Not All Exorcists are Equal….One is Marked.
When defrocked ex-priest, Jimmy Holiday, agrees to help an old friend with his sick daughter, he doesn’t expect the horrors that await him. Blackmoor, his friend’s new residence, rests upon the outskirts of the town of Sorrow’s Point. The mansion’s history of magic, mayhem, and death makes it almost a living thing – a haunted mansion straight out of a Stephen King novel. Jimmy must decide if the young girl, Lucy, is only ill, or if the haunting of the house and her apparent possession are real.
After the house appears to affect him as well with colors of magic dancing before his eyes, rooms warded by a witch, and a ring of power in his voice, Jimmy is met by a transient who tells him he has “the Mark”. Whatever being “marked” means, Jimmy doesn’t care. All he wants to do is help Lucy. But, helping Lucy means performing an exorcism.
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About author:
Named one of the Examiner’s 2014 Women in Horror: 93 Horror Authors you Need to Read Right Now, Danielle DeVor has been spinning the spider webs, or rather, the keyboard for more frights and oddities. She spent her early years fantasizing about vampires and watching “Salem’s Lot” way too many times. When not writing and reading about weird things, you will find her hanging out at the nearest coffee shop, enjoying a mocha frappuccino. Visit her at Website Twitter Imstagram Blog
My Review:
Five our of five stars
A priest falls in love with a real witch and ends up making a change of plans as far as career moves go with the Catholic Church. Jimmy Holiday had never turned his back on his vows of celibacy, but when a few busybodies at his church step into the picture and accuse him of it, he knew he might as well have. It costs him everything. To make matters worse, after he left the church, things didn’t work out well for Jimmy and Tabby and they split up a few years later. Nothing seems to ever work out quite like Jimmy envisions.
A few years later, in steps a childhood friend asking Jimmy if he still believes in God. What kind of question is that? A strange one … or maybe not so much. As it turns out, Will’s six-year-old daughter Lucy is possessed. Or so Will claims, and he wants Jimmy to perform an exorcism. Jimmy agrees to go with Will to Sorrow Point and meet the little girl, even though he suspects she might have a mental condition verses a possession problem. There turns out to be a whole lot more going wrong in Sorrow’s Point and the Black house than one little girl’s possession problem, however Jimmy isn’t sure he’s up for the task being asked of him.
Have you ever walked into a house or room and been struck with that odd feeling that said, “You need to get the hell out of here!” (while the hair on the back of your neck stands up to wave at one another)? I have, so I began to squirm a bit when I started to read about the Black house, built in the town of Sorrow’s Point during the early 1950’s. (Chapters are mingled in with the present time about Lucy’s possession.) The house Will, his wife, and Lucy live in now. An evil man built the enormous mansion, a cannibalistic monster who got off on torturing his wife until someone very powerful stepped in and trapped him in a mirror. We learn what happened during that terrible time in the past that might have led to the current possession of Lucy.
And this is where Tabby, the witch, steps into the picture. This is not your typical priest against demon exorcism scenario, so pull the blanket up to your chin and leave on the lights as you read. I know I did. I first read Sorrow’s Point a couple of years ago and I have to admit I wasn’t pleased with the main character of Jimmy Holiday in that first edition. For an ex priest, he seemed to fly off the handle about just about anything, and usually over what I considered minor details. I couldn’t make a connection with him and since he’s one of the main characters, I couldn’t make a real connection to the story. (Not that I feel one always needs to like everyone you read about, but….)
For those of you who might be reading reviews written about the first edition, I urge you to ignore the negative reaction some of those readers might have had against Jimmy. It appears the author listened to the complaints of her readers and rewrote Sorrow’s Point, giving a much deeper peek inside Jimmy than we had before. The same goes for Lucy’s parents. And I’m happy to say I can finally see what Tabby might have liked about Jimmy.
Even though I read the entire story once before, and I knew where the plot would ultimately take me, it felt like a whole new story here and I couldn’t put it down once I started. I’ve never been so happy that I put off writing my first review of Sorrow’s Point because this version is excellent. The tension starts right at the beginning of chapter one and never lets off to the end. And what does happen at the end just might surprise you. I know it did me. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.
Denna Holm 