Freakish Friday

Hello my fellow Book Dragons and welcome to this week’s Freakish Friday. What a Gem we have today! A real topper to head into the weekend, especially if it has been a hard week for you and you need to bury the hatchet. This little Gem sits in a glass box, enclosed, we cannot take it out, it’s rather creepy. A bit of what appears to be black onyx carved into the shape of a fly with crystal wings and iridescent eyes. Just when you think it’s perfectly still and take your eyes away, you notice the wings move. If you hold the glass up to your ear, you can hear a faint buzzing that fills you with an awful sense of foreboding. This, my Freakish Fafnirs, is Gem Maker Michael Clark’s “The Patience of a Dead Man”.

This is the tale of a farmhouse in rural New Hampshire with a personality all it’s own. It is back a country road, with a beautiful barn and carriage house, a pond, a forest within a forest and large trees that very nearly hide the entire property, including the huge turreted house, from the prying eyes of civilization. In the beginning of the book, a couple enjoying their retirement live here, but not for long.

Then a few years later, a recently divorced building contractor named Tim decides to flip the house, but this being the early ’70s, he doesn’t refer to it that way. He’s going to buy an old fixer upper and sell it for a profit and continue to do that until he has the money he needs to financially recover from the blitzkrieg his wife, I’m sorry, his now ex-wife put him through. Things go fairly quiet and smoothly until the renovating gets going..then, someone who liked things as they were, lets it be known that this isn’t Tim’s house. This will never be anyone else’s home if they have a say in it. Tim is about to find out what the phrase “Buyer Beware” means in the New Hampshire countryside.

I loved this book! I loved it! Clark has managed something that hasn’t happened to me in 20 years. He made me sleep with the candles lit until my mate came to bed. I haven’t done that since I read “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. I burned the candles three nights in a row. My mate threatened to send him a bill if I didn’t stop. Fortunately I grabbed hold of my senses and shook them soundly until they came round. I haven’t told them there is a part two and we are reading it in a few weeks.

Clark’s characters are sound, solid and frighteningly real. I found myself rooting for Tim, actually talking out loud to him (haven’t done that since “Hill House” nor Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”) and I stayed up long past my bedtime, getting only three hours sleep on a morning I knew I had to be up early, because honestly, who can sleep at a time like this.. I needed one more chapter..and then another and another. Mr. Clark may well be America’s next Poe! How fortunate for us! As a fellow Book Dragon, I can tell you, the fright is palpable. The atmosphere intense. I felt as though someone were actually staring at me at times and had to get up and walk around a bit to get a breather. This was a phenomenal tale of the supernatural. If you love old ghost stories, if you love being too scared to sleep alone or in the dark, if you love feeling the goose flesh on your arms and the scales lift on the back of your neck… you will absolutely love this book.

It is reasonably price at most book sellers, for example it is currently free on Kindle Unlimited and available for purchase at a most wallet easy price. You will probably want this in print as you will want to read this one over again, well after your heart has settled down from the first go round. I know I will! https://www.amazon.com/Patience-Dead-Man-Michael-Clark-ebook/dp/B07QRVFPN9/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Patience+of+a+Dead+Man&qid=1583555689&sr=8-1

The absolute best news is that part two “Dead Woman Scorned” is currently available as well, so you don’t have to sit around twiddling your thumbs and feeling all nervous and bothered for heaven only knows how long! Truly wonderful, indeed! Thank you, Mr. Clark, for sharing this Freakish Tale with us all. You are truly a gentleman.

Until Sunday, I remain, your humble Book Dragon, Drakon T. Longwitten

I received a copy of this book from the author through Jackie & Angela’s Book Review Group as part of a review tour in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Jackie and Angela and Michael Clark.