Customer Reviews

Firefly Rain (Discoveries)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In Firefly Rain, Richard Dansky brings the reader into a well-woven Southern Gothic (or as the author calls it 'Snowbird Gothic') tale of homecomings, loss, and the need for closure. He creates an unmistakable sense of dread from the opening scene, one that fuels the need to keep reading and uncover the full scope of the story.

Dansky's rural North Carolina farming community is believable as well, almost a character unto itself. He fills it with the glimpses of back-story and relationship that take the town beyond simple setting and turn it into a real, believable place.

Richard Dansky's first original novel highlights the author's many strengths - crisp, concise storytelling; solid characters and tight, believable dialog. I look forward to seeing more of his talent in the future.

"Firefly" rain isn't so much a ghost story as it is a tale of a very klutzy Charlie Brown-like loser getting haunted occasionally. Seriously, Jacob, our protagonist, returns to his childhood home after failing in a Boston business venture, only to have his furniture destroyed en route while being moved, his car stolen, his cell phone getting destroyed, bugs avoiding him, getting concussed after running out into a nasty rainstorm wearing an old pair of slippers and bathrobe, and the local Carolina populace turning against him.

We see this sad-sack try to re-coup some of his life, while one mini-disaster after another pops up against him. To be honest it almost gets laughable, and at one point when Jacob picks up a shotgun....you seriously begin wondering if this stooge is going to end up shooting off his foot??? When Jacob climbs atop a toilet in hopes of shutting a rain soaked window, you almost begin hoping he'll take a header into the bathtub.

If you are hoping for thrills and chills...."Firefly Rain" is going to disappoint, as it's neither scary or haunting. I will say that Richard Dansky has a nice writing style, and the story flows nicely....unfortunately he just doesn't have much of a story to tell.

"Firefly Rain" is all about the writing; author and video game designer Richard Dansky has a quirky and effective way with words. "Dawn was coming up slow and wary, like it wasn't sure it wanted the job...Out in the fields, the creatures that normally went to bed with the day were uneasy..." He sustains his use of creative language throughout, engaging all the reader's senses.

The story features Jacob Logan, many years away from his North Carolina home, now coming back to recoup for a while after the failure of his Boston business. His parents are both dead and buried on the rural family property. The house is empty...isn't it? Strange events and poltergeist-like effects begin to bind Jacob to his home until it seems doubtful that he will ever get away again. The town's strange characters are beautifully drawn, and the house and dusty town take shape in your mind's eye. Dansky kept me reading with his spell of words.

Why, then, three stars? "Firefly Rain" aims at the "horror lite" genre, and unfortunately it just misses the mark. I didn't find a single aha! moment in the story. There are all the classic themes of gothic horror--a remote haunted house, ghostly intervention, a main character down on his luck and not in charge of his fate, the need for expiation to end a curse. We have a "hound from hell," ferocious weather, graves, a journal from the past, and (reminiscent of "Children of the Corn") a no-fly zone for fireflies. Is it just too much, maybe? Would the book be more successful if the author had focused his plot on a few elements and developed each more fully?

So the plot didn't work for me; but when a debut novel features excellent writing and thoughtful character creation, I'll surely be watching for the author's next offering and giving his work another try.

Linda Bulger, 2010

Jacob Logan is drawing a deep mental breath and trying to use a change of pace to gather his thoughts and restore some peace, calm and order to his life. Five years after his mother died and with a business venture in Boston having just failed, Logan returns to small town Mayfield, North Carolina to take up residence in his childhood home. But a series of inexplicable events overtake him and it's clear that nobody is happy about Logan's return to a town and a lifestyle that he had summarily abandoned many years earlier. Ultimately Logan comes to the conclusion that his departed parents have not fully departed and, from within the house, are trying to communicate with him. He just isn't understanding the message but he knows that he'd better figure it out before someone is hurt!

Haunted houses and paranormal communication with the dearly (or even not so dearly) departed are old hat for horror novels. So when an author goes down the road of choosing this particular sub-genre for a horror novel, the writing, the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue and the resulting shiver factor had better be up to the task of building a readable story from such prosaic foundations.

Although I'm not generally an avid reader of this type of novel, I have to admit that FIREFLY RAIN succeeded in making me turn the pages of a brief but quite enjoyable gothic style novel in which the house and nature itself are major players. Author Richard Dansky creates a creepy setting in which the very fireflies in the fields choose to abhor the presence of death. The air in Mayfield is thick with the flickering lights of the summer firefly population but they steadfastly refuse to cross the border onto the Logan property. And, even when Logan experiments by carrying them onto the property in the confines of a jar, the fireflies die! I mean ... really ... how surprising, unique and truly innovative is that?

I'm still not a salivating convert to the horror genre but I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to read another novel by Richard Dansky. I think it's also safe to safe that afficionados of this style of novel would be more than pleased with Dansky's efforts.

Recommended.

