Monday, October 03, 2016

31 Days of Halloween - Day 3





Snowblind - by Christopher Golden
St. Martin's Press. 2014.

During a terrible winter storm, eighteen citizens of Coventry, Massachusetts meet their end. There are  a number of rational explanations given, but the truth, as one of them knows from witnessing one of the deaths first hand, is that there are terrifying creatures in the snow. Nearly invisible, icy bogeymen which are one with the storm, pulled and propelled through the gusts of snowy wind.

Every Winter since, the citizens of Coventry are made uneasy with every heavy snowfall. Twelve Years after the mysterious deaths, another big winter storm is on its way, and the survivors, those who were most directly touched by the deaths, find themselves in the midst of fresh supernatural manifestations, as they prepare for the return of the murderous ice creatures.


This is the perfect book to read against the backdrop of an actual blizzard, especially if you live in New England. Golden perfectly captures the weight and intensity of being caught in a blizzard and amplifies that with the addition of his wraithlike ice creatures. The book is eerie and tense with dread, but also moving as the varied characters cope with loss and the way their own lives turned out after the deaths from the initial assault. I read the first half of this book in one sitting as a blizzard raged beyond the window behind me, and finished it two days later when we were hit again by an even bigger winter storm.









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