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WORK TITLE: The Devil Crept In
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.aniaahlborn.com/
CITY: Greenville
STATE: SC
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Lived in Albuquerque, NM, and now lives in Greenville, SC. * http://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ania-Ahlborn/459376695 * http://inkwellmanagement.com/client/ania-ahlborn
SKETCHWRITER NOTES:
From Goodreads: She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of New Mexico
PERSONAL
Born in Ciechanów, Poland; married.
EDUCATION:University of New Mexico, B.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
AVOCATIONS:Gourmet cooking, baking, movies, drawing, travel.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Ania Ahlborn tells readers that she was a strange child who played happily among the tombstones in the wooded cemetery behind her home. At an early age she developed an interest in ghosts and other creatures of the animated variety. Later she became fascinated by psychological thrillers, especially tales of demonic possession. As an adult, Ahlborn began to write the kind of stories that she never found when she was young–the kind that sustain the terror level to the very end. Several of her novels reflect the perspectives of young people who, for reasons beyond their choosing, live at or past the edge of normal.
Seeds of Success
Ahlborn’s first novel, Seed, was self-published in 2011. It is the story of a youngster who escaped the evil that stalked him by running away from home, or so he thought. Jack Winter builds a life far from his roots in rural Georgia. He adopts the lifestyle of a budding musician, marries, and become a doting father of two. A car crash changes everything. In the aftermath of the crash, he catches a glimpse of two smoldering eyes from the past, and he realizes that evil has only been biding its time. Jack’s younger daughter, Charlie, seems to take on a new persona that grows more frightening with each passing day. His struggle to save her soul could cost him his life.
Ahlborn told interviewer R.A. Evans at DarkMedia: “I’m not big on gore. … I’m a fan of unnerving a reader rather than shocking,” but she acknowledged that she may have “cross[ed] a few lines that other writers probably wouldn’t have.” Her boldness resulted in a winning combination. Writing at Horror Novel Reviews, William Massa commented, “There is one shock-moment in particular … that really packs a punch,” along with “a twist that separates it from all other possession stories I’ve come across.” Just months after the modest debut, Seed was reprinted by the Amazon Publishing imprint 47North, where it formed the bedrock for Ahlborn’s rapidly growing portfolio of horror.
During the interim, Ahlborn did not sit idle. The Neighbors is another tale of a young man trying to escape his past–in this case, the burden of caring for his alcoholic mother. He rents a seedy room from a childhood friend and becomes absorbed by the odd allure of the well-to-do couple next door. In a review at her blog, S.M. Tsonis felt that despite some shortcomings “Ania’s story telling is superb, … and leaves lasting images in your mind of all the creepy things [you] most want to forget.”
In The Shuddering, Ahlborn plumbs the familiar territory of “an old-school creature feature in novel form,” wrote Ryan Daley in Bloody Disgusting. The plot centers on a group of twenty-somethings who find themselves stranded during a blizzard at an isolated cabin where they are attacked by shadowy ghoul-like beings. Daley found that despite a slow start the story “magically transforms … into a stark, unsettling tale of snowbound survival.”
The Bird Eater recalls the premise of Seed, in which a young boy learns that evil knows no boundaries. Aaron Holbrook abandoned Holbrook House after the strange death of his aunt left him alone in the world. Twenty years later, grief over the accidental death of his young son leads Aaron back home. Solace eludes him when the nightmares begin and he seems to be stalked by a strange boy who may or may not be real. Having established her reputation for psychological suspense laced with blood-soaked horror, demonic possession, and warped obsession, Ahlborn was poised to deliver an even bolder, more disturbing jolt to the reader’s comfort zone.
Brother
Brother is the story of Michael Morrow, who wants nothing in the world more than a normal life. He has spent the last thirteen years as the only relatively normal member of the family that took him in (loosely speaking) when he was six, but he is still a monster. The dilapidated Morrow farmhouse is tucked into the heart of West Virginia mountain country on a back road that few outsiders dare to enter. The ones who do are never seen again–especially the women. Michael hears their screams in his sleep.
Michael dreams of a flight to freedom with a young woman he met in town. His family needs him too much to let him go. It is Michael’s job to butcher the women who succumb to their depravity and bury the inedible remains in the backyard. This is a novel of terror, graphic violence, child abuse, incest, and sexual assault.
Brother is not for everyone, but the commentators who offered candid critiques of the terror also offered testimonials to the author who rendered it so vividly that they were unable to turn away. Frank Michaels Errington observed at Cemetery Dance: “Brother is a story of complex relationships, with fully developed characters, that left me beaten and fully drained.” A reviewer for Discriminating Fangirl remarked: “Ahlborn is a master of getting inside the heads of characters, even the ones whose heads you don’t particularly want to look into. … She’s also excellent at setting scenes; I had no trouble … visualizing everything (everything, especially the really unpleasant stuff) perfectly.” The same reviewer went on to observe: “The end has a masterful twist that left me even more horrified than I already was.” Writing at Adventures in SciFi Publishing, Ben Arzate declined to elaborate on the story, suggesting instead: “It’s a book you really need to experience for yourself.”
The Devil Crept In
Stevie Clark is another young misfit. The Devil Crept In is his story. There is little kindness in the world of the ten-year-old with the speech impediment and the missing fingers. His only friend and older cousin Jude is an exception–some of the time. When Jude disappears, Stevie’s world turns upside down. Another boy disappeared years earlier; his dead body was found in the woods. Stevie knows that evil is afoot, but no one will listen to him. Even though Jude returns three days later, something about him is different–wrong. Stevie throws himself wholeheartedly into his mission to find out what happened to his friend, and what he discovers terrifies him.
The Devil Crept In is also the story of the old woman named Rosie. After the death of her husband, followed by the trauma of bringing an unwanted child into the world, Rosie has lived alone in the same woods that seem to have swallowed Stevie’s friend Jude. A reviewer at the Bibliosanctum was “riveted by the horrifying details of her tragic, disturbing life.” The reviewer continued: “The third and final part of The Devil Crept In is where all [the] magic happens, as elements from Jude’s disappearance and Rosie’s tale begin to gradually come together.”
