As Tara Stewart drives through the dark, winter night, from Charlotte to Ottawa, she¿s haunted by ghosts from her past. Summoned to her abusive father¿s funeral, she hasn¿t been home, or spoken to her family, in years. The last place she wants to be is in the company of her vindictive twin sister, Evelyn, and her brother-in-law, Peter. The hail begins to fall. Thanks to treacherous road conditions, she barely makes it to her destination. Upon arriving, she falls on the icy driveway, slamming her knee into concrete and compact snow. Evelyn and Peter pull her inside, just as she is losing consciousness. Outside, the hailstorm still rages. Reports on the news suggest it¿s a worldwide phenomenon. Globally, resulting damage and death is reaching catastrophic levels. Now a prisoner in her father¿s old mansion, stuck with her estranged twin and brother-in-law, Tara must try to survive the worst storm in modern history. She soon discovers the storm is not her only enemy. Her family¿and the house itself¿seem intent on her destruction. Can she survive the undying hailstorm, and whispered threats from her ghosts, who swear the end is near?
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
“One of the most promising new voices in horror” –Jeff Strand, author of Pressure
“Keep an eye on Sutherland. This guy has got a great future ahead of him” –Joe McKinney, author of Dead City, Quarantined, and Peacekeepers
“With shades of the 1987 film Dead of Winter, hints of Agatha Christie, and just a drop of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, Sutherland’s Frozen Blood successfully melds elements of the supernatural with the psychological to create an impressive hybrid with a distinctive old school literary vibe.” –Dark Scribe Magazine
“Joel A. Sutherlands’ Frozen Blood is a killer debut novel. The voices in this story will haunt you long after you close the pages of the book. Different, fascinating!” –Heather Graham, New York Times bestselling author of The Death
“Written with great style with emphasis on suspense, Frozen Blood proves that Joel Sutherland is a thoroughbred horror writer whose track record I’ll be putting my money on.” –Tomb of Dark Delights
About the Author
Joel A. Sutherland is a librarian who lives east of Toronto, Ontario. Frozen Blood is his first novel. Visit Sutherland online at www.joelasutherland.com
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More About the Author
Joel A. Sutherland makes his living as a librarian, surrounded by books both at work and at home. His short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, and his first novel, Frozen Blood, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award; an updated version will be released as a mass market paperback by Leisure Books in November 2010. He is also the author of Be a Writing Superstar!, a creative writing book for kids published by Scholastic. He's happiest when he's hanging out with his wife, Colleen, his newborn son, Charles, and their goldendoodle, Murphy. They live in Courtice, Ontario.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great first novel,
By Joe Mckinney "Joe McKinney, horror and myster... (San Antonio, Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Frozen Blood (Paperback)
Tara Stewart is returning home after an absence of many years to attend her father's funeral. But as she returns home she's forced to confront the ghosts of her past, and the ghosts in her head. She is battling with alcoholism and guilt and schizophrenia, and as if that wasn't enough to deal with, it's starting to hail. And as Tara gets closer to her destination, the storm is getting worse.
Written with loving echoes of Stephen King's The Shining and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Sutherland's first novel is a wonderful gothic chiller. Sutherland's most impressive achievement in this book is his characterization. Tara Stewart is the kind of character that sticks with you.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blood-Chill,
By
This review is from: Frozen Blood (Paperback)
Joel Sutherland's debut novel, Frozen Blood, is a raw sort of thing, rather like a knee freshly scraped on a stubborn patch of ice. As debuts go, it's a strong first effort by an author, and is slick, with only a few of the rough patches one would expect.
In Frozen Blood, a sudden hail storm brings the world to a halt even as the lives of a small group of individuals goes spinning horribly out of control. Ghosts, dementia and bad, black feelings abound as the world ends, both for society, and on a more personal level for the characters. There are several elements reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House in the novel. An unreliable point-of-view character beset by phantoms which, while seemingly real, may just be figments of her deteriorating mental state. In a sense, Frozen Blood is a haunted house story within a natural disaster story, blending elements of both to create something unique. Unique and creepy. Sutherland effectively creates and sustains that shuddery mood from the get-go, and only rarely overplays his hand. The tension is layered on in ever-increasing levels, with intermittent explosions of violence that prevent the reader from drawing breath. Combine this with the rapid pace, and the book is the definition of a page-turner. The characters are, for the most part, intriguing. Sutherland imbues them with enough personality to prevent the main characters from being the ciphers or stereotypes. Fully rounded, the two main characters displays the individual thoughts and motivations needed to make them truly three dimensional characters, and seeing them come into conflict is a satisfying, if unpleasant experience. However, as mentioned above, there are some rough patches, mostly having to do with the other characters. While the two main characters are fully-rounded, the side characters could have done with some buffing. One, in particular, gets a lovely chapter chock full of motivation and personality and is then shunted to the side for the remainder of the book. Too, there's a portion of the book that stands out like a sore thumb, where the reader is yanked from the claustrophobic environment Sutherland has worked so hard to build and thrust out into the wider world, where the cataclysm rages. It's a taste of a wider story that should either have been lengthened or left out altogether. While it is interesting-and exceedingly so, especially when one considers the implications of what occurs-it isn't enough to really justify the break in the tension. This aside, Frozen Blood is a pitch-perfect debut horror novel. It hits all the right points and moves so quickly, so smoothly, that the reader can easily ignore when it hits the wrong ones as well. It's entertaining and well-written and the end comes all too quickly. In the end, the reader is left with more questions than answers, and a sensation that they've been silent witness to something horrible. In other words, exactly what a good horror novel should be.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new type of Apocalypse,
By
This review is from: Frozen Blood (Paperback)
Tara, a recovering alcoholic, drives to Canada to help get things in order after her father's death. When she gets to her father's home, in a very well-to-do neighborhood, she must deal with the hatred and animosity of her twin sister and the guilt surrounding the death of her niece. If the funeral arrangements and her sister's hatred were the only things Tara had to face things would be just peachy, but she is also haunted by the image of her dead father, who instructs her and pushes her to do things that she really doesn't care to do. On top of the other catastrophes that are happening in Tara's life at this time, an ice storm traps everyone in the house. It's an ice storm to end all ice storms, and as the end approaches, Tara must face her demons or die trying.
Frozen Blood is a well-written story that keeps building and building up until the climactic end. There are no heroes in this book, and really no villains; just a few people trying to get through an unbearable moment in their lives. The horror of this tale also presents itself on many different levels. There is tension between all of the characters throughout the entire story, horrifying ghosts, ghastly deaths, and apocalypses unlike any others I've ever read about. At the halfway point, the story really begins to build momentum and becomes hard to put down. This story is certainly a keeper and I would recommend it to any library, both public and private. Reviewed by Bret Jordan at MonsterLibrarian(dot)com
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