Terrel is a quiet coastal town where the residents are friendly and things are generally quiet. The only exception is May 22nd, which is the date of a teenager's suicidal plunge from the cliffs of Terrl's Peak. A shocking incident, all the more shocking that copycat suicides are occurring on the anniversary. There's something evil at the cliffs, everybody can feel it. But what exactly is it?
Joe Kieran, graveyard shift reporter for the Terrel Daily Times, aims to find out what exactly is going on. Not only is the town quiet, they absolutely refuse to give the incidents more than minimal attention. The sheriff and editor of the paper both tell Joe to leave it alone, but Joe smells a story that will make him famous. So Joe starts digging into the history of the town and its people; the only problem is whatever he digs up may be too big to handle once it's uncovered. And whatever it will most likely be very unhappy about being disturbed.
I had one continuous thought when I was reading this: The Bram Stoker Award must be a write-by-numbers project. There was nothing inventive, unique or attention catching about Covenant. It was just a book. There was no real surprise or shock, no major twists, nothing I haven't seen before. If this was a movie, it wouldn't even be a rental: catch it on Cinemax if you can't sleep one night. Characters lean towards the cookie-cutter variety and the more I read today's contemporary horror authors, the more I think 'horror' should be renamed the 'perverted sex romps with spooky stuff to camouflage it from your mom' section in Barnes & Knoble. Seriously, how many times can the same chick get raped?
I really wish there was one bright morsel here to toss out at you and say, "This redeemed the book. This is the thing that made me sit up and not go to bed till I finished it." But there isn't. I went to sleep with like 60 pages to go and I woke up and finished it and nothing changed. I was still unimpressed. There's nothing to see here, folks, keep moving.
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Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Leisure; Reprint edition (August 26, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0843960183
ISBN-13: 978-0843960181