Paul Weiss

Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky is tale of supernatural suspense. I was excited by the description on the front of the book that said "reads like Stephen King", but I found the story to be mediocre. The plot revolves around Jacob Logan who is returning to his small hometown of Maryfield, NC after having failed at his business venture in Boston. His plan is to spend a few weeks at the empty family home while he sorts out what to do next. However an odd series of events leaves him without his car, furniture, or many of his other belongings. Carl, the man who has been the caretaker of the Logan house since Jacob's parents passed away, plays an odd role of hostile helper. He brings Jacob food and supplies, but he is about as unfriendly as they come. Jacob also has a hard time getting the police to take the theft of his car seriously. Things just aren't right, and nothing signifies this more than how the fireflies will not come onto the Logan property. When Jacob manages to trap a few and bring them over, they die. As Jacob tries to make sense of things, it becomes clear that there are unseen forces causing things to happen such as moving things where Jacob did put them or the opening and closing of doors when no one else is in the house. It seems that something is tightening its grip on Jacob to keep him there, but the build up and resolution of what this is left me disappointed. At times Jacob spends too long in his own thoughts, and this bogs the story down. I know that this is supposed to add to his psychological torment and the suspense for the reader, but it just didn't harmonize with the rest of the novel very well. I also thought that the resolution to the plot made a big leap toward the end of the novel that didn't fit with what Dansky had built toward. I prefer a story where though not transparent, the resolution rationalizes with the story to that point. This one left me asking, "Really?" The prose itself flows very easily, and Firefly Rain is a quick read. If you are looking for something with supernatural suspense, give John Saul's House of Reckoning (see my review) a try instead. Even as a quick read, Firefly Rain is not worth your time.

Overall: D

Jacob Logan left his Carolina home a long time ago. Now that the fast-paced business world of urban Boston has spit him out, he decides to go home again to think things through. All alone, his parents died years ago, it should be a peaceful time to get back on his feet. But things are never as they seem. Aside from the rude caretaker and readjusting to country life, Jacob notices plenty of other things that go bump in the night ... and during the day, and against his head. What is it that is so disturbing?

Well, you will probably barely care. Honestly at one point I asked myself why I was still reading this book. I was curious about what was happening, but none of the characters made me care about them. Jacob is foul mouthed with a bad attitude and enough head injuries for me to wildly guess that a concussion was his only problem. None of the characters seemed real or believable, but some were creepy. The plot seemed to wade through too much with little suspense. It was not tense or compelling. I found it interesting with a very eerie plot, but it is not the horror/thriller suspense novel I was hoping for. Lackluster at best, I would not recommend.

Reading the comments from Publishers Weekly, "starred review", made me wonder who you pay to get this kind of review.

This book was not horrible, but it got increasingly hard to read. The story is boring, the conflict is weak, and he does not tie it up together well at the end.

The main character, Logan, does not earn my interest or respect. He is a shallow and contrived character, whose dialogue does not come across as anything other than a plot device to keep the page count up and move the story limpingly forward.

The supporting characters are not less insipid...they come across as shallow as sitcom characters. None of them make any sense, really...and they are so poorly written and developed that I had to work to make myself pick up the book and keep reading.

But I did, because I love horror. This was not horror.

I don't get the comments that he is a master of language, either. This felt like it was written by a high school student, filled with four letter words (not curse words) and the main character sounding like a split personality in his interior dialogue. And I do not think that was the author's intent, the book is not that subtle.

Honestly, if you want to read it, wait until it gets to the library or the dollar book store. Do not spend $15.00 for this book!

Hard to get into. Why? No real conflict for a long time. No excitement. I picked this up for a thrill ride, and instead found myself yawning, and not wanting to pick the book up again.

(I find it insulting that Richard Dansky is even compared to King).

This book was hard to get through. I forced myself to continue reading it in the hopes that something exciting would happen. To be honest, it's not until about Chapter 13 that things start really happening. The first 12 chapters seem pointless, uneventful, and boring. I didn't get it at all. This story could have had potential. Some of the characters were built up and described nicely, and I got a good picture of the town and landscape but the lead character was such a dud! I wasn't rooting for him, I actually started to care less about what happened to him as I read! I was also sick of reading about what he was thinking because it seemed stupid and humorous (in a bad way). This book was not scary or suspenseful. It dragged on and on, and I was happy when I finished reading it... because it was over.

This author sadly did not gain a fan.

I think my favorite parts were the descriptions of the small town, Maryfield, and the people in it. Dansky really captures rural North Carolina in flux between encroaching technology and homogenization with its traditional (and quirky) community roots. The narrator is caught somewhere in between, and I found myself more interested in this dilemma and how it related to the main story than the surface story itself--and I say that not to detract from the main plot but to highlight the depth of the writing.

One of the few detractions is a predictability not in Logan's actions or the plot but in some of Logan's internal analysis of his situation.

Overall, I found it clever and a good read. I finished most of it in one sitting because I'd gotten attached to the main character--despite how frustrated I was with him at times.