At the This Is Horror website, Bob Pastorella noted that the adult Rosie seems to be a more reliable narrator than young Stevie is. Nonetheless, he wrote, “just when we think we’ve gotten it all figured out, we discover there’s more to what’s going on than meets the eye.” At this point, Pastorella added, “we are thrust into a nightmare beyond our wildest expectations.” A Publishers Weekly contributor reported that Ahlborn “delivers a beautiful and deftly wrought horror story.” In School Library Journal, Sherry J. Mills summed up The Devil Crept In as “a fantastically creepy coming-of-age narrative.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, August 31, 2015, review of Brother, p. 65; November 21, 2016, review of The Devil Crept In, p. 94.
School Library Journal, July, 2017, Sherry J. Mills, review of The Devil Crept In, p. 96.
ONLINE
Adventures in SciFi Publishing, http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/ (November 25, 2015), Ben Arzate, review of Brother.
Ania Ahlborn Home Page, http://www.aniaahlborn.com (September 7, 2017).
Bibliosanctum, https://bibliosanctum.com/ (February 28, 2017), review of The Devil Crept In.
Bloody Disgusting, http://bloody-disgusting.com/ (June 4, 2013), Ryan Daley, review of The Shuddering.
Cemetery Dance, http://www.cemeterydance.com/ (November 4, 2015), Frank Michaels Errington, review of Brother; (February 14, 2017), Blu Gilliand, author interview.
Cultured Vultures, https://culturedvultures.com/ (November 25, 2016), Matthew Brockmeyer, review of The Devil Crept In.
DarkMedia, http://www.darkmediaonline.com/ (June 11, 2011), R.A. Evans, author interview.
Discriminating Fangirl, http://www.thediscriminatingfangirl.com/ (October 2, 2015), review of Brother.
Horror Novel Reviews, https://horrornovelreviews.com/ (October 14, 2013), William Massa, review of Seed; (May 4, 2017), Paula Limbaugh, review of The Devil Crept In.
Inkwell Management, http://inkwellmanagement.com/ (September 7, 2017), short profile.
Simon and Schuster, http://www.simonandschuster.com/ (September 7, 2017), short profile.
S. M. Tsonis Blog, https://smtsonis.com/ (February 21, 2017), review of The Neighbors.
This Is Horror, http://www.thisishorror.co.uk/ (February 21, 2017), Bob Pastorella, review of The Devil Crept In.
Where the Reader Grows, http://www.wherethereadergrows.com/ (February 2, 2017), review of Seed.
Novels
Seed (2012)
The Neighbors (2012)
The Shuddering (2013)
The Bird Eater (2014)
Within These Walls (2015)
The Pretty Ones (2015)
Brother (2015)
The Devil Crept In (2017)
Novellas
I Call Upon Thee (2017)
Born in Ciechanow Poland, Ania has always been drawn to the darker, mysterious, and sometimes morbid sides of life. Her earliest childhood memory is of crawling through a hole in the chain link fence that separated her family home from the large wooded cemetery. She'd spend hours among the headstones, breaking up bouquets of silk flowers so that everyone had their equal share.
Ania's first novel, SEED, was self-published. It clawed its way up the Amazon charts to the number one horror spot, earning her a multi-book deal and a key to the kingdom of the macabre. Less than five years later, her work has been lauded by the likes of Publishers Weekly, New York Daily News, and the New York Times.
She hopes to one day be invited to dinner at Stephen King's place, where she will immediately be crushed beneath the weight of her imposter syndrome.
Born in Ciechanow Poland, Ania has always been drawn to the darker, mysterious, and sometimes morbid sides of life. Her earliest childhood memory is of crawling through a hole in the chain link fence that separated her family home from the large wooded cemetery next door. She’d spend hours among the headstones, breaking up bouquets of silk flowers so that everyone had their equal share.
Beyond writing, Ania enjoys gourmet cooking, baking, movies, drawing, and traveling. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband and two dogs, Beau the Scottie and Galaxy the Yorkie.
Born in Ciechanow Poland, Ania has always been drawn to the darker, mysterious, and sometimes morbid sides of life. Her earliest childhood memory is of crawling through a hole in the chain link fence that separated her family home from the large wooded cemetery next door. She'd spend hours among the headstones, breaking up bouquets of silk flowers so that everyone had their equal share.
Beyond writing, Ania enjoys cooking, baking, movies, and traveling.
Learn more about Ania on her site, www.AniaAhlborn.com.
Want to connect? Follow Ania on Twitter @aniaahlborn, or find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/aniaahlborn.
Ania Ahlborn is the bestselling author of the horror thrillers Brother, Within These Walls, The Bird Eater, The Shuddering, The Neighbors, and Seed, and the novella The Pretty Ones. Born in Ciechanow, Poland, she lives in South Carolina with her husband and their dog. Visit AniaAhlborn.com or follow the author on Facebook and Twitter @AniaAhlbornAuthor.
Author Ania Ahlborn answers 7 Deadly Questions about her dark thriller SEED
Arts and Literature, Arts and Literature Interviews, Interviews
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by R. A. Evans:
1. In your debut novel SEED, you follow the plight of Jack Winter as he tries to keep one step ahead of a darkness that has haunted him since his childhood. When this unseen entity trains its eye upon his daughter, Winter finds himself fighting for her very life…and soul. Talk to me about your inspiration for this devilish tale.
Hi R.A. First off, thanks for having me. I’ve been excited to appear on your site for quite some time.
As far as inspiration goes, my mother puts it best when she says that I ‘like the weird things.’ What she doesn’t know is that she had a hand in turning me into the spooky girl that I am today. I’ve always been drawn to horror. When I was a kid, my cousin and I would watch any scary movie we could get our hands on. A couple I remember specifically are Troll and Dolls—Dolls pretty much scarred me for life. Imagine my surprise when my mom started buying me porcelain dolls as Christmas presents.
But watching The Exorcist in a dark and empty house is what really shaped me as a writer. I was maybe nine or ten, my parents had gone to a New Years Eve party, and my cousin and I were left to fend for ourselves. We decided to ‘fend’ by watching a movie that still scares me to this day. Ever since then, I’ve been drawn to stories of demonic possession. Because I’m a fan of these types of stories, I naturally gravitate toward them in what I read and watch, and let me tell you, I’m almost always left disappointed. There’s something about demonic possession that can go from scary to hilarious in a blink, and most of the books and movies that tackle this particular subject lose it at the end. The scale tips just a little too far and it goes from terrifying to camp. My goal with Seed was to keep that from happening. In essence, I wanted to write the possession story I’ve been dying to read but haven’t been able to find.
You know the saying… sometimes you have to write it yourself.
