The Fear

This was a hair raising haunted house tale.
After a fire, Mia and her younger sister Jaimie move into their deceased Uncle Billy's house along with Mia's young daughter Louisa, and their family dog. Right away the dog starts behaving strangely and Louisa begins to see "The Shadow Man" in her room. At first Mia puts this down to stress from the fire, the move, not seeing her father enough, and grandma having to be put into care due to dementia. Unfortunately for Mia, none of these circumstances are the cause of the evil that is infesting the house. There is something unearthly there, and it knows what you are afraid of and how to use it against you.
4 out of 5 stars from me.

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW OF THE FEAR BY RAE LOUISE

4/5

This review is of an Advance Reader Copy of the The Fear in exchange for an honest review.

The Fear centers around Mia who reluctantly moves her family--her daughter, Louisa, and her younger sister, Jamie--into her late uncle's house following the death of her father and her mother's losing battle with Alzheimer's. Soon after moving into the unassuming residence, preternatural occurrences begin: visions and apparitions quickly escalate into horrific encounters with an insidious entity that tests the familial bonds of Mia's family.

Rae Louise's debut novel, The Fear, is a well-crafted, suspenseful entry into the paranormal horror genre. A worthy supernatural tale filled with mystery, excitement, and scenes that stir unease and dread. I applaud the depth at which the myriad of characters in The Fear are developed; each unique and interesting, adding value to the story rather than being background noise.

Recommended.

An amazing read. I couldn't put this down. A great quality read

Reading The Fear was like huddling under the blanket pretending to watch Insidious with my teenagers. It pulled me in quickly, and it didn't take long before I was actually turning the pages very delicately, just in case a demon was prepared to pounce. Mia and Jamie are both captivating and troubling, each battling their own inner demons while trying to unite to face the danger at hand. Rae Louise perfectly captures the innocence of both child and canine, and paints a most believable portrait of how each might respond to resident evil. Each secondary character is given a true life force that is interwoven spectacularly with each of the three girls. Louise takes the reader on a roller coaster ride of anticipation, dread, and outright horror right up until the last page. Read this one during daylight, or be prepared to watch it unfold in your mind's eye after dark.

The Fear
By Rae Louise


After moving her mother into a care facility,  Mia along with her seventeen year old sister Jamie and her young daughter Louisa inherit a house once occupied by their uncle Billy.

Rumors about Billy's demise run rampant at the neighborhood barbecue pushing Mia to warn the neighbors about  needlessly frightening her daughter and sister
until.....strange things start plaguing the family.

Mia starts having nightmares, and a ghostly shadowman watches Louisa at night. Thinking it was her young daughters imagination, Mia calms Louisa's fears, until the shadowman starts to terrorize the family.

A spine tingling page turner, from beginning to end.
4 stars !

I received this ARC through Netgalley and Black Rose Writing for a honest
Review.

Review forthcoming for Monster Librarian. While it was an intense and fast read, there is some subject matter than is more than likely considered disturbing for sensitive readers. Just a fair warning.

As an avid horror fan, I ate up the pages as quickly as possible, all the while dreading what I would find as each horror grew progressively worse. Pulling from well worn genres such as Amityville and Insidious, The Fear sewed it all together to make it something new and wholly terrifying.

If you're weak of heart, this is one to read in the middle of the day, in a safe place. If you're like me and want that adrenaline rush of terror, I'd recommend reading on a stormy night with all the lights off on a Kindle. What a ride! ~George, 4 Fearful Stars

I finished this book in one sitting, unable to put the book down. A great horror story with many twists and turns that you don't see coming. Well written with well developed characters, this book doesn't disappoint! This is one that will stick with you for a while, and could actually be made into a sequel! I'd be more than happy to read more from this author! Great job!

Loved loved loved this book go ahead give it a try you wont regret it.

The Fear by Rae Louise
Publisher: Black Rose Writing

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Black Rose Writing for this ebook ARC of The Fear by Rae Louise.
Mia lives with her 5 year old daughter, Louisa and her 17 year old sister, Jamie and their dog, Casey.
Mia and Jamie’s mother, Vivian just moved into a care home due to an illness, early onset Alzheimers.
The girls end up inheriting and moving into their Uncle Billy’s house. They begin experiencing paranormal activity. First the dog, starts acting strange. And then Louisa starts talking about the shadow man who keeps coming into her room at night. And then things go from bad to worse and they need to come up with a plan on how to deal with the haunting of the house.
Will they figure out what is going on how to get rid of the evil that is terrorizing their family.

