Face the Night by Alan Lastufka

 Face the Night is a horror thriller and a tale of long-awaited vengeance.

 

Adriana is a mother desperately trying to keep custody of her son, Dylan, while her father, the mayor, wants to remove him as he feels Adriana is an unfit mother. Currently without a job, and trying to make ends meet as a now-and-then tattoo artist, Adriana has asked her ex Eric, a deadbeat druggie, to help plead her case in court. With a month to find something permanent, she must make a plan ASAP.

 

After a mishap lands her at the police station, Adriana uses her sketching skills to snag a temp gig as a sketch artist. And she meets Officer Hinkley, who seems a little sweet on her. Unbeknown to the officer, Adriana suffers from terrible nightmares where she sees a terrifying face coming for her while she is underwater. These have been happening for years, but the face never gets clearer.

 

As her father campaigns for re-election, as well as to take her child, Adriana must delve into the meaning behind the face as well as put everything she has into securing her child’s future. But as with many small-town secrets, some things do not want to remain buried…

 

I was hooked by the promise of an early Stephen King-type book and I’ll say that I enjoyed the book and also didn’t enjoy it. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the book, nothing new came out that made me go – wow, I’d never have thought of that. Lots of strange decisions made and some directions not quite explained/closed.

 

(Spoilers ahead)

Adriana was a likeable character at times, and her desperation at trying to do the right thing for her son came through. Then she’d do something stupid like leaving her ex to look after her child while she decides a “few drinks won’t hurt” and goes out. This with her ex never having looked after the child before.
Then there is the issue with her seeing the face – when she eventually figures out what it’s about, it’s not really something that couldn’t have been guessed earlier. All the clues were there. It was just a case of whodunnit. But why did the face take so long to really make itself known?
The neighbour’s deaf daughter gets used to protect Adriana from doing something bad while possibly under the influence of the face. This seemed very irresponsible on her part and puts everyone in a potential dodgy situation there.
While I get that her new love interest was rebelling against what was happening in the police station, the risks he took for Adriana seemed extreme.

 

I’d call this a small-town thriller rife with “anything-to-win” politics and a dash of supernatural horror. It needed a lot more to call itself a genuine horror story. It was one of those where, after I turned the last page, I just said, “Oh.” Kinda fizzled out at the end with too many tangents. It was a good effort for a first-time novel, but one I wouldn’t read again, even if to try to pick up more details.

 

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review the novel.