2. With so much competition as an author, you have to do everything possible to make your title jump off the shelf. The cover art for SEED does just that. Is this your vision for the story?
I can’t take all the credit for the cover art. My cover artist, Jeroen Ten Berg, is awesome at what he does. He actually read my manuscript before coming up with the idea for the cover, and when he showed me the first prototype I was surprised at how close our visions were. I had imagined a cemetery on the cover just as he had, a lonely run-down cemetery being one of the central images in the book. We added the tree and fiery color scheme a bit later, but as soon as I saw the finished product I got that ‘this is it’ feeling. I think the cover conveys a sense of the story perfectly, and I love the symbolism of the tree and it’s roots—branches reaching up toward heaven, roots reaching down toward hell. I couldn’t be happier with it.
3. As an author myself, I understand the balancing act involved with writing horror that involves young children. Are there certain lines you will not cross, and, if so, did you brush up against them with SEED?
As weird as it sounds, <
Are there parts of Seed that will raise eyebrows? Sure. It’s horror. Did I <
4. Your bio includes a tip of your hat to Stephen King as one of your favorite authors. Talk to me about how what you read influences how and what you write?
I think that on a subconscious level, we’re all influenced by anything and everything around us, whether it’s the books we read or the movies we watch. I tip my hat to King in my bio, but he also crept into the book itself. That doesn’t surprise me because I was reading King while writing Seed. I like tossing in little details that fans of a particular author or movie will pick up on and appreciate. I think it’s a way to ground a piece of work in reality rather than allowing it to hover somewhere out there in the darkness of cyberspace. I’ve heard quite a few writers say that they shy away from referencing brand names like Ford or Sharpie or Lucky Charms. I think it’s fair to assume that they also stay away from referencing authors or movies. I don’t really understand the point of staying away from it. These things surround us; it’s our life, so why avoid them when these details can pull a reader even deeper into the story itself?
5. What do you think happens to the soul after death?
If I had to choose one particular belief, I think I’d go with reincarnation. I’m one of those people who is drawn to certain things and places, and maybe that’s just my kind of spiritualism, but I tend to believe that maybe I’ve been around for longer than I know. For example, we were at the MET in NYC one year and they had an Ancient Egyptian exhibit. One of the things they had on display was a child’s stained shirt. It was old and yellow and threadbare. People were glancing at it and going on their merry way. I got stuck there. I stood in front of that shirt for what felt like hours, just staring at it like I knew who it belonged to. It was a really eerie feeling, staring at something and feeling connected to it without knowing why.
The same thing happens to me with certain destinations. I could taste the history in Louisiana; half the time I felt like I was seeing it through someone else’s eyes. Prague is another one. I’ve never been there, but I have to go. Looking at photos of Prague makes me feel homesick even though I’ve never set foot in the Czech Republic.
So, I’ll go with reincarnation… because it makes me feel a little less crazy.
6. Seed hits the shelves today – which means right now people are buying your book! Talk to me about what that feels like.
It feels liberating. Like most authors, I’ve been under the impression that I ‘needed’ an agent and publisher for the past decade. What was once true is now a myth. It feels amazing to have put this entire project together on my own, from a blinking cursor on a blank screen to actually selling copies of my book to people all over the world. So yeah, it feels awesome—a dream come true.
But at the same time, I’m not basking in the glory of it. I know it’s going to be a long and hard road, and I’ve already started work on my next novel. I’m impatient. If someone does pick up Seed and likes it, they’ll hopefully be excited to see what I have coming up next. I don’t like waiting, and I don’t want my readers to have to wait either.
7. Where can readers go to learn more about you?
I’m like the newest web virus; I’m everywhere. I’m on Twitter @aniaahlborn, I have a Facebook and Goodreads author page, there’s my site, AniaAhlborn.com, and my blog, 21st Century Author, were I tend to go a bit crazy with my big mouth and my endless opinions. I love connecting with readers, I love answering questions and hearing what people have to say about my work. The easiest way to get all those links in one place is to go to www.AniaAhlborn.com and hit the ‘About’ section. They’re all there, along with my email address, which I’ll be personally responding to until I hit the big time and move to the Maldives.
Pick up a copy of SEED today by visiting:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
About Ania
Born in Ciechanow Poland, Ania has always been drawn to the darker, mysterious, and sometimes morbid sides of life. Her earliest childhood memory is of crawling through a hole in the chain link fence that separated her family home from the large wooded cemetery next door. She’d spend hours among the headstones, breaking up bouquets of silk flowers so that everyone had their equal share.
Beyond writing, Ania enjoys gourmet cooking, baking, movies, drawing, and traveling. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband and two dogs, Beau the Scottie and Galaxy the Yorkie.
Interview: Ania Ahlborn
Author
Blu Gilliand
Posted on
February 14, 2017
Categories
Interviews
Tags
Ania Ahlborn, Blu Gilliand, Essays, Interviews, The Devil Crept In, Women In Horror
An Interview with Ania Ahlborn
Ania Ahlborn is the bestselling author of the horror thrillers Brother, Within These Walls, The Bird Eater, The Shuddering, The Neighbors, and Seed, and the novella The Pretty Ones. Her latest release is The Devil Crept In, out now from Gallery Books. Recently, Ania was kind enough to take time out from exploring the dark corners of her imagination to share a few words with us.
(Interview conducted by Blu Gilliand)
CEMETERY DANCE ONLINE: You were born in Poland. How old were you when you came to America? What brought you here?
ANIA AHLBORN: I was about three years old, and while I can’t remember the plane ride over, my first memory of America is: San Antonio in the summer, so hot and humid I can hardly breath, standing out on the lawn of my aunt and uncle’s apartment complex in nothing but my underwear, and suddenly feeling fire crawling up my legs. I’d stopped dead on top of an enormous ant hill. Liberty and opportunity brought my parents to the United States. Fire ants eating their toddler was an unexpected bonus.
Your bio says you hail from Albuquerque and now live in Greenville. Poland, New Mexico and South Carolina are three seriously different places—how has living in such diverse environments influenced your writing?
There was also Portland, Oregon, between Albuquerque and Greenville. But, yes! There has been a ton of moving around for me over the past few years. As far as being an influence, there’s really nothing like experiencing new environments to get a feel of what life is like in other places, and for understanding what people on different coasts are all about. Being able to pinpoint the nuances of a certain geography only makes fiction that much more engaging. I wouldn’t say that all of my moving about has consciously influenced my writing as much as it creeps into the nooks and crannies of my narrative.
