Revenant

This book is about grief and how people deal with it. There was a mother who lives with the illusion that both her children are still alive. A teenaged girl keeps seeing the ghost of her aborted fetus. And, a father who has lost his son. All three converge together in a ghost town called Revenant, which is hungry for human grief.There, they must face their loss and choose to let go of their pain or join the ghostly population. It was a great story, the emotions and the settings so well written that I was totally immersed until I finished the book.

It's unfortunate that this novel is marketed solely to a horror audience, because in addition to being horror, it's also one of the finest modern novels I've read in years. An exploration of grief, hope, and coming to terms with loss couched in the form of a very unusual ghost story, this is one book that ought to be brought back into print immediately and marketed to a much wider audience. I would recommend it highly to anyone who has suffered a major loss, or to anyone just looking for a well-written, moving story with some very creepy moments.

A mother whose children were killed in a car accident. An old woman whose husband lies in the grip of Alzheimer's. A man who longs for the sister he loved as a child. A fifteen-year-old girl who aborted her baby. A little boy whose mother abandoned him as an infant. One by one these and others are led by the ones they grieve for to the hidden town of Revenant. The ghosts are not merely of the dead, but of those who once were or might have been. Revenant feeds on the grief of the living. Some will break free of their emotional chains; others will be consumed. In her third solo novel, Melanie Tem again displays her mastery and understanding of human nature with astounding depth. Though her award-winning first novel, 'Prodigal', remains my favourite, this book is also remarkable in it's way. Truly one of the finest writers of original, modern, *meaningful* horror fiction. Recommended.