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November Mourns
by
Two years ago Shad Jenkins went to prison for assaulting his
sister’s attacker. Now he has returned to the southern mountain town of Moon Run Hollow, only to find that Megan is dead. No one knows how she died–or why she was found on Gospel Trail Road, a dirt path leading up to the gorge high above the Chatalaha River, where victims of yellow fever were once brought to die. ...more
sister’s attacker. Now he has returned to the southern mountain town of Moon Run Hollow, only to find that Megan is dead. No one knows how she died–or why she was found on Gospel Trail Road, a dirt path leading up to the gorge high above the Chatalaha River, where victims of yellow fever were once brought to die. ...more
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Mass Market Paperback, 281 pages
Published
May 31st 2005
by Bantam Books
(first published January 1st 2005)
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Nobody in prison ever hated him at first sight the way people at home did.
Shad has just spent two years in jail for assaulting the man who preyed on his sister. Then he receives a phone call from his father. Your sister's been killed. Come home 'fore you get on with your life.
So, he's back where it all began, in the hollow, where superstition and fear are a way of life. Surrounded by old enemies and demons, haunted by blood dreams and ghosts, he is determined to find out how his sister died. His ...more
Shad has just spent two years in jail for assaulting the man who preyed on his sister. Then he receives a phone call from his father. Your sister's been killed. Come home 'fore you get on with your life.
So, he's back where it all began, in the hollow, where superstition and fear are a way of life. Surrounded by old enemies and demons, haunted by blood dreams and ghosts, he is determined to find out how his sister died. His ...more
Interestingly odd tale from Piccirilli centered around a man who returns to his small village town after serving time in prison to find out how his sister died while he was away. The local characters are bizarre, to say the least, and the mystery as it unfolds is sometimes frustrating, sometimes fascinating, with more than a hint of the supernatural or otherworldly at play here. The resolution is a bit murky but certainly fits the story and leaves the reader with something to think about, which
...more
-Historia: 4. Venganza. Pues si te meten en la cárcel y mientras estas interno matan a tu hermana lo normal al salir es que te quieras vengar y sepas quien es. Todo esto ocurre en un pueblo, nada de ciudad, demasiado grande y gente… complicaría la trama. Con este argumento el aclamado director Park Chan-wook podría añadir otra película a su trilogía “La venganza”. Muy bien. El problema viene cuando se facilita la resolución con el típico desenlace paranormal de serie b, todo muy copiado del maes
...more
As always, Tom's writing is top notch. He's an incredible talent with a truly original voice. You could read any paragraph in this book and know immediately that it was a Tom Piccirilli novel. Although November Mourns has a very intriguing dark mystery at it's core, the setup seems a bit tired -- a man returns home to investigate the death of his sister. Been there. Done that. But Tom always makes it interesting and throws a few curve balls in the mix. His imagery is like poetry and I found myse
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Party at my house! You'll find torches, tar, and feathers waiting in the back yard.
Rather than beat around the bush, hemming and hawing, let’s just jump right into these shark-infested waters, shall we? The pace is as slow as molasses and just as interesting to watch. For over one hundred and fifty pages nothing interesting happens. In fact, the speed irritated me so much that I locked it in the closet four separate times, in my attempt to read it. After screaming, “Bad, bad, bad book” more ti ...more
Rather than beat around the bush, hemming and hawing, let’s just jump right into these shark-infested waters, shall we? The pace is as slow as molasses and just as interesting to watch. For over one hundred and fifty pages nothing interesting happens. In fact, the speed irritated me so much that I locked it in the closet four separate times, in my attempt to read it. After screaming, “Bad, bad, bad book” more ti ...more
Like most of the young men in their twenties who are the protagonists of Tom Piccirilli's novels, Shad Jenkins receives visits from the dead. In Shad's case the ghost is the mother he never knew. She died shortly after he was born. But a few days before Shad's release from prison, his father calls to say that Shad's younger stepsister has been found dead on Gospel Trail Road. Her heart stopped. It is as though she simply went to sleep. The local police call it "death by misadventure," but before
...more
Okay. Didn't hold my attention well. Okay storyline of brother released from prison trying to figure out how his sister died. Choppy and just odd. Just wasn't that intersting. I read it though. It needed more something. More creepiness or something. I did like how it didn't end all happy.
...more
Another winner from Tom Piccirilli. If you enjoy his other books, you will love this surreal noir/horror tale. He is truly an original and I'm sad I have read most of his books.
...more
One of the things that I love about Piccirilli's books is the mood that he creates. The atmosphere and pacing comes across so quickly; you are practically breathing it in. All thanks to Piccirilli's poetic words. It's pulp noir poetry.
In this book, he channels that poetry through an ex-con who heads home to the Appalachian mountains. Shad Jenkins is finishing his two-year sentence in prison when he's visited by the ghost of his sister. After the confirming phone call from his father, Shad heads ...more
In this book, he channels that poetry through an ex-con who heads home to the Appalachian mountains. Shad Jenkins is finishing his two-year sentence in prison when he's visited by the ghost of his sister. After the confirming phone call from his father, Shad heads ...more
The second half of this book was better than the first but I still thought, after all that reading, the ending was a let down.
just ok thought it would be better, but it seems the author, got lost writing it and never gained it back, ended dumb, and was not really good towards the end
Entertaining setting and idea but not fully developed with things going off the rails a bit in the second half and an ending that seemed incomplete.
This review originally appeared in the BOULDER WEEKLY
"What do you do when everyone around you is going a little mad, and there's nothing you can do to stop it? How resolved would you be in the nature of your own beliefs if you awoke one day and realized everything you knew up to that point might be wrong?"