When did you start to gravitate toward horror?
Five. Ha.
No, seriously, five. Maybe six. Though, at that age, it was less horror and more Scooby Doo, oh-my-god-the-ghost-cartoon-is-on. I’ve always been into spooky and unusual stuff. My mother has told me many-a-time, “you’ve always been creepy;” which, to be fair, when your kindergartner hands you a bouquet of fake flowers collected off of dead people’s graves, as a mother, that’s probably enough to trigger some sort of existential crisis.
I hit the “real” horror pretty hard at around nine or ten. Though, when I say “real,” I mean movies like Troll and Dolls and books like Wait Till Helen Comes. Not exactly terrifying, but for an elementary school kid, my taste reached beyond my years.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Has horror always been your genre of choice, or do you see yourself expanding beyond it?
I knew I wanted to write for a living after spending a summer at my grandmother’s house. I was twelve-ish, and my cousin and I were desperate for things to do, so we started writing a story in tandem. I became completely obsessed with the process, and that was it for me. That was not horror. It was, like, awful tweeny giggly romance stuff. Though from what I recall, I was always purposefully messing up the story by making the guy character do weird, off-the-wall stuff. That was my adolescent id coming out, I think. It pissed my cousin off pretty well, if I remember correctly. That dark streak never fails me.
A few of my books (Brother, The Neighbors) lean more toward psychological thriller than horror, so, I’ve expanded. Though, I can’t say I can see myself going back to those tweeny giggly days; unless it would be, like, Heathers revisited.
Who are the biggest influences on your writing?
Stephen King. Ira Levin. Poppy Z. Brite. Gillian Flynn. Bret Easton Ellis, among others. I was completely obsessed with Easton Ellis in college. They way that man can spin a story is pretty phenomenal. I also have some pretty heavy leanings toward the eighties. So, my penchant for movies like The Breakfast Club, and I already mentioned Heathers, tend to color a lot of my stories. Music, too. The Cure. Depeche Mode. New Order. I’m a big jumble of pop culture influence. I grew up when MTV was king.
It’s sad that, in this day and time, I still consider this a valid question, but…what obstacles have you faced as a woman trying to make a career writing in a traditionally male-dominated genre?
Sad, indeed, but totally legitimate. You’ll be happy to hear, however, that I haven’t really faced all that many obstacles. Maybe they’ve been there and I’ve just ignored them and plowed through whatever was in my way, but as for my experience, I can only speak fondly of all of the folks I’ve worked with and the readers that frequent my social media, etc. Of course, you get the occasional creeper, but that’s par for the course.
Why do you think some people have difficulty reconciling women as creators of horror?
Because women are delicate flowers who can’t possibly know how to convey terror. After all, our place is in the kitchen. Lucky for us, that garbage disposal has quite a bit of horsepower, so these days we can shuck practically anything. Hands. Feet. Misogynistic opinions. Sorry, what was the question?
Tell us a little about your new novel, The Devil Crept In.
Devil is a story about a ten-year-old named Stevie, who discovers his cousin, Jude, has gone missing. Stevie and Jude live in a pretty rural town, and neither come from particularly good families; so, when Stevie sees the local authorities yukking it up rather than buckling down and seriously searching for Jude, he decides to take matters into his own hands. And what he finds is far darker than anything he expected. Devil zeros in on the dichotomy between the world of kids and adults and poses the question of, what if the kids are right and the adults are wrong? What if monsters are real? I wrote Devil wanting to highlight a few themes, the main one being the nightmare that is “growing up.”
What are you reading these days?
I’m not reading nearly as much as I should be right now. My schedule has been completely insane, and my to-be-read pile is growing taller by the day. I recently finished up You by Caroline Kepnes, which was fantastic; As Good As Gone by Amy Gentry, which was also great; The Couple Next Door by Sheri Lapena. Lots of dark thrillers that, coincidentally, have been written by women. I’m in the middle of No One Knows by J.T. Ellison, and am eager to tackle Nick Cutter’s latest, Little Heaven.
I know your new book just came out, but I’ve already finished it, so….what’s next from Ania Ahlborn?
I’m currently working on an edit of a novella called I Call Upon Thee that’ll be released this fall. Me, being that weird kid, I have some unresolved issues with Ouija boards. I figured I’d exorcise those demons in this next release. Beyond that, I’m working on a psychological thriller in the vein of many of the books I mentioned above. I’m trying to channel a little bit of Gillian Flynn, I suppose. But in the end, it’ll get so dark and twisted it’ll be nothing but Ahlborn. “Creepy,” as my mom would say. I’m trying to discover how deep this dark soul-pit goes. Also, I’m actively trying to scar my editor for life. A girl’s gotta have goals.
The Devil Crept In
263.47 (Nov. 21, 2016): p94.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* The Devil Crept In
Ania Ahlborn. Gallery, $16 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-1-4767-8375-8
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Lauded author Ahlborn (Within These Walls) <
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Devil Crept In." Publishers Weekly, 21 Nov. 2016, p. 94. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471273968&it=r&asid=0b8ee6b6c2df64c1f66137c1d387f111. Accessed 10 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A471273968
Brother
262.35 (Aug. 31, 2015): p65.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* Brother
Ania Ahlborn. S&S/Gallery, $16 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-4767-8373-4
Ahlborn (Within These Walls) paints a grim portrait of a murderous family circa 1980 in this visceral, nihilistic thriller. Nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow lives in rural West Virginia with his parents, Wade and Claudine, and his siblings, Reb and Misty Dawn. Michael wants nothing to do with his family's psychotic hobby of murdering transient young women, but is literally left to pick up the pieces after their gruesome escapades. When Michael meets Alice at a local record store, he's smitten, but also desperate to keep her away from his family's extracurricular activities; unfortunately, psychotic, unpredictable Reb has other ideas. Comparisons to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are inevitable, but Ahlborn's impressive writing and expert exploration of the psychological effects of systemic abuse elevate what could have been the literary equivalent of a slasher flick, and the twist in the final act is jaw-dropping. This relentlessly grim tale is most definitely not for the squeamish, but it's nearly impossible to put down. Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Brother." Publishers Weekly, 31 Aug. 2015, p. 65. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA427664825&it=r&asid=68a25b69476120ee330ab65d24fbd0cc. Accessed 10 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A427664825
Ahlborn, Ania. The Devil Crept In
Sherry J. Mills
63.7 (July 2017): p96.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
AHLBORN, Ania. The Devil Crept In. 384p. Gallery. Feb. 2017. pap. $16. ISBN 9781476783758.
