Firefly Rain: A Dull Mundane Haunted House Tale
Fire Fly Rain By Richard Dansky
This book fell into my hands along with a few others for a very simple reason. I had to return a fathers day gift at the local store, and they were having a used books sale which for me is a time sucking and money eating event. But I survived and one of the books I got was a odd ball called Firefly Rain, by Richard Dansky.
The book is marketed as a suspenseful thriller and horror. It’s simply about a man named Jacob Logan who moved away from his farm house on the edge of a small southern town, and family, at the first moment he could go to college in Boston to create his own business. He never went back home to see his home town or his parents. In that time, his parents passed away having the property left to him. A year or so after their deaths, his business falls apart and he finds himself returning to the old home to pull himself together and get back onto his feet again.
But odd things happen in his stay. His U Haul trailer of belongings is destroyed in a wreck. His car is stolen. Things are being moved around in the house when he is the only one there. The locals, especially his caretaker for the house, is acting oddly. And fireflies swarm the town and farmlands everywhere at night except for on his property. As things build, Jacob is suspicious while at the same time wondering if the town has changed or if he has changed since he moved out to Boston for so long.
The good? Well there was nothing outstanding to not here. I thought the firefly mythology was interesting twist. It also is a very straight forward. If you don’t want a overly complicated horror tale, then this might be for you.
The bad? Well to be blunt Jacob is a stupid character. He is really not too bright. Multiple situations that were spooky were relatively harmless until he made a dumb decision about what to do. The damage he receives in the story is very self inflicted. The spooky or paranormal aspect is very minimal. It keeps you wondering if this was really someone messing with him or something from the other side but did so in a drawn out long winded fashion. Much of the book was about him dwelling on his past and where he belongs more than anything else. I know that was the underlying theme, but it drug the book down with it as it drowned out the haunted house story entirely. And the pacing. Not much really happens other than a few tiny scenes and an abundance of monologue. I was shocked that I was forty pages away from the end the other night because I was still waiting for something to happen and I had read 340 pages that far and still had a very mild interest in the book. Then the ending came suddenly and very fast. The truth and climax was over just as I started to enjoy it. It felt very rushed and in the last chapter, the ending was very ambiguous. I was not sure whether Jacob won or lost in the least. Having read that far I was hoping for something more conclusive.
Overall, I’m not saying it’s a bad book. Just very mediocre and very predictable. All those “this book is a instant classic” reviews slapped on the front and back cover of the novel are lies because there’s nothing new here. Nothing scary. And if you seen a haunted house movie or read a book like this before, you read this one. I can’t really recommend this to many people except for someone who might have to take a flight somewhere and nothing else is in reach, or horror fans I guess. I never really understood that book crowd too much. I tend to go against the grain on the majority’s taste.
2 smoothies out of four.
Overall : A Dull Mundane Haunted House Tale
