Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: The Rascal
AUTHOR: Eric Arvin
PUBLISHER: Wilde City Press
LENGTH: 220 Pages
BLURB:
Lana is a faded movie star who lives alone in a big house on a hill that overlooks the sea. She has lived this way since the death of her daughter and the disappearance of her husband.
Jeff and Chloe are a couple who live in a cabin below the big house. It was Chloe’s idea to strengthen their marriage; but she sees now that it isn’t working. Jeff has become obsessed with the cabin and the old water well. Chloe only sees strangeness around her.
One night while talking on the computer with Ethan, Jeff’s brother, a feeling of dread comes to the fore. When Ethan sees a figure behind Chloe, he leaves his boyfriend and baby and sets out to save Jeff.
Chloe, Ethan and Lana come together to fight an evil that would destroy Jeff. Will they succeed or will all of them fall to the taste of a young cannibalistic ghost?
REVIEW:
I’ll start by saying I really, really liked this book. It is a classic horror, ghost, possession story, complete with the scary mansion on the hill, but with the added mystery of a small cabin with a well.
Honestly, this book doesn’t really fit our Love Bytes requirements for reviewing, since it has almost no m/m content. A gay brother, with a husband and a kid, but there isn’t anything relevant to the story related to their relationship.
I read it anyway! I love scary stories. I really enjoyed the world building in the book, although I would have liked to know where it was actually supposed to be set. We had a town name, and I’m assuming it was set in the US based on the car models, and the faded movie star, but it could have been anywhere north of the snow-belt.
Jeff and Chloe have purchased the small cottage they found on line, without ever visiting the property. Why would someone do that??? Seriously, with the shadows, creepy noises and other things in this cottage, one visit would have been enough to convince most of us to run the other way!
As soon as they move in, scary things start happening, and a lot of them center around the old stone well on the property. As readers, we already know something is up with the well, just from reading the prologue. I was hooked by the way, as soon as I read that prologue.
What will happen to Jeff and Chloe? How will they get along with the faded star on the hill? And what the heck is up with the strange noises and the bug-eyed ghost they start seeing?
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good ghost story with a little bit of suspense. It isn’t the scariest ghost story I’ve ever read, but I’ll be honest…I put it down last night and turned out the lights so I wouldn’t be dreaming about it all night! LOL
Give it a shot, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!
RATING: 
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