Fans of all ages will be enthralled by Ahlborn's latest thriller. When 12-year-old Jude goes missing in the small, quiet town of Deer Valley, OR, the residents are reminded of another incident years ago, when a young boy was found murdered in the surrounding woods. Ahlborn tells this intriguing tale from two points of view, that of Jude's 10-year-old cousin and best friend, Stevie, and that of Rosie, an older woman who lives in the woods. Stevie, an odd, unpopular boy who sees shadow people and has echolalia (a condition that compels him to repeat other people's words), is a likable protagonist who evokes sympathy as he is teased by his stepfather and older brother. His perspective is sometimes naive and often humorous, yet his perceptions are more reliable than those of the adults around him. Suspense steadily builds as Stevie tries to discover what has happened to Jude, all while encountering unfriendly townsfolk; sickly, skittish stray cats; and what is obviously a monster in the woods. With an especially creepy backstory that satisfyingly ties all the elements together, this book evokes a Stephen King novella. VERDICT <> that is sure to have readers clamoring for more titles by this author. A first purchase, especially where horror writers such as Stephen King or Joe Hill are popular.--Sherry J. Mills, Hazelwood East High School, St. Louis
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Mills, Sherry J. "Ahlborn, Ania. The Devil Crept In." School Library Journal, July 2017, p. 96. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA497611195&it=r&asid=2f0dd807bfa3df219ab159af9d1f60fb. Accessed 10 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A497611195
Book Review: Brother by Ania Ahlborn
November 25, 2015 by Ben Arzate Leave a Comment
Brother by Ania Ahlborn
Ania Ahlborn’s Brother reminds me a lot of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God, which to me is entirely a good thing. If I were to pitch this book to someone, I would probably say it was like if Erskine Caldwell wrote House of 1000 Corpses.
The Morrows are a family with strange traditions. If “strange” is the best word to describe abducting young women off the back roads of West Virginia, murdering them and then cannibalizing them. Michael, the youngest of the family, is tired of the horrors he lives with everyday. He longs for a normal life. When he meets Alice, a goth chick who works at a record store in the nearby town, he thinks they may be able to run away together. Run away to something better. However, Michael’s sadistic older brother, Rebel, has other plans for them.
Rebel Morrow didn’t possess the usual interest in girls. His were fantasies of a darker sort–the kind of stuff that involved plastic sheeting and electrical tape.
Right from the beginning, Ahlborn brings us inside Michael’s head and creates an oppressively bleak atmosphere.
Michael twisted in his bed, the threadbare blanket he’s used all his life tangled around his legs. A girl was screaming bloody murder outside.
What works best in Brother is that she creates this world of murder and abuse and shows us how it’s the normal life for Michael. At the same time, he’s aware of how not normal it is. There’s always that bit of cruel, teasing hope for him to make everything even worse for him.
The house filled his chest with secret optimism. Clumsy thoughts of his own future home and that leisure that would come with it filled his head. One day he’d spend lazy afternoons painting his own shutters that same perfect hue of green, then watch the birds while sipping on a cold glass of lemonade. The future would be filled with birdsong and the whisper of an easy breeze. There would be no more screaming. No hard whack of a leather strap.
Her knack for description creates vivid scenes. Like a movie playing in your mind. This especially helps when the blood starts to flow. Michael’s “job” in the family tradition is to butcher the bodies of the Morrow’s victims. I won’t quote any part of it here, but her blow-by-blow description of Michael’s “job” at one point is stomach turning.
On top of it all, Ahlborn tells this story masterfully. Like a great thriller, the plot propels forward fast and is full of some genuinely surprising twists. I’m being a bit vague in my review here, but this is a big reason why. <
The book’s got its problems. For example, there are some questionable sentences sprinkled throughout the book.
By the time Alice and Micheal stepped inside the theater, it was 75 percent full.
“75 percent full?” Well, thanks for being so specific. There are also some references to Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz that feel very hackneyed. For all the times those works have been referenced, she doesn’t do anything special with them at all. These feel like nitpicks, but they stood out in an otherwise excellent book.
For as much as I try to promote small press and independent releases, Brother shows that the “Big Four” can still put out some great books. I highly recommend this, especially for fans of both horror and Southern Gothic literature.
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Ben Arzate lives in Des Moines, Iowa. His fiction and poetry has appeared in Ugly Babies, Bizarro Central, Spoilage, The Mustache Factor, Twenty Something Press, and Keep This Bag Away From Children. He blogs at http://dripdropdripdropdripdrop.blogspot.com/
Review: 'Brother' by Ania Ahlborn
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Blu Gilliand
Posted on
November 4, 2015
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- Frank Michaels Errington, Ania Ahlborn, Brother, Featured, Gallery Books, Reviews
Brother by Ania Ahlborn
Gallery Books (September 2015)
336 pages, e-book $7.99, paperback $12.97
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington
This is the second book I’ve read this year from Ania Ahlborn, having read Within These Walls back in April and now Brother. Both works are fine examples of literary horror and each is well worth your time as a reader.
Brother is the disturbing story of the Morrow family who live deep in the heart of the Appalachians in West Virginia. This is a family that has managed to take all of the fun out of dysfunctional. There is definitely a strange family dynamic at play here, with abusive parents and siblings that are just as bad. “Folks like the Morrows didn’t have much. They got by living off the land.” This is a quote that goes much deeper than what’s on the surface.
At the core of the story is Michael, the youngest brother among the four siblings. Michael was not born a Morrow, having been abducted when he was just six years old. Told he was abandoned by his family, Michael has grown into his teen-aged years immersed in the horrors of the Morrow household.
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I would love to see this on the big screen some day. Another book that’s certain to make my top ten list at the end of the year.
Brother is available now in every imaginable format from Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.
If you love horror. I promise you won’t be disappointed if you choose to make Brother your next read.
(Ania Ahlborn is the bestselling author of the horror thrillers Within These Walls, The Bird Eater, The Shuddering, The Neighbors, and Seed, which has been optioned for film. Born in Ciechanow, Poland, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their dog.)
Book Review: The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
February 21, 2017
“Blurring the lines between reality and the surreal, Ahlborn gives us a tale with nightmare written all over it.”