This book made me want to keep reading, it was extremely creepy yet kept me wanting to read more. It is a well written book. I wanted to read this book mainly based on the cover as well as the description.
I give this book 4 stars and I recommend you read it.

"Fear is all in the mind ..." This book. I've been on a thriller/mystery kick lately, so a good horror book was something I needed. Oh man, this was perfect! So creepy. So scary. I loved it. Do you like The Conjuring? Insidious? Well, here is the next book you need to read!

Mia’s nightmares become a reality when she and her troubled sister, Jamie, inherit their uncle’s house after he passes away. They experience phenomena that extends way beyond your typical haunting. Only Mia’s infant daughter is aware of the sinister presence of a man that roams freely about the house, but it’s Jamie who has become the subject of the entity’s torment.

No one’s secrets stay buried for long, and the psychological abuse that the family are forced to endure soon turns physical, with the demon’s attachment to Jamie taking on a violent and sexual nature. When the evil spreads beyond the boundaries of the house and wreaks chaos in the lives of those closest to Mia, she knows that she must uncover the house’s past, along with the identity of its ghostly inhabitant, in order to sever his hold on anyone who enters.

Most possession type stories can either fall flat or be incredibly scary, this one was definitely the latter! Reading this in the house, at night, home alone....not a good idea. Every creak and sound from the dogs freaked me out. It definitely had the feeling of The Conjuring 2, when the little girl in London is possessed by the demon. It preys on the weaker soul of Mia's sister and won't let go. If you're a believer in possession, then this one will send a chill down your spine and have you checking around every corner.

I give this 5/5 creepy stars!

A big thanks to Black Rose Writing for the ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

A scary read indeed. This was a quick read that was entertaining. Recommended.

I absolutely love a good haunted house story and The Fear had it's moments. It was creepy and at times chilling which I enjoyed. At one point, I was too scared to turn off the lights to go to sleep! The attention to detail in the writing allowed one to feel like they were watching a movie. Sadly the story lost momentum for me as it progressed because it vacillated from "couldn't put the book down" to "blah blah blah skim past this part". It kind of felt like the author lost sight of the plot because she was too caught up in physical descriptions. The other problem I had was that the story seemed to go from zero to one hundred on the scare factor. There was no foreplay just the action and that was disappointing. The ending was too predictable and quite a let down. I enjoyed the read and it definitely had its moments but as a whole was just okay.

A decent read that managed to give me the chills. Recommended to all horror lovers for a good up past your bedtime read.

"...odd things, like food turning moldy when it was fine, maggots raiding the cupboards; creatures trying to get in through the windows at night." (Louise).

For fans of Poltergeist, Insidious, and Ouija, this one is for you! The Fear will plunge you in to the lives of a family trying to find a fresh start after a terrible accident. Their fresh start holds more than they bargained for. With an interesting plot, and creep factor, this one will keep you turning the page.

The Plot: After having to move her mother, Vivian, in to a care home, Mia and her 17 year old sister Jamie inherit their Uncle Billy's old house. The sisters, and Mia's 5 year old daughter Louisa move in to the house, hoping for a fresh start after their mother, with early Alzheimer's, accidentally set fire to their home. It doesn't take long for their fresh start to turn in to a fresh nightmare. All three begin to experience odd and frightening occurrences, each different, tailored to their fears. As the nightmares worsen, the psychological effects begin to take their toll. Can Mia uncover the truth of the house's history and save her family before the entity can do more harm?

The Fear was an interesting, quick read with a good amount of creepiness to it. I felt like it read as if I was watching a horror movie. It had a good plot with a fair amount of chill factor to the "paranormal events". The characters were well written and I felt like their fear was well conveyed.

"Are you implying that this...thing...is preying on people's fears?" (Louise).

Mia was a decent "motherly" figure. I felt that she was wise and matured beyond her years, and for good reason. Her reaction to the paranormal occurrences was believable and justifiable. I admired the way she took care of her younger sister and enjoyed the way the book ended with her and the entity.

Jamie was a typical teenager. I assume the drinking age in England is younger than 21 since she was allowed to drink. She had a rough past and her worst fear was definitely used to torment her.

I don't have much else to say without giving away the main details of the book. I would rate it 4 stars and definitely felt a little "creeped out" reading at night time in the dark. It was a good read, and though not as scary as I would have liked it to be, it had a fair amount of horror details that kept my interest.

