Book Review-Older Books 34

Review—Chill of Fear by Kay Hooper

Chill of Fear, was written by Kay Hooper and was published in July of 2005 by Bantam books; it has 336 pages.

In a small town in the Tennessee Mountains, there is a resort that has been around for over 100 years.  It is known as The Lodge.  The children who have resided or visited there have an unusually frequent tendency of ending up being murdered or disappearing.  The force of evil felt at this resort by the very sensitive is now being investigated by the Special Crimes Unit (SCU) of the FBI.

          Quentin Hayes is very sensitive and he was a visitor to the Lodge over 25 years ago.  He lost a friend there, an eight year-old friend named Melissa.  He has returned at regular intervals to go over this incident and other records and reported crimes, but has often been thwarted by a community that keeps its problems and secrets to its self.  He has been known to just know when things are going to happen and some time ago he was recruited by the FBI and is now part of the SCU.  Diana Brisco, a guest of The Lodge, is visiting there for a form of emotional painting therapy.  For most of her life she has been treated by psychiatrists and such and has been heavily medicated for most of that time.  She is now free from the affects of any medications but the nightmares she often had as a child have returned.  She also is very sensitive, so sensitive, that she will soon find out that she can see and hear some of these missing children.  The evil that harmed them now wants her.  Quentin may be her only hope.  When she talks to some of these children she goes into a strange layer of time she calls the “gray time”, this time provides a layer of safety, but with the evil that is lurking in this resort, there is also danger.  She needs an anchor to be sure to return from the gray time, because each time she is staying longer.  The children she meets are her guides but she may find she is more connected to them than she originally thought.

          Kay Hooper has written various other novels often dealing with the paranormal.  Her characters are usually engaging and the dialogue witty. This book is no departure.  Throughout the book you can feel the undercurrent of evil and foreboding danger.  As the past of The Lodge is explored, this book will keep you reading.