Stevie’s best friend is his cousin Jude. Though he’s been going through a rough time, and he isn’t always nice to Stevie, Jude is really the only friend Stevie has. They hang out and play games, and they build a fort in the woods where no one else can bother them. When Jude mysteriously disappears, Stevie is sure his friend ran deep into the woods, further than they’ve ever gone before. Stevie’s heard the stories about the woods, how people think there’s some kind of evil there. Maybe that’s why no one in town keeps any pets. With his family frantic and the police looking for Jude, knowing every second he’s gone is one step closer to certain death, Stevie feels like he’s the only one who really cares about Jude. And then, as suddenly as he disappeared, Jude returns. Everyone is happy, and can rest a little easier, especially knowing that what happened to that other boy just a few years before didn’t happen to Jude. But Stevie senses that something isn’t right, that Jude is … different. As Stevie tries to reconnect to the only friend he’s ever known, he discovers his greatest fears have come true, and there really is something dark and evil in the woods.
The Devil Crept In, the latest by Ania Ahlborn (Seed, Brother, The Bird Eater), is yet another powerful story about the nature of evil, and how far we will go to save the ones we love. Our main character, Stevie, is a troubled boy, stuttering and stammering his way through the hardest years of his life, surrounded by an equally troubled mother stuck in a dead-end relationship with a real jerk of a boyfriend. And even though Jude is Stevie’s cousin and best friend, Jude isn’t exactly that nice to Stevie. We discover Jude has problems of his own, and the rage he feels spills out into his interactions with others, especially Stevie. Ahlborn paints a family picture that most readers will feel familiar with. At first, the secondary characters may seem a bit too cliché, but it doesn’t take long for Ahlborn to make them have lives of their own. Everyone probably knows someone like Terry, Stevie Clark’s mom’s abusive boyfriend, or worse, is actually in a relationship with a jerk just like him. It is knowing people like Terry in real life that allows Ahlborn to make the trope come to life, using the characteristics to her advantage to misdirect your emotions. This collateral slight-of-hand forces you to care about Stevie, even though you find yourself wondering just how reliable a narrator he is.
Stevie sees things in the shadows. Things that move swiftly in the darkness. Things that are watching his every move. Ahlborn masterfully plays with these descriptions, lending the narrative a welcome supernatural slant. By the time Jude returns from the woods and Stevie reunites with his friend, we’re already invested in Stevie’s worldview, so it’s very easy to see that there is something wrong with Jude, we just can’t put our finger on it.
Part II switches gears. With an Ahlborn story, this is usually when things get wild, and here she doesn’t disappoint. We go back in time a little to the story of Rosamund Aleksander. We learn of the hardships she endured trying to make a life with her husband, Ansel. This reprieve is a welcome departure from Stevie’s narrative, and she carefully lays out ‘the other side of the story’. And though Rosie is more of a reliable narrator than Stevie, Ahlborn still manages to slightly lean the story to a supernatural bent. Rosie’s husband dies, then she finds herself pregnant. What follows from there is gut-wrenching and harrowing, as Rosie is forced to contend with an unwanted child, and her natural maternal instincts.
The key factor that’s been mentioned twice here is the semi-supernatural slant of the novel. Ahlborn does her very best to keep it as ambiguous as possible, and it is this haziness that propels the story along. The fact that she only suggests the supernatural is just enough to make the reader wonder, and that’s exactly what she wants to happen. The story barely straddles the fence between the real and surreal, more like climbs up one side of the fence and looks over the top, but it’s enough for her to set up her traps. By now, you’re under her spell, and you’ll have a difficult time putting the book down. When she returns to Stevie’s story, we’ve already got an inkling of what’s really going on with Jude, but it’s just not enough. We must know it all, even though that knowledge is likely to tip us over the edge.
And <
Readers looking for a disturbing story that examines the nature of evil can do no wrong with The Devil Crept In. Blurring the lines between reality and the surreal, Ahlborn gives us a tale with nightmare written all over it. As she did with her previous novel, Brother, Ahlborn taps into a family life no one would want to live and allows us to step into the shoes of a hurting young boy who faces an evil no one else could see. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, you need to get The Devil Crept In as soon as possible, and make sure you’re off work the next day, because you’ll be up all night reading this one.
BOB PASTORELLA
Publisher: Gallery Books
Paperback: (384pps)
Release Date: 7 February 2017
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Ania Ahlborn ‘Seed’ Review
Posted on October 14, 2013 in Authors A-L // 6 Comments
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Written by: William Massa
Coming from a Hollywood screenwriting background, I tend to approach stories from a conceptual standpoint – what is the hook or big idea (the high-concept in Hollywood speak) that drives the narrative and makes it stand out from the pack? Seed by Ania Ahlborn feels at first like it is mining well-trodden territory – on the surface it plays like another possession story. But great writing and effective scares elevate the material.
Ahlborn takes familiar tropes and gives them a new whirl – there are a number of spine-chilling scenes that linger in the reader’s imagination. <
But beyond the special effects, the story is powered by relatable themes that serve as the psychological underpinning for the surface chills and action. The parents of the possessed child are having financial/family issues. The husband is still chasing the dream of making it big as a musician and the romance of a bohemian lifestyle is losing some of its appeal as the financial responsibilities of adulthood become more encroaching. Add some heady familial pressure to the mix with a disapproving mother-in-law, and you have a dramatic powder keg that serves as effective subtext for the spooky goings-ons.
As the novel unfolds, Ahlborn also throws a curveball at the reader and adds <> in my reading. This isn’t an isolated incident but history repeating itself as we learn that the husband was possessed in his youth by the same demon that is now tormenting his daughter. This element adds bit of frustration to the read- the husband never comes clean about his past and how it relates to what his daughter is going through but his reticence ultimately make sense within the context of the tale.
Overall, this is an excellent read, and it is clear why Amazon picked up this indie and optioned it for film – it has horror movie written all over it. Ahlborn recently released The Shuddering which has hit the top of my reading queue and little is known of her newest piece, The Bird Eater, slated for next March but the highly evocative title has my attention. Ahlborn is a new voice in horror, and I’m eagerly looking forward to what she has to say next.
Order it here.
