Elderwood Manor - Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes

The set-up of ELDERWOOD MANOR, the new novella by Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes, is a classic one in horror fiction: protagonist returns to his creepy, tragedy-haunted childhood home, where things get even creepier and more dangerous.

Fulbright and Hawkes bring this tale to life with some fine writing, a brooding sense of overpowering doom, a nice pace, and the addition of the protagonist's four-year-old son to the mix, a character who rings absolutely true. The setting, the Ozark Mountains in the dead of winter, is a welcome change from some of the more traditional locales for stories like this. I also like the fact that the protagonist doesn't make a lot of dumb decisions just to keep the plot moving along. Some of his choices may be a little questionable, but they're also believable given the circumstances.

I've become a fan of this writing duo over the past few years. Writing both together and alone, they turn out a consistently entertaining mix of horror and adventure fiction, and everything I've read by them has been different from what I've read before. ELDERWOOD MANOR is another fine addition to their body of work.