Nightwalk 2 [Book Review]

For whatever reason my Blogger app is, once again, not allowing me to post the book cover art. 😔
(I love the cover of this one too - subtle yet horrific!)

Here is my review:

Genre - Horror
Year Published - 2016
Length - 301 pages
Written by D. Nathan Hilliard

Tagline: "Welcome back to Coventry Woods..."

Rating: 5+ Skulls

Plot Summary:
Mark Garrett is about to go home again...

Two years have passed since the disaster at Coventry Woods, and Mark has made a good effort at recovering from the ordeal. He has published a new novel, replaced his lost belongings, and bought a new house in New Mexico. Life is finally moving on. He's hidden the few scars that remain, and with Casey having left for college he looks forward to a comfortable future with his wife.

But the past is not done with Mark Garrett.

The enigmatic man in white has returned and announced the world is doomed. Another survivor of Coventry Woods has sealed its fate. The future's only hope is for Mark to go back to that terrible night, and once again navigate his way through a death infested hell. Only this time he won't be trying to escape. His mission is to intercept and kill a man he's never met.

Now the clock is ticking as Mark races against a nuclear deadline. He must save the future, while at the same time trying to minimize his impact on a past that will not hesitate to eat him alive. And as he soon discovers, any change he makes can cause unexpected complications. . .

. . .especially when he gets stuck with the last travelling companion he would have ever wanted.

Review:
I am not sure how many times I need to say this, but if you are not reading Hilliard's work, that needs to change, immediately! Hilliard consistently puts out nothing but the best! A sequel is not the easiest to accomplish, yet Hilliard makes it seem effortless.

Back in 2015, I rated Nightwalk as my favorite horror novel of the year, and now we have its sequel, which is funny, because if I were to have requested a sequel to any of Hilliard's past work, it probably would have been Spiderstalk. However, I am immensely grateful that Hilliard chose this story, as I am not sure that we have yet seen the last of the mysterious "man-in-white".

Speaking of the man in white, Hilliard has flawlessly created a reason/need for this sequel. While the above plot summary is crystal clear, I will say that Garrett is given a mission that is crucial to the survival of our planet. Garrett is given a choice - stay in the present and live his life, for possibly another 8 or 10 years, before the world is devoured, or go back-in-time, to the absolute horrors that he barely survived two years ago, and try to save the future of our world. And the kicker. . . he will only have 2 hours and 21 minutes to do so! (If you have already read Nightwalk then you know the reason for this deadline. If you have not yet read it, what are you waiting for?!?)

Hilliard has accomplished a perfect-pace with this story, while at the same time adding a dash of Final Destination for good measure. Just when I was thinking I enjoyed the different characters from the first book, bam, Garrett runs into a new group of survivors, which of course opens up a whole new can of worms.

If you follow me on Google+, you may remember a brief quote that I posted from Chapter 4 of this book, just the other day. I am going to repost it here, as I have an additional quote, from Chapter 10, to add as well, that unknowingly goes along with my first quote. Here they are:

"Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The Tyrant Lizard.
The Big T.
When you absolutely, positively want to ruin somebody's underpants, just drop them in a dark back alley with one of these bad boys and consider your mission accomplished."

". . .Then she exploded.
And by "exploded" I mean she launched into an extended, profanity-laced tirade so full of obscenities and vile invective that it would have made a biker gang slink away in shame. She cast aspersions on my parentage, and she cast aspersions on my parent's parentage. Then she continued by saying unkind things about my humanity, my intellect, my manhood, my character, my hat, my sexuality, my dog, my appearance, my demeanor, my hygiene, my place on the evolutionary scale. . ."

You get the point. I just love Hilliard's writing style. I couldn't help but share those small excerpts.

If those do not whet your appetite, then just wait until you get to the mind-boggling epilogue - WOW!

Another amazing read from perhaps the best independent author that you just may not yet be aware of.

Jason