Suffer the Children

by Sara Jayne Townsend

Fear has a face... Orphaned at eighteen, Leanne's life is adrift in a sea of grief and drug use. She washes up on the shore of estranged relatives, the Carver family, struggling with loss of their own. The transition from her South London council estate to her new home in the Surrey middle-class suburbs is difficult for Leanne. But beneath the respectable veneer of the quiet neighborhood, something terrifying lurks. Displaced and troubled teenagers are disappearing. Leanne recruits her cousin Simon and his girlfriend Carrie to help get to the bottom of the sinister mystery. Can the three of them stop a creature of unimaginable evil before Leanne becomes a target?

Genres: Horror

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

I am a writer of crime and horror. Someone tends to die a horrible death in everything I write.

I spent the first ten years of my life in the North of England, before emigrating to Canada with my family in 1980. I moved back to the UK in 1988, after finishing high school, and now live in Surrey with my guitarist husband and two cats.

When I'm not writing or working the day job, I like to travel, play video games and table top role playing, and practise my rock chick act with my Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass guitar.

Reviews

[Rick]

Suffer the Children is a good, old-fashioned horror story, with a touch of the paranormal, a little classic mythology, and a healthy dose of suspense, all set down in a contemporary British setting. It’s the kind of book perfect for curling up with on a rainy afternoon and reading from cover to cover. Author Townsend has a facile, easy way with her prose and a keen observer’s eye for people, resulting in unique and breathing characterization. Townsend’s characters are mostly young adults, late teens to early twenties, and she captures them well, in all their late-adolescent angst and bad decision-making.

It is this age group that forms the central conflict and central horror to the novel. The orphaned main character, Leanne, has lost her mother to a drug overdose (one long in coming) and discovered, almost at the same time, that she has an aunt and a ready-made family she never knew existed until her mother died. Leanne’s entry into this middle-class, white bread family, after growing up in what is essentially a London ghetto, makes for the novel’s initial dramatic tension.

But then teenagers begin disappearing. Teenagers like Leanne, fosters, delinquents, and the like, all turn up missing and leave not a trace behind. The Carver family, who have adopted Leanne, lost their own daughter, Emma, and she may have fallen victim to the same plight as the other missing kids, although her disappearance does not fit the pattern. But the author cleverly explains Emma’s disappearance.

The tension really ramps up in the novel when the pattern of disappearances begins to get noticed, not so much by the authorities, but by Leanne and her friends.

Unfortunately, the tension is slow in coming. And I fear many readers may not stick with Suffer the Children long enough to get to the really good parts. A reader is a full quarter of the way into the book until he or she truly begins to see some horror and some nail-biting suspense. If I hadn’t been reading this book to review, I don’t know that I would have stuck it out to get to the latter part of the book, when the tension, dramatic conflict, and terror really accelerate. In short, I think Townsend could have benefitted from a good editor, to help her shape and focus the novel a bit more. A good horror novel needs to grab a reader right from the start and Suffer the Children fails on that count.

But it is worth sticking with. In spite of a rather predictable climax and denouement (I saw the villain coming from a mile away), the book works. The author’s creation of likable characters who grow over the course of the novel, the palpable sense of tension and dread, and the effortless prose all combine to make Suffer the Children a horror experience I can definitely recommend.

[Sally Sutton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot imagine why I up loaded this book as supernatural horror is not my reading genre of choice. It was pretty poorly written, tried to be frightening but truly was not, devotees of this type of subject matter would be equally disappointed. It was easy to skim read and the ‘villain’ instantly identifiable. The only thing to recommend it is the speed in which it could be completed so boosted my ‘reading challenge’ total.

[Sonya Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last few years I've read a lot of urban fantasy but Suffer The Children took me back to the Stephen King books I read growing up. It starts out grim and gets increasingly claustrophobic as the story unfolds, just like a good horror novel should. Troubled young girl Leanne was pretty unlikable at first but it was nice to see her growth over the course of the novel. Her cousin Simon and his girlfriend Carrie, who made an impressive Nancy Drew, were also nicely drawn characters. I was able to spot the bad guy pretty quick but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story. After all, just because you know who the big bad is doesn't mean you know how they'll be defeated.

One thing that especially struck me about this was the age of the victims, mostly 18 to 21. Old enough to be legal adults, which coupled with their fringe status helped ensure no one would look for them, but still young enough to not really be adults in the true sense. It's an incredibly vulnerable time in a person's life. The feeling that you could slip off the edge of the world and no one would even notice is terrifying, and recalling that feeling really upped the tension for me while reading this. Though at times a difficult read - Leanne has had a pretty rough upbringing - I liked the book very much and would recommend it to anyone who likes old-school horror.

[L.M. Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd seen this book around and wanted a great horror so I downloaded it. It started with development of one of the main characters, showing her harsh life, her detachement from others, and a bit of hopelessness. She ends up at her aunts, still with the same issues and that's when the story's mystery sets in. Why did her cousin disappear, then others she knew did too, her cousin and her try to unravel the mystery. This is where it really picks up, dead bodies, missing kids, sneaking around to unravel the mystery. I will forewarn you that there is some sex scenes in there, a positive no drug message underlines some of the characters personal struggles.

[Tony-Paul Vissage · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, I thought Suffer the Children was going to be a very mature Young Adult story, but after the first chapter, my opinion was very quickly changed. Without giving the story again, let me say it’s an intriguing tale, and basing it on a certain supernatural legend gives it that little something extra. From my very distant and mature outlook, I found the younger characters very believable,. Though the setting for the story is the UK, I didn’t find their behavior so different from a US student in the same situation. Suffer the Children is a very enjoyable and suspenseful read.

[Edna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book actually picked up and turned into a pretty good read after the 1/2 way point.

[Kay LaLone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a big fan of supernatural, horror, and mystery books. I loved this story. Great, believable characters. Simon, Carrie, and Leanne set out to solve the mystery of troubled teens who have come up missing. Can they solve this mystery before Leanne becomes the next victim? This story is a real page turner. Suspense. Horror. Mystery. Thanks, Sara, for an awesome read.