Customer Reviews

Judas Tree

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This novel is proof that good horror need not feature buckets of gore or spattering body parts. Judas Tree is all about unease and disquiet, the sense we have sometimes in bad dreams that something is very wrong, although we do not know why. I give top marks to Simon Clark for his excellent location (a rocky, inaccessible Greek island speckled with villas and riddled with secrets), edgy, realistic characters and some subtly nightmarish imagery, which still lingers in my imagination. Judas Tree reads very like a ghost story of the old school, and is all the better for that.

Plot: After suffering an injury that affects her memory and causes her to see things, Amelia travels from bleak wintry England to the Greek island where her estranged mother lives with two other women. While there she continues to see strange sights, and as a seasonal storm comes along and cuts the island off from the world, the strange occurances increase and Amelia finds herself wondering if she is really delusional or seeing actual supernatural phenomenon.

Review: Easy to read and with believable characters (although a little too much time is spent pre-island), this is a good read for those who enjoy a dash of the supernatural in their tales. As is often the case, the ending is a bit of a let-down, but it was still an enjoyable read.

I have almost all of Simons' books, and in almost all of them, he mentions The Simpsons.....i think. :)

Anyways, I just finished my 9th Simon Clark book and it's pretty good. It's definitely one of his tamer books. It's actually kind of "girly". Lots of wine drinking and chit-chating and not enough scares. There was no way enough chills in this book...BUT, the story flowed extremely well. I liked his descriptions of the island and the statues the most. Thinking back now, he really described everything amazingly well.

The book was good not great. My least favorite of the 9 is Nailed by the Heart and then this. BUT, I still enjoy and fly through everything he writes. If you're a fan of his writing, it's definitely worth your time.