For the children, Haverhill was just their normal, boring hometown: quiet, unassuming, and living in the shadow of other places nearby.
As winter fell, bathing the town in frost and snow, an ominous, primeval shadow rose from the darkest parts of Haverhill.
Watching, lurking, grasping in ravenous fury.
When this nightmarish force takes their friend, dragging him to a cold, watery death, the children suddenly find themselves prey to a malevolent horror that has finally woken after centuries of slumber…
This was my first foray into the mind of Dr. Stuart Knott. Full disclosure, I’ve run across him online through mutual writer friends, and we’ve had some chats, and he’s a great guy.
Ah, but can he write?
I mention this because, the sad truth is, I’ve become acquainted with some authors who, once I picked up their novel, I also very quietly put it right back down again, because I wasn’t a fan.
I’m so glad to say, this novel is nowhere near that category. I truly enjoyed the hell out of this.
So, yeah yeah, Stranger Things/It vibes. Any novel with kids facing off an evil in a small town are going to get those inevitable comparisons (what did we compare things like that to before 1986?), but I honestly think both comparisons do this novel a disservice.
Because HERE THERE BE is its own monster. Knott has taken a disparate group of kids, then worked some magic so we get to know them all—and mourn some—while hinting at something terrible lurking just off in the dark, just out of sight. And he does a good job of keeping you guessing as to exactly what the hell is waiting for you in the dark. I liked that very much with this novel.
I also liked that nothing was rushed, time and care was taken to set the stage before the novel slapped me around with the reveal of the evil. I know some enjoy novels that just put the pedal down and go hell for leather, but I appreciate the slow ratcheting burn of tension, and that’s what’s delivered. But that’s not the end of the surprises, and I’ll say nothing more, other than I probably had as much fun reading it as Knott did writing it.
Just a solid, well-crafted, enjoyable horror novel that, while showing that some of its DNA may have come from a certain doorstop of a novel or a Netflix series, but overall, it veers off and claims its own space in the horror arena.
Well done.
So, as I said, this was my first foray into the mind of Dr. Stuart Knott. It definitely won’t be my last.
