I am a huge fan of Darren Shan's books and this was no exception even if I did feel like it didn't live up to his other work.

It was definitely not what I was expecting from Shan. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I finished in since it was more about the characters and the plot (as it usually is) but with less emphasis on the horror side than usual. It did fit with the story in this case. I thought that the characters in this read just carried me through the whole book.

There was definitely still a whole load of horror and gore involved. I love how Shan never shies away from including the little details that are lacking in most horror reads. The level of hardship in the settings of this book really adds to the story. At times I felt there was no hope for anybody. That everybody was just going to end up dead because of their ignorance and the rest of the several towns involved would suffer for it - it was definitely a page turner.

Like I said before, I thought the characters were really well written. My favourite characters definitely have to be Master Bush and Master Blair. The only reason is because they thoroughly creeped me out to the extreme! Every time they cropped up in the story I would immediately start flicking through pages as fast as I could just to find out what they were going to do. They are the kind of characters that you would avoid to the ends of the earth if they existed in real life...

The big problem I had with this book was its predictability. It's something I cannot stand at all in any way and in any book. I enjoyed the read but throughout the whole thing I was wishing I couldn't just guess what was going to happen. It makes everything seem so anticlimactic in the end. I knew how the book was going to end by the middle of the read, therefore, when it eventually came to it, I was dreading reading the end because I already knew what I was going to read to a big extent.

All in all, I did enjoy the read and do recommend it to fans of this genre and definitely to Darren Shan fans.

My rating: 7/10