I created the Friday Book Share Game to help search for that ideal novel/author.
Anyone can have a go – all you need to do is answer the following questions based on a book you enjoyed reading (old or new) and use the hashtag #FridayBookShare – Simples!
First line of the book.
Recruit fans by adding the book blurb.
Introduce the main character using only three words.
Delightful design (add the cover image of the book).
Audience appeal (who would enjoy reading this book?)
Your favourite line/scene.
Here’s mine:
It was only right that I should share one of my absolute favourite horror books as Halloween is a few days away. There can’t be many people who haven’t read Pet Sematary by Stephen King, but just in case you haven’t…
First line/s – Louis Creed, who had lost his father at three and who had never known a grandfather, never expected to find a father as he entered his middle age, but that was exactly what happened…although he called this man a friend, as a grown man must do when he finds the man who should have been his father relatively late in life. He met this man on the evening he and his wife and his two children moved into the big white frame house in Ludlow. Winston Churchill moved in with them. Church was his daughter Eileen’s cat.
Recruit fans by adding the book blurb –
The house looked right, felt right to Dr Louis Creed.
Rambling, old, unsmart and comfortable. A place where the family could settle; the children grow and play and explore. The rolling hills and meadows of Maine seemed a world away from the fume-choked dangers of Chicago.
Only the occasional big truck out on the two-lane highway, grinding up through the gears, hammering down the long gradients, growled out an intrusive threat.
But behind the house and far away from the road: that was safe. Just a carefully cleared path up into the woods where generations of local children have processed with the solemn innocence of the young, taking with them their dear departed pets for burial.
A sad place maybe, but safe. Surely a safe place. Not a place to seep into your dreams, to wake you, sweating with fear and foreboding.
Introduce the main character – Louis is methodical, a sceptic, and a passionate father.
Delightful Design –
I must quickly mention the cover art. The image on the left is the current cover on Amazon but, for me, it’s not remotely terrifying! I have a beautiful black cat called Luna so this cover just makes me go ‘ah, cute!’. The cover on the right is my original paperback copy (1985) and still scares the bejeezus out of me!
Audience appeal – Perfect choice for fans of horror.
Your favourite line/scene – Too many to choose from!
A bloated, misshapen shadow rose on the tiled bathroom wall, like the head of a small dragon or of some monstrous snake; something touched is bare shoulder lightly and skidded. Louis jerked upward galvanically, splashing water out of the tub and soaking the bathmat. He turned, cringing back at the same time, and stared into the muddy yellow-green eyes of his daughter’s cat, who was perched on the lowered seat of the toilet.
Church was swaying slowly back and forth as if drunk. Louis watched it, his body crawling with revulsion, a scream barely held back in his mouth by his clamped teeth. Church had never looked like this – had never swayed, like a snake trying to hypnotise its prey – not before he was fixed, and not afterward.
Shelley Wilson Author 
I love Stephen King and I adore this book. The film is awful though! I think I’ve read just about everything he’s written, some of them a few times over. Might have to treat myself to a re-read in honour of Halloween!
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I haven’t seen the film, Alison. It’s one of those ‘no way is it going to compare to the book so I won’t do it’ moments ha ha.
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OK, I got a few ideas for this Friday Book Share, where do I write it – on my own blog?
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Yes, Julia, you copy and paste the relevant bits. I did one a while back, here:
http://terrytyler59.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/its-fridayreads-so-its-also.html
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Yay! Yes, if you throw together a blog post on your own blog and follow the format then you can just add in a new book and update whenever you get a chance. Don’t forget to add the hashtag to your title and then everyone else can share it too. 🙂
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This is a brilliant idea! I definitely think I’m going to try this on my blog at some point!
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I watched the movie… I am sure that the book is so much better!.
The first lines are just so well written… I like how the time sequence is written, adding flashbacks and relatively abrupt leaps toward the farther future. I am sure he wrote and rewrote that first paragraph many times until reaching the final version! 🙂
Well timed post for Halloween, Shelley… 😉 Thanks for sharing! Best wishes.
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What a great post for Halloween, Shelley. I’ve read a lot of King, but this is one I never got around to reading. Maybe because I’m such a cat person. I did see the movie (not very good), but books always have the power to terrify me more than what I see on screen.
Wonderful Friday book share!
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Oh yes, I totally agree with that. Our own imagination and interpretation of a book is far scarier than anything a film director can produce!!
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Absolutely! And so true when you’re a writer. Imagination is a dangerous creature 😉
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One of the scariest books I ever read in my life. I can’t even THINK about it without shuddering! Great goobley-oobley! Just reading the excerpt is enough to give me bad dreams. 😯
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Ha ha, same here! I do love a good horror book. The other one that scares the pants off me is Rats! I still think about it when I’m on a train in a tunnel! 😱
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Love theses posts SO much. I’m with u tho, the new cover is not scary at all, I actually raised an eyebrow because it’s so UN scary!
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I KNOW!!!! Where are the fangs for a start? x
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Exactly! Not King’s usual standard my any means
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An excellent choice! I remember reading this for the first time in college. (I also have a black cat – love your cat’s name!)
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