Drummer Boy - A Paranormal Page Turner

[DebbiM]

I just read a really awesome paranormal thriller called Drummer Boy by Scott Nicholson.

Although it took some time to get the cast of characters straight, once I got into it, I couldn't stop reading. What really grabbed me was not only the rich description of the Appalachian landscape and its people, but the incredible suspense sustained throughout the story.

The book is about a spooky cave in which several Civil War soldiers are buried. The ghosts of these soldiers come back to haunt the nearby town when a developer disturbs the land around the cave and a Civil War reenactment is set to take place near the site.

The story works at so many levels (as a ghost story, a coming-of-age tale, a thriller, social commentary, a parable of good versus evil/tradition versus modernity), it's amazing.

If you're looking for a great paranormal thriller, I highly recommend this book.

Debbi Mack
Identity Crisis
http://www.debbimack.com
http://midlistlife.wordpress.com

[J.T. Cummins]

Debbi,

You are right on about Drummer Boy. Good stuff. I found DB to be a very uniquely American ghost story. Plus there was some interesting character linkage to Nicholson's earlier novel The Red Church. Here's a review of Drummer Boy I posted on Amazon...

At the heart of Scott Nicholson's novella Drummer Boy is a Civil War re-enactment between the living and the dead that speaks soulfully to a particular sort of Americana experience that still resides in the fog shrouded Blue Ridge Mountains. If you've ever traveled through those parts and parked on a lonely roadside shoulder and stepped into those vast, dark woods, you know of what I speak. Silence abounds, and the rich fragrance of earth, new growth, mildew, and decay informs our senses in a way that connects us to the land -- that connects us to our nations past. Hidden in the gorges, caves, and deep hollows of our collective consciousness is the struggle to be American -- and while that history is fraught with glories and victories, much of it is horrific and splashed with our citizen's blood. Where other authors might wax nostalgic and bittersweet about our nation's struggles, Nicholson uses his considerable gifts to wrestle the ghosts of the past into the present, thereby forcing not only his well-drawn characters to contemplate their losses and triumphs in the here and now, but the reader as well. Recommended.

J.T. Cummins
Cobblestones