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The Chanting
Recovering from the death of her infant daughter and a divorce, Janet has moved to her sister's house in Princeton, New Jersey When she hears a babies crying in the night, she thinks she dreaming. The only nearby child is Gina, a little handicapped girl, Janet keeps on hearing the crying and then she hear ghostly children charting. What are they trying to tell her? Is the yellow house next door haunted? Janet is desperate to know the truth. The future of Gina, the little girl she has come to love, depends on it!
- GenresHorror
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 8, 2013
I'd had somewhat optimistic hopes for this book as far as cheesy horror goes. The premise and the cover promised me a relatively lurid good time, so I figured why not? Let's give it a go. Unfortunately even the weaker promises for this book didn't live up to expectations. I think part of it is because this was the author's first (and I think last) foray into horror. She seems to have mostly written romance novels, which doesn't surprise me: this book focused more on Janet's romantic and personal life than the actual horror content. It's there, but it's not given center stage as much as it should have been.
As far as characters go, nobody was particularly awful in any aspect. I think that's part of what made this somewhat of a chore to read after the initial part of the book. Janet was fine, but overly bland and I couldn't really see where the instant connection between her and Ben was really all that strong. For that matter even the villain (of a sort) never really seemed to be that sinister or creepy. He was just there. Scares are trotted out, but lack any real bite behind them.
Part of the faults for this book could be because it never quite decided whether it wanted to be a horror novel or a romantic supernatural suspense type of read. Somewhere towards the end it just felt like Haaf had a bit of trouble trying to make everything come together, so things felt like they were forced into place rather than falling there naturally. Janet and Ben go from being a couple that's awkward and just starting out to talking about marriage and babies within the span of 30-40 pages. The next door neighbor (Dr. Renner I think) ends up being an evil doctor that tortured and killed babies and children as part of an experiment, which is why there are so many ghost children around. They're the ghosts of his victims and the house healed them.
There was just so much going on here that wasn't really as well developed as I'd have liked it to be. I think I would've liked this more as a teenager or a kid, but now? Now I just have to say that this is something I'd probably pass on tracking down unless you're a fan of the author. It's OK enough but is still a 1 star read for me.
As far as characters go, nobody was particularly awful in any aspect. I think that's part of what made this somewhat of a chore to read after the initial part of the book. Janet was fine, but overly bland and I couldn't really see where the instant connection between her and Ben was really all that strong. For that matter even the villain (of a sort) never really seemed to be that sinister or creepy. He was just there. Scares are trotted out, but lack any real bite behind them.
Part of the faults for this book could be because it never quite decided whether it wanted to be a horror novel or a romantic supernatural suspense type of read. Somewhere towards the end it just felt like Haaf had a bit of trouble trying to make everything come together, so things felt like they were forced into place rather than falling there naturally. Janet and Ben go from being a couple that's awkward and just starting out to talking about marriage and babies within the span of 30-40 pages. The next door neighbor (Dr. Renner I think) ends up being an evil doctor that tortured and killed babies and children as part of an experiment, which is why there are so many ghost children around. They're the ghosts of his victims and the house healed them.
There was just so much going on here that wasn't really as well developed as I'd have liked it to be. I think I would've liked this more as a teenager or a kid, but now? Now I just have to say that this is something I'd probably pass on tracking down unless you're a fan of the author. It's OK enough but is still a 1 star read for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2020
Well written, yet sadly its formulaic Lifetime movie plot leaves the words flat.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews