It was a legend in Fear County… a hideous, flesh-eating creature – part snake, part earthbound demon – that feasted on the blood of innocent children in the cold black heart of the Tennessee backwoods.But ten-year-old Jeb Sweeny knows the horrible stories are true. His best friend Mandy just up and disappeared. He also knows that no one has ever had the courage to go after the monster and put … monster and put an end to its raging, bestial hunger. Until now.
But Evil is well guarded. And for young Jeb Sweeny, who is about to cross over into the forbidden land of Fear County and the lair of the unknown, passage through the gates of Hell comes with a terrible price. Everlasting…FEAR!
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4.5/5*
FEAR was a crazy mixture of: creature feature/coming of age/evil in a small town horror. It just doesn’t get much more fun than that!
In the backwoods of Tennessee, young Jeb Sweeney is fighting for his family. His farmer father has been turned into a simpleton, thanks to a war injury. His mother is gone and his grandmother is gravely ill. There are bullies around their small town and on top of that, some kind of creature has arrived and it’s killing anything it can get its hands on. What is a young man supposed to do about all this? You’ll have to read FEAR to find out!
I have to admit that this book brought me back to the old days when I first started reading horror. (For me, those old days are in the late 70’s, early 80’s.) Back then, there were a lot of tales like this and they were beefy ones too-500 pages or more. You really would settle in with a book and it would go everywhere with you until you finished it. Coming of age tales were especially popular during that time, but not all of them were great. FEAR was though and I’ll tell you why.
We have a family we can care for, more than one antagonist, a compelling setting, and best of all? A creature that can only be described as….SCARY. Sprinkle in some older women busy working their mojo, a traveling blues-man and an entire county of scary creatures, and you have the recipe for F-U-N!
This tale did start out slowly as we got to know everyone, the town, and the stories surrounding Fear County. Around about the halfway point, things ramped up and then the pace flew through the second half- I had a very hard time putting it down. I suspect that these days, an editor would have cut down the word count a bit, and even though I enjoyed the slower pace of the beginning, I can’t deny that a few words could have been cut without hurting the book overall. For that I deducted half a star.
FEAR is exactly the type of book that inspired in me a love of horror fiction and dark fiction in general. We have a dirt poor family, a young man to root for, a setting of the small town, and nearby? A place so haunted and scary that no one ever goes there. I mean, really, for a horror fan-what’s not to like? I highly recommend this book, especially to fans of coming of age horror and creature features.
*I purchased my copy with my hard earned cash back in 2014. I’m so glad I finally read this book!*
**Ronald Kelly was kind enough to join the Horror Aficionados Group for a group read of this story. Thank you, Mr. Kelly! I had a great time!**
Wow! This was a cool creature feature book!
A small backstory without giving away spoilers:
Fear county is home to a creature that goes on a feasting fest that sends the citizens of the county running in “fear” for their lives. Ten year old Jeb Sweeney finally realizes that all the rumors and legends of what resides in Fear county is really true as events start happening that make him a believer when animals and people start disappearing.
Jeb decides to take it upon himself to finding out how he can stop the creature which he ends up meeting some friends along the way to help him on his journey which leads him to an old woman who might be able to whip up a potion that takes out the creature.
What is the creature? Where did it come from? Does Jeb have what it takes to stop the creature? No spoilers here as you will just have to read the book!
Thoughts:
The story takes off right away in the first chapter with some creature action and from there is a slow build up of momentum of the story progressing along with introducing the characters that take part in this book.
It is more or less considered a coming of age story for the character Jeb Sweeney with the story going deep into his family life and how he ends up coping with learning what he needs to do to not only take care of his family but all the citizens that need help battling this creature. Five “creature feature” stars!
One thing I’ve come to realize when you take the time and energy to review books regularly, is that some books will come your way in the oddest of circumstances. Take ‘Fear’ from Ronald Kelly. This came onto my radar after a Twitter tither erupted when Mr. Kelly tweeted that from a veteran horror writer it appeared harder to find people to review their work. I personally didn’t understand what the issue was (and I’m not trying to rehash or reopen any arguments) but I took a look at Mr. Kelly’s Goodreads page and was immediately intrigued. I snagged 4 or 5 of his works almost immediately. But as my TBR always leans at angles beyond what even gravity says is possible (in actuality I read on a Kindle!) it took me a bit to get to ‘Fear.’
