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Fourteen-year-old Sarah Crane lived a simple, quiet life on a farm with her parents in Vermont, until things took a cruel turn when her mother died suddenly and her father fell into a bottle of alcohol. Sarah took it upon herself to take care of her father and the farm. But things become much worse when Sarah's father is sentenced to jail for killing a man in a barroom fight and she is sent to a foster home. Life in the foster home is terrible. The loveless family only took her in for the extra money they would receive and Sarah is treated as their cook and house keeper. The only joy Sarah find is in her art class. She is very talented and becomes attached to her art teacher, Bettina Phillips, a town outcast. She lives in her family's old home which used to be an asylum for mental patients. Because of this the town thinks she's a witch and wants nothing to do with her. Sarah's classmates don't like her but she soon found a friend in Nick Dunnigan, a former mental patient who hears voices. Suddenly Sarah starts drawing pictures of a house that she's never seen. She shortly discovers that her pictures were of the home of Bettina Phillips, her art teacher. But the home that Sarah is drawing is not the old, run-down house that Bettina's present home but instead the asylum it once had been when new. The more pictures Sarah draws, the more violent and gruesome they become. The pictures invade Nick's dreams and give him very graphic nightmares. The voices in his head change as well and start demanding that he and Sarah help them. Nick and Sarah know that Bettina's house hold the key to Sarah's violent pictures and Nick's voices so, going against the wishes of Sarah's loveless foster parents and Nick's violent father, they team up with Bettina to find out what happened in the house and why it was haunting the two youngsters. HOUSE OF RECKONING is author John Saul's thirty-sixth book. It's a very fast read and does keep you turning the pages. Most of the book leads up to the terrifying end that is about as scary as anything that I've ever read. The fear is more psychological than anything else. Yes, a lot of the book is pretty predictable which is why it's so easy to read, but the conclusion is not predictable at all and I was happy that it did not end the way I thought it would. HOUSE OF RECKONING is typical of Saul's work so if you're a fan of his, the novel will not disappoint. And if you've never read any of Saul's books but like a good horror story you'll enjoy this one as well.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, November 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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