Customer Reviews

The Skull Ring (Julia Stone)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After surviving a horrible physical and emotional trauma, journalist Julia Stone flees the big city for a new job in the bucolic surroundings of the rural mountain town of Elkwood, North Carolina. There, with the aid of therapist, Dr. Pamela Forrest, Julia literally begins to confront her past demons and the crippling paranoia that plagues her. During these intense therapeutic sessions with Dr. Forrest, dormant memories from Julia's subconscious begin to resurface--memories that hold secrets that not only threaten Julia's sanity, but her very life.

Scott Nicholson is the author of The Red Church, They Hunger, Burial To Follow, and several other wildly captivating novels. A slick, pro-writer with a bent for moody, suspenseful tales set in the Appalachian environs of North America, Nicholson knows how to get under the skin of his characters, and thus, the reader's. In his latest venture into the backwoods, Nicholson has created one hell of a unique heroine in the guise of Julia Stone. While as plucky and resourceful a protagonist as a reader could hope for, she is also terribly burdened and deeply flawed--which makes it all the easier to embrace and root for her.

Whether you're a fan of dark fiction, thrillers, mysteries, the occult, or just damn fine writing, The Skull Ring is a fire and brimstone rush.

Let me first start by saying that I feel really badly giving a poor review to a book that doesn't have many reviews to begin with. I don't take pleasure in hurting an indie author's overall review but I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this book. I'll try to give my reasons without giving away any spoilers though for those who haven't read it yet.

First, and by far my biggest gripe with this book, is the mass amounts of errors. I'm not sure if it's just the Kindle version or if it extends to the print version as well but this was a very frustrating read for me. This book is rife with incorrect words and spelling errors such as "met" instead of "meet" and "her" instead of "here". There are many instances of words that are just missing altogether as well. There really is no excuse for errors such as these that would be so easy to correct with just a couple read throughs by an editor or even some friends and family. The biggest annoyance of errors however was when the main character was having lunch at her neighbor's house for the first time. An entire page was repeated two pages after it had already been written. Not just a couple sentences but the ENTIRE page. Not only does something like that completely break you out of the reading experience but it's another example of an error that could've easily been noticed by anyone who bothered to proof read it.

My second problem with this book was the main character herself. If you've ever watched 80's horror movies and screamed for the person to "look out because the killer is behind you" or "don't throw the gun away just because the killer isn't there" then you'll have issue with this book's protagonist. Her actions are so incredibly asinine because in real life nobody would ever react the way she does. I'm going to be very vague here because, as I said, I don't want to spoil the book for anyone. However, in this book she's not like a typical main character who propels the story along. Instead, things seem to just happen to her and she rides the wave. She doesn't even really react to things most of the time. If some of these creepy things actually happened to a person, even if they were mentally unstable, they would at least try to figure out what was going on instead of just shrugging their shoulders and moving past it.

Finally, the overall book is very bland. Things don't happen quickly and when something does finally happen it's usually just glanced upon and then left behind. There are a lot of things that should've been given more significance in this book that weren't, such as the actions of her fiance. The last page of the book is very unsatisfying and leaves things unanswered but not in a good way. I found myself rushing through this book, but not because I enjoyed it, it was because I just wanted to get it over with.

Scott Nicholson changes things up a bit in his latest offering, THE SKULL RING. This novel is a suspense story set in the mountains of North Carolina about a young lady named Julia Stone. Julia is searching for clues to her past, who she is, what happened to her, and what happened to her dad. Julia lives in a near constant state of fear and finds it hard to trust others. The one person she does trust is her doctor, Dr. Forrest. As they delve deeper into Julia's past, the more "skeletons" come out of Julia's closet. The closer she comes to the truth, the less sure Julia is that she can handle it. It may come down to a matter of life or death for her.

Nicholson never relents as he takes the reader into Julia Stone's world. There are the feelings of fear, dread, and anxiety throughout this novel. Nicholson's masterly descriptive writing style creates a chilling tale set in a beautiful locale and pulls you into the story. You don't want to miss this one by Nicholson; he demonstrates his ability to branch out into other genres in a tremendous way with this book.

After I read as far as the scene between Julia and her Lawyer boyfriend in the hotel, I believed I was ready to write a great review. This scene was so well-written and it was quite frightening. But, I was very disappointed in the REST OF the BOOK. It overused the word "CREEPS". I was bored just reading this word. The ending was a mixup of events that did not interest me. Satan worship is just not that exciting as a topic. I hate writing a negative review because someone may really enjoy this book and thus avoid it. But, for me it "lost me" for all of the above and I cannot give it the high rating I had intended. Sorry.

