Epeolatry Book Review: The Night Visitor by Alyson Faye

Let’s admit it; we are heavily influenced by the weather, especially us British folk. We can’t pass a conversation by without a moan or remark about how cold or warm it is. Throw global warming into the mix and we are then horrified by such extreme weather. The summer of 1976 is a prime example of when a heatwave and a drought lasted eight weeks. Though it was long before I was born, I can imagine such a summer shocking Britain, and for Alyson Faye, it is the perfect date to set The Night Visitor.  

The Night Visitor is Faye’s first horror novella (possibly a novelette) by Demain Publishing, who has published her work many times before. The Night Visitor is about something stirring in the woods outside the town of Brintwood, where friends, Amy and Robin, play together despite their families’ differences. As the summer of 1976 boils everyone alive, something ancient awakens, hungry for blood, and the lives of Amy and Robin are changed forever. 

First I have to shine the spotlight on The Night Visitor book cover designed by Adrian Baldwin. I’ve seen books published by Demain Publishing before, but none with a cover that has such an awe-inspiring, detailed repulsion. The cover artist Roberto Segate had me hooked with such ghastly imagery, and once I dove inside, I could tell that Segate had succeeded in bringing Faye’s monster to life. Then, as a cherry on top of such a perfect book cover, there is an amazing quote from the writer Stephanie Ellis “…Alyson Faye knows how to bring the chills to a summer’s day.” – I agree wholeheartedly.

Faye’s chilling tale knows how to bring the dread at the beginning with small horrific events like missing pets and people closing their curtains, and then Faye escalates the plot to a heart-pounding fear with attacks and sudden mysterious deaths. With an intriguing monstrous villain and a crazy climate, Faye brings the supernatural with ease into an ordinary setting. She alters history as we know it and adds her own horror spin. 

The Night Visitor reads like a black-and-white film, a classic horror monster, especially as Faye switches perspectives between the protagonist Amy and the nameless antagonist as it grows its army and power over Brintwood. The antagonist has an interesting past to its creation, which Amy discovers along her journey to defeating it, and it reminds me of the Frankenstein Monster. Born with no say in the matter and then abandoned. Yet do not confuse the two monsters, because the antagonist is a hungry, vampiric being, lacking emotions, and has no intention of stopping.    

Don’t underestimate The Night Visitor. I can’t stress this enough. Yes, it may only be 50 pages, but this creepy tale knows how to play with the reader’s emotions. From heartbreak to spine-chilling fear, The Night Visitor will plague your dreams, tap at your door and beg to be let inside. If you are a fan of vampires, vampire hunters such as Van Helsing, or the classic monster films, then give The Night Visitor a read and devour it with an insatiable thirst.

/5

Available from Amazon.