Seed

by Ania Ahlborn

[cornerfolds]

Around this time last year I was reading The Shuddering by Ania Ahlborn and being completely BLOWN AWAY by it! The obvious next step would be to locate every other book she's ever written, but for some reason I just now got around to reading (listening to) Seed. The premise sounds sufficiently spooky and i needed another read for my Horror Reading Challenge, so I went into Seed prepared to love it! Unfortunately, it wasn't everything I'd hoped for.

Seed is a possession story, plain and simple. It doesn't take very long for the story to pick up and this to be made clear. It still came as a shock though when I discovered that the one being possessed was a six-year-old little girl. (Why is it always the girls, by the way?)


---Characters---
Jack, the dad in the story, has a past that is not made clear for much of the book. He seems like a good father and husband, never doing anything to make the reader seriously question his character. But as he slowly starts unraveling throughout the story and his past starts to come to light, it becomes obvious that he's not the most upstanding of citizens. I actually really liked Jack as a character. Seeing things unfold through his eyes and living with his secrets really made the feelings of dread that much more tangible.

His wife, Aimee, was an okay character, and it was almost painful to see her go through the events of the book completely in the dark. And then there's Charlie...

I'm not sure whether I loved or hated her. She dripped evil, which is impressive from a six-year-old character, and really makes me wonder how her mom was so oblivious. I guess people see what they want to see.


---Setting---
The southern gothic setting was actually kind of perfect for this story! I don't know much about Louisiana, but this book made me want to avoid it a little... The backwoods towns alone are enough to keep me out! But seriously, Ania Ahlborn did a great job of setting a creepy deep south mood for this story.


---Plot---
The demonic possession in this book, while pretty creepy, was not the absolutely terrifying ordeal I had been hoping for. This book was really more of a slow burn horror novel than a collection jump-scares. While it was okay, it just wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. The tension builds very slowly from page one and it all culminates at the very (very) end. And honestly, the ending wasn't as shocking as I thought it might be. It had become pretty obvious what would happen by then time the big finish occurred.


---In Closing---
Overall, I did enjoy Seed. It was a good, slow-burn horror novel and I would recommend it to people who are a fan of horror, or maybe those who want to start with a lighter horror novel before jumping right into Stephen King!