Book Review: A Child Alone With Strangers by Philip Fracassi - More2Read
 

A Child Alone With Strangers by Philip Fracassi

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About A Child Alone With Strangers

When a young boy is kidnapped and held prisoner in a remote farmhouse surrounded by miles of forest, he finds himself connecting with a strange force living in the woods, and uses that bond to wreak havoc against his captors. Unknown to the boy, however, is that this ancient being has its own reasons for wanting the interlopers gone — there is something hidden beneath the house, tucked away in the dark, damp root cellar… waiting for its return.

 

Praise For A Child Alone With Strangers

“Fracassi’s novel hits me like a cross between McCammon and ’80s King. Might be one of them summer blockbusters readers love.”
—Laird Barron, author of Worse Angels

“A Child Alone with Strangers starts out as a slow burn procedural with supernatural elements and inexorably cranks itself into a pulse-pounding symphony of eldritch horrors and all-too-human violence. Philip Fracassi is the best sort of horror writer–one who is unafraid to hunt for light in even the darkest places.”
—Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters

 

 

Review 

 

Would be a straight kidnapping and ransom job but this is not an ordinary young man taken and they happen to seek cover in no ordinary place, who are the real monsters one would love to find out and as time shifts and with it something worsened in time survival should be the new plan.

The reader will have empathy for the main protagonist Henry in his crucible of living, one of a young boy caught in a series unfortunate events with an extraordinary ability and a wounded heart where his unsettled life and realm is about to be given a whole new dangerous injection with monsters you know and don’t, he will have fear, hunger and anger, terrifying minutes of horrors await the reader in this journey through his kidnapping and maybe the trial of his life down in the woods with something that lurks, insidious and monstrous.

A primordial terror awaits, a ravenous beast.
There will be don’t do it moments.
What kind of charnel house will there be when things go wrong, when Jim the leader of the kidnapping crew loses control?

There will be inner dialogue, new ways of seeing and thinking, an inner ear all seeing, there is a dark ominous Insidious presence of something, a creature waiting to unravel and reveal itself.

If one was to strike some similarities you would have the same lean prose style and horrors like that of Stephen King or Robert McCammon, or like that of watching a M. Night Shyamalan and David Lynch film combined.

This is old school in style, a long tale with a horror and crime amalgamation that will have you captivated till it’s end intertwined with the fate of Henry the reader has invested time in, and his safety would be paramount, and the fates of the bad and evil characters a keen interest.
There is another tale here running through beating at the heart, memorable and heartfelt, amongst the horrors ones of bond and kin and loosing them, father and son, mother and baby.
A great memorable effort for this his first trade published novel with an author moving from short stories to novel form that puts on display the ability for storytelling and teriffication crafting.

 

 

About Philip Fracassi

Philip Fracassi is the author of the award-winning story collection, Behold the Void, which won “Best Collection of the Year” from both This Is Horror and Strange Aeons Magazine.

His new collection, Beneath a Pale Sky, was released by Lethe Press in July 2021, and his debut novel, Boys in the Valley, was published on Halloween 2021, by Earthling Press.

His short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best Horror of the Year, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, Dark Discoveries, Cemetery Dance, and others.

Philip’s books are translated into multiple languages and have been favorably reviewed in The New York Times, LOCUS Magazine, Rue Morgue and many other magazines, blogs and review sites.

The New York Times called his work “terrifically scary.”

As a screenwriter, his feature films have been distributed by Disney Entertainment and Lifetime Television, with several projects in various stages of development.

You can also follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (@philipfracassi).

Philip lives in Los Angeles, California, and is represented by Elizabeth Copps at Copps Literary Services.

 

 

Reviewed by Lou Pendergrast on 07 August 2022