"Paul was convinced it was down to demonic activity but I insisted that he'd seen too many horror films." (Louise).

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this free review e-copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Fear by Rae Louise is a tale of an extreme haunting.



Complex situations force Mia, her young daughter, and troubled sister to move into a home inherited from a deceased uncle. Once they get settled, strange things begin to happen. The first psychic attack is extreme, horrific. However, they calmly ignore it, which is rather hard to fathom. At first, the book is difficult to get into. Names are confusing and colloquialisms make some of the dialogue hard for non-natives to understand.

However, once one gets past the beginning, the story takes off and will draw most readers into the action. Mia is a character saddled with gargantuan stressors. Her daughter is being visited by a shadow man. Her sister has dropped out of school and is acting out. Her mother has Alzheimer’s. And of course, there are the folks next door and the ex. Somehow this superwoman manages to keep her job and protect all her loved ones.

The demonic haunting becomes increasingly complex and frightening. What makes the plot successful is the fact that the haunting is tied to a deep back story that supports the action and makes the supernatural happenings believable. Mia uses her wit to root out the cause of the haunting and attempt to quash it. Sub-plots confound her at every step.

Will the demonic presence be finally and permanently exorcised? Will all those involved survive? The only way to find out is to read the book.

Fear is a fun ride and a great way to get away from the real world for a few hours.

The Fear is the best title for this book because that is literally all you feel while reading ! The details and images used throughout the book create the perfect picture in your head, so much so any little sound or shadow will scare you ! I enjoyed this entire book and the ending leaves you screaming NO not again and not to her ! This book truly shows you the paranormal and what comes with opening doors to the spirit world, you never know what is going to come through and there is no way to ever rid yourself of it, just have to be strong. Overall amazing book and I'm sure will be staying with me long after!

I was immediately intrigued by The Fear for the summary’s promise of a good ole fashioned haunted house story! If there’s one thing I adore without fail, it’s ghosts, and The Fear was on the right track to deliver just that.

The most important narrative element to establish in the horror genre is the atmosphere. Horror relies heavily on vivid descriptions and, as a genre, depends the most on show, don’t tell. I do feel like The Fear lacks the in-depth atmosphere construction of the books it seems to be trying to emulate, relying instead on horror shortcuts like gore, extreme violence, and ending chapters abruptly by having characters pass out. But overall, the story is still full of tense and striking scenes all its own. The atmosphere of dread is established as quickly as possible with the ever useful trope of an animal sensing something before its owners do. It’s a fairly standard trope that can bring a reader right to how it feels to be in a haunted area. Who doesn’t empathize with dogs, after all? It’s clever when done right, and Louise does it right in The Fear.

I also love how small an area it is where this haunting takes place. Houses don’t get very big in England. The cramped nature of a small village cottage, compared to the huge, hilltop mansions that are usually the centre of hauntings in literature, does wonders in making this story feel very claustrophobic and personal.

The characters within The Fear all feel alive and real, which is also important within the horror genre. Build characters that you can empathize with and the terrifying situations become all the scarier. With Mia (the reluctant matriarch of the family), Jamie (Mia’s attitude-heavy teenage sister), and Louisa (Mia’s five year old daughter), all the tropes for that classic paranormal taste are present! There’s the disbelieving authority figure, the brooding teenager that spurs the activity into a frenzy, and the child that’s most susceptible to the dark energy. The character archetypes are ones that every horror lover has seen before, but the details added to each one make them so much more than the tropes that they were built upon.

The pacing of The Fear is also exactly where it needs to be. It’s not an immediate start, but it’s not quite a slow-burner either. The narrative never runs too slow or too fast, striking the perfect balance of the slow moments of exposition, the tense atmospheric buildup, or the violent and shocking action. There are a few questionable inclusions to the ghost story though. Problems I had while reading The Fear are few overall, but depending on how you like your supernatural horror, the problems that are present could prove to be huge.

The smaller of the problems (and really more a personal gripe) are the few moments of self-aware horror. You know the trope, it’s when a character in a piece of horror media refers to a ghost story or a horror movie and comments how they’d never do that only to immediately do it. It muddles the message and tone if characters know what’s going to happen. The whole point of horror is for characters to do things that the audience themselves never would, but if the characters know they’re not supposed to do it and do it anyways? You can’t sympathize with those characters. Either make a completely meta, self-aware piece of horror like Scream, or don’t, there’s not really a comfortable middle ground to be found between the two options.

