STEVE CARROLL WRITES

I can clearly   remember when my mom discovered Stephen King. She had always had a passion for   a good scary read, mainly focusing on the horror   books that bubbled to the surface   of the mainstream in the late 60s and early 70s and ended up in our local   library. She read Ira Levin’s  Rosemary’s   Baby , William Peter Blatty’s  The   Exorcist ,  The Tribe (an underrated early breakthrough by Bari Wood), Tom Tryon's The Other plus Harvest Home , and then  Carrie  by Stephen King. It was when   she read King’s  The Shining  that I recall   her proclaiming that nobody had ever scared her like Stephen King could, which   intrigued me. I   was 15-years old in 1977 when  The Shining   was published, which means I was that age when I first   read  ‘Salem’s Lot  and the prime   motivator for that   endeavor was because I found out it dealt with vampires. I   was thoroughly fascinated by the idea of a modern adult book dealing with a   subject matter   that at the time seemed more fit

If ever a novel’s title nailed its content,  The Boy Who Killed Demons  by Dave Zeltserman is that novel as it sums up the plot quite perfectly. This was my introduction   to Zeltserman and I most definitely want to read more from him based on the   contents of this book. This is a fast-paced read, punctuated by   some unexpected   sex and strong violence. I say unexpected because on the surface this could easily be   misunderstood as being an example of Young Adult  horror  fiction with its teen protagonist and his travails with not only demons, but also the threat of bullies and navigating his first serious romantic relationship while attending high school. 15-year old Henry Dudlow divides his life into 2 distinct time periods, BSD (Before Seeing Demons) and ASD (After Seeing Demons). Henry began seeing demons when he was 13, starting with a neighbor down the street, Mr. Hanley. Now he sees them with greater regularity and fears they may be on to him and his unique ability. The entir