Rating: 4/5
Ania Ahlborn, The Devil Crept In review
Posted on May 4, 2017 in Authors A-L, Uncategorized // 1 Comment
Written by Paula Limbaugh
Jude and Stevie are cousins with Jude being the older one. Both boys haven’t any real friends of their own so they tend to make do with each other. Ever since Jude’s father died he has been on a path of destruction. Frequent outbursts of violence have kept the neighborhood kids away. Stevie, on the other hand, is a meek boy with echolalia amongst other developmental disorders, this makes him a target for bullying. Left only with each other as companions the boys have managed to carve out quite an adventurous summer for themselves. With a tree fort out in the middle of the woods and a spooky old abandoned house sitting along the path through the woods we have the ingredients for something terrible to occur.
Ah, and of course it does. Jude has gone missing. With a half-hearted search from authorities, Jude finally makes his way back home after 3 days without much memory of what happened. But there is something different about Jude. Stevie notices right away yet when trying to explain it to his mother she dismisses his concerns. Jude has become secretive and while he was once tolerant of Stevie’s problems he has now become rather nasty towards him. Stevie is determined to find out what happened to Jude while he was away.
The town has always been a bit strange, for one, no one seems to keep a pet. Oh, there are animals around but they just don’t want to be kept. Stray cats are seen lurking about and in a way Jude has become a bit like them. Sneaking out and being gone for hours, Stevie knows he must follow Jude if he wants answers, but he is also afraid of what he’ll find. In the meantime, with all his nosing around Stevie is learning there are some things that no one wants to talk about.
And that old abandoned house? Hmm… there is more to it than just its ramshackle structure. With a story all of its own, we learn about the house and its inhabitants through a running background telling.
This was a good read, a little like the dark side of coming of age. Stevie is a kid you can like but at times get annoyed with, his mom seems typical of those who are in an abusive relationship and who don’t want to rock the boat. With Jude, we feel where he is coming from. All in all, the characters are developed rather nicely to keep us interested in them. The pacing is steady and tension mounts superbly. If you would like to pick up a copy of The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn, you can get it HERE!!
4/5
Review: Brother by Ania Ahlborn
October 2, 2015 Pamela Reviews 0 Comments
Brother by Ania Ahlborn
From the bestselling horror author of "Within These Walls" and "The Bird Eater "comes a brand-new novel of terror that follows a teenager determined to break from his family's unconventional--and deeply disturbing--traditions.
Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it's served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don't knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what's buried in the Morrows' backyard.
But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn't like the rest of his family. He doesn't take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he's sure that someday he'll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he's immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he's become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place...
Published by Simon and Schuster on September 29th 2015
Genres: Horror, Speculative Fiction
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
Find this book on Goodreads
Buy the Book at: Amazon
I received this book for free from The Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
This book contains potentially triggering material. You can find details of potential triggers at the end of this review.
Ever get to the end of a book and think… the hell did I just read?
That was me at the end of Brother. And not in a bad “the hell did I just read?” way, but more in a way that’s got me questioning whether this particular style of horror novel is for me.
Brother is an excellently written book, and <
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Brother is an excellent piece of psychological horror, and if you’re a fan of the genre, you will love this book. Me? I found myself getting panicky at one point while reading. Not sure it’s the book for me, but it’s well-written and disturbing as hell.
Potential triggers: Extreme violence, child abuse, sexual violence, incest, sexual assault… This isn’t a pleasant book, and if you’re a very sensitive reader, you’ll want to skip it. « Hide Spoiler
Book Review: The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Horror
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Gallery Books (February 7, 2017)
Length: 384 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Don’t you just love it whenever a horror novel lives up to its promise? No joke, I actually had to stop reading this book at night because it was getting too disturbing and creepy for me, and you know I’m not one to scare easily. If this is what I’ve been missing out on for so many years, I wish to hell I’d started reading Ania Ahlborn much sooner.
In the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon lives a ten-year-old boy named Stevie Clark. Ostracized by the other kids at school because of his speech impediment and the missing fingers on one of his hands, Stevie has no friends except for his neighbor and cousin Jude Brighton. Whether it’s watching true crime shows on TV or building a secret fort out in the woods, the two of them do everything together and have been inseparable for years.
Then one day, Jude goes missing. The entire town mobilizes to try to find the boy, but after his bloody sweatshirt is found, the whole mood of Deer Valley seems to shift. To Stevie’s frustration, no one seems to think they’ll find his cousin alive anymore. After all, the search has already been going on for three days with no luck, and the locals all know the story about Max Larsen, another boy who met a gruesome end in these woods years ago, after disappearing under similar circumstances. That story doesn’t get talked about much though, not unlike the reports going back for years about the dogs and cats that go missing from their owners’ yards. There’s a good reason why there are no veterinarians in Deer Valley.
Last year I read and was a little disappointed by the book Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay, another horror novel with “a boy goes missing in the woods” main plot. Somehow I can’t help but think The Devil Crept In is what that story should have been. Ahlborn’s take on the premise is the real deal, the way a true horror of psychological thrills and supernatural suspense should have played out. It is a creepy tale worthy of the campfire, containing all the right ingredients: a small town with a big secret, a terrifying local legend that holds more truth than meets the eye, and a young innocent boy that no one takes seriously because of his disability.
Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing from the start; like any good scary story, this one required a bit of setup. I would describe The Devil Crept In as a novel of three parts. Ahlborn uses the first to establish our main character, a boy who lives a troubled life. Stevie’s father walked out on his family when he was younger, and his mom remarried an abusive man who beats him while she looks the other way. Stevie also often feels frustration at his own speech disorder, unable to get his thoughts across without losing control of his words. He is the target of the worst bullying because of it, not only by the other kids but by his own older brother and some adults as well. So you can imagine how horrible it is for a someone like Stevie to lose his only friend, which means too that the entire first part of this book is taken up by his obsession with finding Jude, with the dogged determination you would expect from a ten-year-old. In my opinion, the introduction was a little too drawn out, with Stevie’s chapters becoming repetitive after a while.
Fortunately, that was probably the only point where I felt this book faltered. Ahlborn follows up with a second part that brings about the full-on creeps. The transition was a little jarring at first, as the narrative veers off into a completely different direction, starting over with a seemingly unrelated tale about a woman named Rosie. I’m not going to talk too much about her, as that would spoil the story; all I’ll say is that I quickly became <
The results are eerily satisfying and really hit the spot. Note to self: no trips out to the woods anytime soon. For a straight-up entertaining and chill-you-t0-your-bones good read, I really can’t recommend this book enough. Mark my words, The Devil Crept In might be my first novel by Ania Ahlborn, but it certainly won’t be my last.
BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Devil Crept In’ by Ania Ahlborn
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By Matthew Brockmeyer On Nov 25, 2016
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Source: Simon & Schuster UK
Bestselling author Ania Ahlborn’s new novel The Devil Crept In is a fun horror romp, the kind of creepy, blood-soaked tale of terror you’d expect to hear around a campfire, complete with a monkey-demon-baby-vampire creature.
Hot off the heels of her much-acclaimed novel Brother, which was so disturbing and shocking it bordered on transgressive, Ania takes a more innocent and chaste approach with The Devil Crept In.
In the backwoods of rural Oregon, ten-year-old Stevie’s cousin and best friend —Jude—is missing, and the incompetent cops, half suspecting he may be a runaway, can’t do a damn thing to find him. Stevie is determined to find his friend and get to the bottom of this mystery, even if it means sneaking out his bedroom window and risking some harsh punishment from a cruel stepfather.
With the character Stevie, Ahlborn creates a deeply flawed protagonist, both physically and mentally. He is missing the tips of fingers from an incident with a garbage disposal, and has been abandoned by his father. He also suffers a mental handicap that causes him to stutter and rhyme uncontrollably, as well as sometimes hallucinate horrible images.
Ahlborn does a wonderful job getting inside Stevie’s head, spelling out all of his quirks and strange visions, and in doing so gives us a most unreliable narrator, caught in a horrific and surreal world of monsters and possession. Stevie inhabits a dark place that adults could never understand or believe, cementing his estrangement and alienation.
This is a great read for anyone looking to lose themselves in some entertaining and gory horror—say at the beach or on a lonely winter night—but I couldn’t help feel a lack of depth. There were very few characters, and because most of the story is told from the perspective of a child, at times it comes off sounding like something from the young adult genre. Some of the characters felt rather wooden, in particular Stevie’s brother and stepfather. Subjects like sex and complex, adult relationships are never explored or even broached. And the supernatural elements bordered on the corny. But in many ways, this is the charm of the book: a childlike vision told from the warped-fishbowl perspective of a wounded youth.
At times this frightening tale really offered up visceral feelings of paranoia and fear, but nothing compared to the better-buckle-up type of extreme horror that Ania has built a reputation on with grisly books like Brother and The Bird Eater. But the pace is brisk and it’s a hard book to put down, making it, all in all, a real good time.
Book Review: The Neighbors by Ania Ahlborn
Reader Runner WriterUncategorizedania alhborn, best horror authors, book review, Book Reviews, feature, featured, Horror Author, horror book, The NeighborsLeave a comment
Title: The Neighbors
Author: Ania Alhborn
Genre: Horror
Story: Andrew moves in with his long lost childhood friend Mickey after growing up in less than fortunate conditions. While Mickey’s house is an absolute dump, he is happy to be on his own. But he wants more, and envies the glamorous life his neighbors seem to live. The closer he gets, the harder it becomes to pull back, and things start to get weird, fast. Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.
What Worked: As usual, <
What Needed Work: The characters in Ania’s novels are starting to become familiar. Two main male characters, one good, one slightly bad but has redeeming qualities and hope. This is only my third read from her and she has plenty more that I plan on reading, but I’m hoping the others have different profiles (I’ve read The Devil Crept In and Brother). The consistent back and forth of calling Andrew by different names made me delirious and I had to keep thinking too hard about it, which removed me from the story at times…Andy, Andrew, Drew…
Overall: I’m still a loyal Ania fan – but this hasn’t been my favorite of her books. Although I will say my personal preference is more realistic horror, which this accomplishes (I’m don’t get too spooked from Spaghetti Monsters and the like)
Rating: 3.5/5
If you wanna read: Amazon (It’s currently FREE for Amazon Prime members!!)
Follow the author: Blog Facebook Out of all of the best selling authors I follow (Yeah that sounds stalkers haha!) she is seriously the most humble “normal” person you will ever come across.
[Book Review] Ania Ahlborn’s ‘The Shuddering’ Is 30% Awesome
by Ryan Daley
June 4, 2013
In her follow-up to last year’s highly acclaimed Seed, horror author Ania Ahlborn puts on a real monster show with The Shuddering (June 18; 47North), <
The creatures are introduced in a riveting prologue (“nothing but skin and teeth”), but once Ahlborn establishes her white bread characters and winter woods setting, the plot devolves into a slow plod toward a final confrontation. We know the monsters are there, we know our heroes will be forced to fight them, but Ahlborn insists on saving the good stuff until the finale.
Essentially, there are no twists or turns (unless you’re inclined to count unplanned pregnancies and pronouncements of unrequited love), just page after page of tedious, melodramatic bullshit. For the first half of The Shuddering, tension and suspense sit squarely buckled in the backseat. (Ahlborn occasionally breaks from the central perspective to introduce and immediately kill a peripheral character, in a sort of “Cujo effect”. But without any real stakes behind the violence, these seem like awfully half-assed attempts to goose the action.)
But then, <
Rating: 3 out of 5 Skulls
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Review: Seed by Ania Ahlborn
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Seed by Ania Ahlborn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
47North
First read down for #cjsreads2017! This is a reread for me in anticipation for Ania's new book, The Devil Crept In, releasing on 2/7/17. See my review for The Devil Crept In which includes a list and synopses of all her work. I mean, really people - every single one of her books have been brilliant. While I like some more than others, they never fail to entertain. If you're a fan of Insidious, you'll love this story. <3 Jack fled his home as a kid, picked up by a truck driver and never looked back. He built a new life with a wife he loves and two daughters that are his world. After a car crash, where he spotted two glowing eyes that seemed eerily familiar, his youngest daughter, Charlie, begins to act odd... and gets worse with each passing day. His past has caught up to him and is using his daughter to pull him back in the game. You just can't run away from shadows - they're EVERYWHERE. There's something just so damn creepy about evil children. Don't ya think? I'm so glad that I reread this book. It's a reminder of how awesome of a writer I consider Ania. Especially as a debut novel! It pulled me in from the first chapter and kept my attention throughout. I didn't get quite the creep factor as I did from the first read, but that's only because I knew what I was walking into. I'm still looking around my room right now, wondering what could be hiding in any of my shadows. Ok, so maybe I did just creep myself out again! Perfect reread before her new book, The Devil Crept In, comes out. Extremely fitting.. and if you've read both, you know exactly what I'm talking about! Upping my original 4 star rating to 5 full creepy stars.