The other problem within The Fear, and definitely the larger of the two, is the inclusion of violent sexual assault. This was included because the supernatural force in the story became more powerful as the residents became more scared, so it would purposefully go after their worst fears. Now yes, a lot of women are scared of rape, but could Jamie not have been scared of something else? Sexual assault is a very real thing for women and a legitimate concern, whereas a phobia is something that’s not really that scary that people are scared of. There are a host of phobias Jamie could have sported. Spiders. Clowns. The dark. She’s a fictional character and anything could happen to her, so why make it something that happens all the time in real life? Shock for shock’s sake is the laziest type of horror and rape should never be a plot device.

The Verdict
Check it out. Horror is subjective, meaning that different things will scare different people to varying degrees. While I love ghosts and the stories told about them, there were a few parts of The Fear that held back my own enjoyment of the narrative, namely the sexual assault that’s used to drive the plot into its third act. I think paranormal horror should use mostly atmosphere to strike fear in your heart, and I’m against using rape as a plot device forever and always, no matter your justification. However, if you like a less rigidly Gothic formula to your paranormal stories than I do, The Fear might be what you’re looking for. There is a lot to experience in this story, possibly even your worst fears.

The title sums it up perfectly. It was like being stuck in your worse nightmares. Deliciously devious, disturbing and thrilling.

I have to admit, I'm a horror/thriller junkie. TV, movies, books, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of media within the genre falls flat, or so far below the mark, it's comical. This is not one of those times. This book blew me out of the water. I loved this as much as I love my Stephen King books. I had to read this with all the lights on. I cannot wait to see what else Rae Louise writes. Even if it's a different genre, I would read it, just because of the storytelling style!

Talk about a ghost story! Mia and her family are going through a tough time and so when they move into an old family home they do not think about ghost! Who in their right mind would? Well Mia and her family learn about the shadow man and their stay in the home will not be pleasant.

Mia will stop at nothing to get her family back to normal, because lets face it fighting a ghost is tiring!
When you first start reading you may be like me and wonder why is this character Jamie talking to her mom like that and her mom just laughs. Well Mia is not Jamie's mom but her sister and Mia is taking care of Jamie.
They all start noticing things going on in the house via Louisa Mia's daughter is not herself, the nightmares are starting things just seem off. Mia feels she is going crazy until she finds help to rid the ghost of this house.
I really enjoyed how the ghost fed on the fear of everyone and made their fear come true in their mind, to me that was wickedly cool, but freaky. Everyone has a fear of some sort so to have it come to life in your mind makes it creepy.
For a ghost story it did its job in keeping me engage and wanting to finish the book so I could see what would happen. If you like ghost stories then check this book out.
Characters I felt were well written. The author did a good job with the way Jamie and Mia interacted with being sisters. Mia seems a bit wiser than 26 though she has a lot on her plate that I think made her grow up a bit more.
The interaction between Nathan (Louisa's) father and Mia is very grownup and isn't bitter like which I enjoyed.
Plot wise it was a steady page turner, there were no boring parts in my opinion.

Mia, daughter Louisa, and sister Jamie move into an inherited house in Yorkshire but it's not long before they wish they hadn't! Plenty of creepy things going on to keep any fan of this genre happy. Just little things to begin with before the real nastiness takes over. I loved it from the start, the way Mia struggles to keep her family together, including her mother who has dementia and lives in a home. Living with a stroppy teenager isn't easy at the best of times let alone when there is an unwanted presence in the house too! Very much a page turner which you won't want to put down.

"The Fear" had a bit of a slow start to me but when I got into it I really enjoyed reading the book. It is a typical haunted house/entity type of book so what came through for me was the characters. I liked Mia quite a bit especially her struggle to raise her younger sister and her own daughter as a single mother. The strength of the book (for me) was the writing style and the plot. I found it to be a nice and easy evening read.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for my honest review.

This is my first book by Rae Louise but I have to say it will not be my last. She scared the crap out of me. This only words I can use to describe the story is Creepy and Scary. It started a bit slow but when it kicked in it kicked in hard and fast. If you like haunted houses and ghosts you will love this book.

Mia, her 5 year old daughter and 17 year old sister Jamie are looking for a better life when they inherit their Uncle's house. It's not a mansion or anything but much better then where they were living. That is until the demonic entity that comes with the house rears his ugly head and targets Jamie.

I received this book from the Author or Publisher via Netgalley.com to read and review.

I loved this story, I couldn’t put the book down! Would love to see this as a film or tv show. Was written very well.