Review of The Thirteen by Susie Moloney

This time, I want to introduce you a scary and creepy novel that in reality is a great work: The Thirteen. The title, by itself,  tell nothing, but if I add the name of the author, the topic changes immediately, The Thirteen, in fact, is the fourth novel by Susie Moloney, a famous and brightest Canadian writer.  The Thirteen
is included in the category of horror fiction. 

The volume, made of 300 pages, speaks about a quite and calm town called Haven Woods, a sort of little paradise  out of the city. The silent calm of this town is, however, only, ostensible, because in reality, the town hidden a nasty secret: inside a manor, not far away from the town, a husband, several years ago, killed, rather, slaughtered, his wife and son.

Since then, the murky house has inhabited by a strange presence, a demon who is capable to transform the women of Hawen Woods in witches, The transformation doesn’t occur with visible changes in the women look, but only making a pact with the demon and offering him human sacrifices, even sons and husbands.

In return, the women will receive eternal youth, power, beauty, money and anything they want, with an only condition: to keep the desired things, the women must always be thirteen. If one of them decide to break the circle of the thirteen, the hell breaks loose immediately. The book starts with the arrival of Paula Wittmore and her daughter Rowan. Both of them come to visit Audra, Paula’s mother, who for a little time has been suffering from a strange disease.

In reality, Audra attempted more times to break the wicked group of the thirteen friends, but when one of them tries to escape away from the group must endure a sort of curse. The thirteen are leaded by Izzy, the woman who for the first time met the demon and accepted to bring his human sacrifice to get all she wanted. In order to satisfy the demon, Izzy also accepted the death of her son, who was also the father of Rowan, in turn the daughter of Paula Wittmore.

To restore the thirteen, Izzy need right of Paula, who should be forced to sacrifice her daughter. Naturally, Paula will fight up to end to save her Rowan. The thirteen is a book that is very rich of tension and turn of events.

The deep meaning of The Thirteen lies, however, in the real life and lead us to understand a bitter truth, namely that some persons, to escape the pain and distress of life, are available to do anything, even to give their soul to a demon. In this book it is possible to see a dash of Stephen King,
Susie Moloney, in any case, is an able horror writer as he proved through other important works like The Dwelling and A Dry Spell. The thirteen is also a compelling and passionate horror fiction. I would say that for this type of narration it would wonderful if someone made a movie.

Rosalba Mancuso

Rosalba Mancuso is the journalist, born in Sicily, who founded three online magazines in English. On Advicesbooks Book Reviews, Rosalba shows her great passion for books, helping readers and book lovers choose and buy the best books she read and reviewed. She also worked as a contributor for printed publications and online magazines and as a bilingual Italian-English writer. Here, Rosalba also offers room to authors and publishers who want to get their books reviewed through the voice of an avid reader like her. You must also know that this book review magazine lives thanks to your help. Rosalba, in fact, earns a small commission, with no cost for you, when you buy books through the affiliate links you find in her book reviews. This book review magazine is also funded by services of editorial reviews and book press releases.