I am not traditionally a suspense/horror reader. The author of this book contacted me to see if I would like to review the book after finding my blog. I am always up for something different so I agreed.

The opening of the book is classic suspense. I was on the edge of my seat. The main character is scared to death of being alone in her home, because of past events and the author did a great job giving what seems to be unrational fears real life and meaning. This is a suspense, through most of the book, you are not sure if the main character is deluded or someone really is out to get her.

At one point, I was reading late at night (while sitting on my bathroom floor between bouts of sickness-stomach virus) and kept wanting to read more, but being a bit too creeped out to keep reading. Eventually I changed books because I wanted to try to get some sleep that night.

If you like suspense, and don't mind discussion of ritual satanic worship (not overly violent or bloody) this was a good book.

I really liked the intense therapy sessions between Julia and her therapist Dr. Forrest. I thought the dialogue was awesome and interesting! However, I was not liking the direction the book was going and I became disgusted and disappointed. I thought this book had great potential but it got stupid, and the overuse of the word "creep" was getting annoying! I quit after reading I think around 20%.

Why I read this: I have seen Scott Nicholson's books around for several years, starting with The Farm and kept meaning to read him, then I got away from the horror or supernatural thriller genre for awhile. Then I saw this one and some of his other books reviewed on a blog and saw they were relatively inexpensive for the Kindle and I had to have it. Since then I was contacted by Scott to participate in his blog tour (see the interview and giveaway post) and he sent me some of his other books as well.

How is the novel driven: This is kind of interesting to think about. I think about suspense or horror type books as being mainly plot or event driven and while there is quite a bit of that in this book, I really think the characters, or really the character of Julia Stone is what the book is all about.

My thoughts: After interviewing Scott I think he refers to his genre as supernatural thriller. I think I agree. I always thought of him as horror but after reading The Skull Ring, I see more of the thriller aspect than the horror aspect.

Sure this is a book I am glad I did not start on Friday night when I was actually home alone. This is one of those read during the day books or read while others are home at night. It's scary in that thriller way - where the bad guys are real and really bad.

The Skull Ring focuses on Julia Stone who has moved to a small town in the mountains of NC to work on healing. When she was 4-years-old her father disappeared and she believes she was part of a Satan-Worshiping ceremony. She is seeing a therapist, working at the local newspaper and trying to make sense of her life and move on so she can marry her fiance back in Memphis. However unlocking Julia's mind is scary and she is never sure what to believe.

I loved this book - Julia's character development pushed this book along at a speedy clip. The other people she meets are put into question at every turn and I had a hard time figuring out who was good and who was bad and what exactly was going on with Julia. And in this type of book that is a great thing. Scott Nicholson writes a tightly plotted book with wonderful plot and character development. It's sufficiently frightening as well. Who is the bad guy, is Satan at work in Julia, is there God to help Julia, is Dr. Forrest helping her or hurting her and is Walter a friend or foe? These are all things that swirl around as Julia learns about herself and her past.

I loved the small mountain town setting. I could picture it so well. And everyone knows I am a sucker for a book set in my home state. It was also the perfect setting for this type of book.

If you like thrillers with a supernatural element then this is definitely the book for you. Well-written, perfectly paced and just an all-around exciting read, The Skull Ring scores high on my must-read scale. And I am really glad I have several more books by Scott on my Kindle ready to read as well.

Just a Note: I had several comments on the interview post say they like suspense, but not the blood and gore of horror. I can't speak for Scott's other books, but there really isn't much blood and gore in this one, it's mainly the suspense-type blood, not the horror type.

When she was four year old, Julia Stone's father disappeared. Now an adult, dark childhood memories continue to haunt her. "...everybody knew that monsters weren't real." Everybody except Julia.

Scott Nicholson's strong and vivid writing draws the reader deep into the story, but it's the writer's deft handling of pace that makes this a winner for me. As the tension ramped up, I often found myself holding my breath. Yet at other times, I couldn't help but smile at the gems of understated humor. The Skull Ring is a chilling, suspense-filled psychological thriller that will stay with me for a long time to come.

Highly recommended. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Truly wanted this book to be a winner but was greatly disappointed. The plot and character development were jerky and chaotic accompanied by an overall lack of cohesion and consistency to the entire work. One of the most blatant examples is the appearance of the former fiancee on the mountain with no clue as to how he got there. My reading experience of this book was one of reading snippets, jotted ideas, all needing further flushing out.

I did like the book and it was worth the read, but I figured it out fairly quickly. I do like the writing and I'm hoping maybe some of his other books will be a bit better at stumping me!