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A review by shaunahigh
The Curse of the House on Cypress Lane by James Hunt
3.0
Eh….
Not a very catchy title is it? That combined with the disconnect in the first couple chapters of the book made it very difficult to get into a good reading rhythm.
The book starts with a teenage girl being hunted in the woods outside her home in Louisiana. Her entire family is already dead, and she is murdered in her father’s truck while trying to make her escape. Then it jumps to an unemployed guy in Baltimore. It was like getting whiplash.
The unemployed guy’s name is Owen. Eventually, he takes a job in Louisiana and moves his entire family into the house where the previous tenants had all been killed. At this point the storyline made sense, but I still wasn’t attached to the characters. Disappointingly, that stopped me from feeling their fear when the house oozed to life and Owen’s son Matt was kidnapped by a swamp creature.
All of these events are brought on by a 150 year old voodoo curse. Because a grieving father killed the voodoo queen who couldn’t save his son, and shot her daughter for revenge, the queen sold her soul in order to destroy his bloodline. She became a swamp monster, known as the Bacalou.
The ending was relatively predictable. I did finally feel a connection to Owen’s wife, Claire, which was a nice surprise. All in all, I enjoyed the book and the fact it had a different nemesis than the first two books in the series.
Not a very catchy title is it? That combined with the disconnect in the first couple chapters of the book made it very difficult to get into a good reading rhythm.
The book starts with a teenage girl being hunted in the woods outside her home in Louisiana. Her entire family is already dead, and she is murdered in her father’s truck while trying to make her escape. Then it jumps to an unemployed guy in Baltimore. It was like getting whiplash.
The unemployed guy’s name is Owen. Eventually, he takes a job in Louisiana and moves his entire family into the house where the previous tenants had all been killed. At this point the storyline made sense, but I still wasn’t attached to the characters. Disappointingly, that stopped me from feeling their fear when the house oozed to life and Owen’s son Matt was kidnapped by a swamp creature.
All of these events are brought on by a 150 year old voodoo curse. Because a grieving father killed the voodoo queen who couldn’t save his son, and shot her daughter for revenge, the queen sold her soul in order to destroy his bloodline. She became a swamp monster, known as the Bacalou.
The ending was relatively predictable. I did finally feel a connection to Owen’s wife, Claire, which was a nice surprise. All in all, I enjoyed the book and the fact it had a different nemesis than the first two books in the series.