Guest Reviewer Scott Romanski

Back Cover Summary:

ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? YOU WILL BE...

Welcome to Safe Haven, Wisconsin. Miles form everything, with one road in and out, this peaceful town has never needed a full-time police force. Until now...A helicopter has crashed near Safe Haven and unleashed something horrifying. Now this merciless force is about to do what it does best. Isolate. terrorize. Annihilate. As residents begin dying in a storm of gory violence, Safe Haven's only chance for survival will rest with an aging county sheriff, a firefighter, and a single mom. And each will have this harrowing thought: Maybe death hasn't come to their town by accident....

Review by Scott Romanski:

The summary on the back cover of Afraid is interesting and probably would have made me pick up this book if I had seen it in a bookstore. Unfortunately, the story didn't live up to my original expectations.

At the beginning of the book, the story jumps around between scenes very rapidly. This resulted in me not really getting a feel for the characters or developing any emotional ties to them. In a book that is supposed to make you feel ‘’Afraid’’, I didn’t feel it for these characters at all.

The details of the characters and their surroundings are inconsistent and switch multiple times in the same chapter, and within pages. One example is the name changing of the people introduced at the beginning of the story. Clothing and vehicular details change depending upon what the author wants to try to get you to feel. The editing of the book fails in dealing with this as well as grammatical errors including incorrect words being used for the thoughts conveyed. The relationships between the townspeople in the story are just WAY too convenient for my tastes.

The "merciless force" feels cardboard and doesn't really come across as menacing. All the characters are given too little back-story, as to why they act and feel the way they do. Those acts and feelings are supposed to be what drive them through the story, but aren't even really developed fully.

Would I recommend this book? Probably not. I was able to finish Afraid within one night, but really didn't care if I finished the story or not. I haven't read any of Mr. Kilborn's other stories written under JA Konrath, but I'm hesitant to do so after reading this one.