lake as a Throwback Thursday post. Sadly, I didn't make it past the first disc. This book was just bad. Within the time span of the first disc, the mother (Leigh) and daughter (Deana) each had 3 nightmares and the word "breast" or "boob" was used in practically every other paragraph.  It was just too weird for me. Deana is 18 and instead of going to the movies, she decides to go have sex with her boyfriend in the woods.  Really?  What about a motel at least?  This was planned after all, not a spontaneous event.  The boyfriend is killed by a psycho in said woods. (Of course!)  After a few nightmare sequences, I was done.  It probably also didn't help that the narrator's voice was annoying and she couldn't act.  Yes, I do expect my narrators to be able to act.  That is partly why audiobooks appeal to me so much.

Apparently, The Lake was published after the author died in 2001.  I have only read 1 other book by Richard Laymon (The Traveling Vampire Show) and since I enjoyed it, I figured I'd try this one out. I think this book would have benefited from a ghost writer to clean up the story line and make the book flow a little better.  It's too bad because it had the potential to be a great horror story.

I probably shouldn't have tried The Next Best Thing after not liking Good in Bed by the same author.  But, I am always willing to give an author another try.  I wanted to like this book.  I even gave it 1and a half discs.  I just was so bored, I couldn't continue anymore.  I didn't care about the characters or about what was going on. The book felt very disjointed to me.  The main character starts telling us about her big break and how she was going to be running a sitcom.  Then she launches into her parents' car accident and her grueling recovery as a child.  What did that have to do with anything?  I got that she loved TV after watching The Golden Girls in the hospital, but did I really need all of that background to get the point? Not really.  It just seemed to ramble on and on. It looks like this one has gotten mixed reviews, so try it out for yourself. I, for one, think I'm done with this author.