Slain in the Spirit

by Melanie Tem

Leila Blackwell suffers from keratitis, a condition that, coupled with prior eye problems, is slowly robbing her of her sight. Nevertheless, she stubbornly tries to maintain a "normal" lifestyle, often forsaking the companionship of her lover Cathy to act independently, as any fully sighted person might do. It's thus that she finds herself alone in a public rest room when a familiar male voice penetrates the silence, saying, "Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you."

Leila finds herself kidnapped and confined in a basement, slowly and steadily losing her sight, as she is forced to engage in a battle of wills with a man who believes he is acting to save her soul. Through a series of harrowing escapes and confrontations with obstacles both real and self-imposed, Leila must try to survive to reach freedom, and her life, without losing her sanity in the process.

Genres: Horror

317 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Melanie Kubachko was born and raised in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. She received a degree at Allegheny College and went on to earn a master's degree in social work from the University of Denver. Apart from a varied career in social work she has published short fiction in numerous publications, including Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Skin of the Soul, and Final Shadows. Her work has also been included in such anthologies as Women of Darkness and Women of the West.

Married to Steve Rasnic Tem.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woman with failing eyesight gets kidnapped by a religious fanatic who wants to save her sight and her soul. Gripping, chilling and very satisfying read.

[Adrian Gazaway · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reminds me a lot of The Girl Next Door. If The Girl Next Door was boring, poorly written, had a bizarre sequence of events, was slow moving, had worse characters, and was forgotten after five minutes instead of haunting you for years.

[A.R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a religious fanatic kidnaps a ex-member of his church that's now a lesbian, it's a thrill ride with 1,320' to go till the finish line.

[Ashlea Richardson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not very good. Kinda boring

[Rob Worth · Rating 1 out of 5]

A mostly blind woman is kidnapped from a busy movie theater. This is how is starts. Not very believable. She's held captive my an old school mate who has become a religious fanatic. He takes her to church, but escapes from there, without alerting ANYONE that she has been kidnapped. She stumbles upon a camp of blind homeless people, who help her. WHAT? and the ending???? There wasn't one. This was like a horrible fever dream.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pulled me right in. Kinda wanted more from the ending but was a good read.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had just read and enjoyed Tem's novel Wilding so I picked up another.

A nice lesbian with a degenerative eye disease is kidnapped by a man she barely knew in high school. He is a religious nut who plans to keep her prisoner until God heals her eyesight and makes her renounce her lesbianism.

About 200 pages into the book I saw the light. There was no chance that anything in the last 100 pages of this novel could make the characters interesting or take the story in some unexpected or intriguing direction. I quit it.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story telling however the ending was not as satisfying as I'd hoped.