What I liked: I’d previously read some of Ronald’s short stories in anthologies and loved the way he wrote. His characters and settings live and breathe and bring the reader to that time and place. So, knowing that I was excited to dive into ‘Fear.’
While reading this, I thought of an essay Ronald had posted on Facebook. One of the things mentioned was that he found new books to often push past character development and plot setup in order to dive into the action and get right to the point. I can honestly say my own writing has done just that before, and he makes a valid point. It’s also one of the reasons we see older books typically 2-3x longer than new releases. I’m not going to consider novellas as part of this equation as the very nature of novellas is short and sweet.
Saying all of that was for a point. ‘Fear’ follows our young main character Jeb Sweeny, who lives in Mangum County. This is one county over from Fear County, where the laws of nature and man are different. Initially we get two plot points that start the story off. Jeb’s father Sam is slowwitted. He fought in WWII and suffered a brain injury which has resulted in a form of amnesia where he can’t remember anything. Jeb and Sam live with Jeb’s grandmother, a woman who is doing her best to care for her son and grandson, even as she is slowly felled by Cancer.
All of this comes to a head when a snake-like creature makes its way into the county and begins to slaughter animals and kidnap children.
From here, Kelly takes Jeb, Sam and an African American male named Roscoe into the heart of Fear County to try and fix the three issues in Jeb’s life.
While this book was released in 1994 originally, it is all too topical with the looks at race that are portrayed and Kelly has crafted some fantastic characters. As for the snake creature, these scenes themselves play out as some of the most frightening scenes I’ve ever read. It may be partly my life long obsession with snakes, but man did Kelly deliver when describing the events and the creature itself.
The foray into Fear County was fantastic and seeing the oddities that they encounter was fantastic and was a great look at the underbelly of the South. The language used is not PC in the least which elevated the tension and the truthness of the story. Without the specific uses of certain words, some of the scenes would’ve felt canned and flat.
One thing I will note – Kelly’s crafting of the characters and their back stories really made for some emotional kicks later on when bad things inevitably happened and there was a few times I felt myself getting close to tears.
What I didn’t like: Two minor things. I was a bit annoyed at how long the trip into Fear County took in terms of book real estate. The entire time I was thinking ‘GET BACK FASTER!’ You knew things were happening and that the snake creature was on the prowl. Just get back! Haha! The second thing was the continual gullibility of Jeb. He frequently walked into back situations and while at first it was just a character thing where he’s a young trusting kid, but by the 2nd and 3rd times you really began to want to give him a smack!
Why you should buy this: This novel was pretty close to perfection. We get solid back story, story arcs for each of the three main characters and resolution for all three of the narratives that we get introduced too. Along the way, we meet some great secondary characters and the events that occur all worked to ramp up each and every part of the story.
Ronald Kelly is truly a master at the craft and shows why he’s been in the game for as long as he has. He seems to have found a new gear as of late with his output, which bodes well for long time fans as well as those like myself who’ve just finally made the plunge.
This was my first novel by Ronald Kelly and I liked it. The story was solid and enjoyable with good characters that were very easy to picture and imagine.
The story focuses on Jeb Sweeny, a ten-year-old boy who is forced to take adult actions in order to solve the problems in his life. His father is shell-shocked and doesn’t remember who he is. His grandma is dying of cancer. And Jeb’s crush turn girlfriend has been kidnapped by a snake-dog creature that nearly embodies evil. Jeb starts on a journey to solve his problems by going into the heart of Fear County and facing any demons he finds along the way.
As I mentioned, one of the things that I really like about the story was the great characters. I could very easily picture them in my mind. This was probably helped along because I listened to the audiobook and J. Rodney Turner did a great job of narrating the tale. His voice for each character helped make them clear in my mind. On the other hand, one of the things that got repetitive was the different creatures or weird being that the characters kept running into on their journey. As they were on their quest for the cures to solve Jeb’s problems, they would run into one batch of weirdness after another. It was repetitive but at the same time it wasn’t a big deal. If the journey had been easier or shorter, it would have seemed too easy. From a narrative perspective, it did turn into a “what problem are they going to run into next?” type of thing. Switching back to the positive, the story was set shortly after World War II. I’ve been so used to stories being set in the 80s lately that this was a welcome change. And a very believable one. Kelly made the feel of the 40s in Tennessee come across easily in the story. Or at least what I would believe it would be like living in Tennessee in the 1940s. Big picture, the story is good, enjoyable, and something I would recommend. It might be a tad predictable at times but that doesn’t mean you should avoid it. Because you’ll regret it if you do.