So asks Tom Piccirilli, a Bram Stoker Award winner and Loveland-based author of dark fantasy fiction. He's referring to Shad Jenkins, the protagonist of his new book, November Mourns. Jenkins ...more
"What do you do when everyone around you is going a little mad, and there's nothing you can do to stop it? How resolved would you be in the nature of your own beliefs if you awoke one day and realized everything you knew up to that point might be wrong?"
So asks Tom Piccirilli, a Bram Stoker Award winner and Loveland-based author of dark fantasy fiction. He's referring to Shad Jenkins, the protagonist of his new book, November Mourns. Jenkins ...more
Two years ago Shad Jenkins went to prison for assaulting his
sister’s attacker. Now he has returned to the southern mountain town of Moon Run Hollow, only to find that Megan is dead. No one knows how she died–or why she was found on Gospel Trail Road, a dirt path leading up to the gorge high above the Chatalaha River, where victims of yellow fever were once brought to die.
Navigating a world filled with abnormal children and clandestine snake handlers, one that is slowly being poisoned by
This was an interesting read. What Piccirilli does best in November Mourns is pull you into the creepy sinister spiritually dark energy of the hollow to journey alongside the folk who live there and as are as much a part of the land as the slash pines:) The characters are appropriately twisted emotionally and physically, and yet do we call a tree twisted when it bends and grows arounds rocks and breaks and other traumas that alter it's unfoldment? After all, what is normal? I love when a book lo
...more
This is the first Tom Piccirilli I've read. The more knowledgeable Goodreads reviewers haven't been as enthusiastic about November Mourns; I bow to their superior wisdom, but...
Reading is an intensely personal thing and somehow for me this was just the right book at just the right time. Good prose, good characterization where needed, good atmosphere, good story, and a wonderful ambiguity to it all.
What does it all mean? I ask myself that every night between drinks. I'm not likely to find out; ju ...more
Reading is an intensely personal thing and somehow for me this was just the right book at just the right time. Good prose, good characterization where needed, good atmosphere, good story, and a wonderful ambiguity to it all.
What does it all mean? I ask myself that every night between drinks. I'm not likely to find out; ju ...more
Interesting and successful blend of the hard-boiled and horror genres. For popular fiction, there's surprisingly little padding or pandering to the audience: the character of Elfie perhaps isn't necessary except to supply some (redundant) sex, but otherwise the author sticks to developing ideas and atmosphere. The ending is particularly clever, furnishing a villain for the more literal-minded, while leaving things wide-open for those who prefer a more elusive and fantastic resolution. Well above
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My first Piccirilli book and unfortunately I wasn't that impressed. The story is about a guy named Shad who gets out of jail and heads back home to find out how his sister died. At the beginning I was really interested. The town sounded creepy. The mysteries behind the town even creepier. But as the story continued it seemed to just go around in circles. Finally towards the end it started to get really interesting again only to have a disappointing ending. I have read on other reviews that this
...more
This book contains passages of intensely beautiful and poetic writing. Piccirilli is definitely talented, but overall, the narrative didn't quite hold up to the high standard of the descriptive and insightful prose. Still highly recommended for those who love supernatural thrillers, but want them written well. This was my first book by Piccirilli, and I look forward to reading more of his work.
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Tons of country crime noir elements, woo-woo and Southern Gothic sensibility make me love this book. The prose is beautiful and the characters run the scale from heroic to gross. What's not to love? I definitely preferred this book to A Choir of Ill Children.....but it could have been written about a town just down the road.
...more
A mediocre read from an incredible author. Piccirilli's prose is polished and attractive, much like the workings of a Flannery O'Connor; however, his storyline gets lost behind all of the depressive description and flair. The storyline was top notch, but too many dull and bland areas of tedium all too often forgot to progress the storyline at a pace in which I enjoy.
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Jun 27, 2016
Horace Derwent
marked it as to-read
i need to find this book first, i mean, to fish it out from in my cases or on my shelves...
i wanted to read it 3 years ago, and i bought it from amazon.cn, and i bought other books then as well, and and and and i forgot where i put it at...
is this a curse for me?
i wanted to read it 3 years ago, and i bought it from amazon.cn, and i bought other books then as well, and and and and i forgot where i put it at...
is this a curse for me?
I picked this one up at a yard sale thinking it looked interesting and read it pretty quickly, but I wasn't really that impressed by it. It's not of those books that stuck with me and I can't really say I remember it that well.
...more
I just read this book a little here and there, so it may not have had the impact it should have. All I know is after all the great build-up, I expected more from the outcome. Ever finish a book and think you liked the characters at first, but by the end you didn't care about any of them?
...more
bit too southern gothic for me.
I was looking for primarily a mystery with a bit of the supernatural thrown in,
like baskervilles, this was more
American Horror story.
Well conceived, but not what I was looking for
I was looking for primarily a mystery with a bit of the supernatural thrown in,
like baskervilles, this was more
American Horror story.
Well conceived, but not what I was looking for
I really enjoyed this trip to back to Appalachia. The mood and sense of premonition are palpable here and I love that the mystery is never fully revealed.
Psychological Suspense: Not believable..too bizaare. Had to push through it.
Really, really good backwoods hillbilly story from the dependable wordsmith Tom Piccirilli.
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Thomas Piccirilli (May 27, 1965 – July 11, 2015) was an American novelist and short story writer.
Piccirilli sold over 150 stories in the mystery, thriller, horror, erotica, and science fiction fields. He was a two-time winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for "Best Paperback Original" (2008, 2010). He was a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He was also a finalist for the 20 ...more
Piccirilli sold over 150 stories in the mystery, thriller, horror, erotica, and science fiction fields. He was a two-time winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for "Best Paperback Original" (2008, 2010). He was a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He was also a finalist for the 20 ...more
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