Sam Paperback – September 17, 2012

This was a really cool read. Really enjoyed this book. Quick read but written really well. I would recommend for anyone wanting to read a cool horror.

Sam is a 10-year-old boy and he has a secret. It's a terrible secret, and if it's know, the entire world will shake at its revelation.Iain Rob Wright is a horror novelist from Great Britain and his new novel "Sam" is now available via SalGad Publishing (yes, I also happen to have a publishing deal with them). It's an remarkable novel.Sam manages to fill each page with dread, creating a kind of gothic horror that actually involves a large house in the English countryside that may, or may not, be possessed by a demon. Well, to be fair, the one possessed may be little 10-year-old Samuel Raymeady. Samuel recently lost his father and may inherit the vast fortune of the Black Remedy Corporation - a company so vast it can almost control the world.There's a problem, though. Little Sam has been acting very disturbing as of late. He draws all the time, and the things he draws show he knows things that he shouldn't know.Sam's mom brings in former priest Angela and ghost-debunker Tim. Perhaps they can help? Both of them, however, have very horrific secrets buried in their pasts. And Sam, well, he likes to take advantage of secrets like that.It's a complete page-turner of a novel. It manages to take the "possessed child" story and add enough original twists and turns that you'll be flipping pages or hitting the "next page" button on your reader with dazzling speed to see what happens next.Oh, and one more thing. Wright also manages to remember that horror, as a genre, should be fun as well as scary. And he imbues the tale of Sam with a heaping helping of wry humor, and a heaping helping of British slang ("What's your tipple?" being a favorite as one character goes to pour drinks for the others). The character of Tim, in particular, has a very sarcastic sense of humor throughout and it gets more intense as things get more frightening.If you are looking for a great Halloween story to read by the fire, this is one you need to add to your list.

Young Sam is possessed. His rich widowed mother calls upon an alcoholic female ex-priest and a paranormal debunker to diagnose and save him. There is a cast of supporting characters who may or may not be who they seem, and a suspicious pharmaceutical corporation acting as the spider web entrapping them all.Although this novel is meant to be frightening, I did not find it frightening at all. I did find it interesting, which kept me reading. However, “Sam” is my least favorite of Iain Rob Wright’s novels, because I had already figured out the ending long before I got there.Aside from that, Wright is a talented writer whose use of black humor I appreciate. If “The Exorcist” appealed to you, you will probably like “Sam.”

Comparison to 'The Exorcist '? In ways but then so much more. This read will suck you in and spit you out! Pure genius! This is one of those books that pulls you in and dares you to put it down. Reads like a movie unfolding before your very eyes. The ending as much of a surprise as the entire book was. If you've got a few hours take the time to read this gem for it doesn't disappoint.

I worked my way through this novel over the course of a couple of evenings and I came away with some mixed emotions. The novel itself reads like a mashup of The Omen and The Exorcist. Fright-wise, it falls somewhere between the two tales. I remember when The Omen first came out and at the time it was fairly scary. Compared to what hits the multiplexes nowadays however, I can't imagine anyone managing to stay awake until the credits roll. In fact, it's hard to believe the movie spawned so many sequels! The good news is, "Sam" is light years better than "The Omen." It has bigger and more suspensful fright sequences for one thing. For another, Iain Rob Wright has the panache to create characters that are built on shades of grey. No, not 50 SHADES! This is horror, not a thinly-veiled fan-fiction sex fantasy! What I mean is that the characters that populate this book are more like real people than one usually finds in the horror genre. They are texturally defined and somewhat nuanced. There are no stereotypical hottie college cheerleaders lining up to get killed moments after taking a drink or allowing some jock to get to second base. No one in this story is either completely good or completely evil; utterly smart or totally stupid. I'm not big on spoilers, so I won't get into specifics. Suffice it to say that it was pleasant to read about people that struggle with their own morality rather than having a perfect black-or-white perspective. These are people with very real limitations and in differing ways, each is forced to step up and be tested, often with mixed results.On the negative side, any time an author treads the dark and haunted trail blazed by William Peter Blatty, comparison to "The Exorcist" is all but unavoidable. The book is a masterpiece and, just as all children's fantasy will forever be compared to a wizard in a certain Emerald City, all books about demonic possession will be measured against the tale of young Regan and Father Merin. If you doubt me, read some reviews of the Harry Potter books and see how often L. Frank Baum's, "The Wizard of Oz" books are brought up. When comparing "Sam" to "The Exorcist," the bar is set very high indeed and "Sam" doesn't quite measure up. In fairness, it will likely be decades before another novel equals or surpasses that lofty mark. It's more reasonable to keep expectations within a different set of guidelines. Is this book scary? The answer there is a qualified yes, in my opinion. One common trapping in modern horror is to confuse fear with gore. I'm one of those people that isn't bothered by blood and guts, but even Spinal Tap's Nigel Tuffnel knows you don't spend the entire show with the amp up to "eleven." It's there when you need it because sometimes it's good to go "one louder." If a book or movie goes for the grossout shock every time, it quickly becomes redundant and boring. One of the things that made Blatty's book such a classic was that it did such a great job blending small little shivers up the spine in with the occasional pulse-pounding events. Mr. Wright isn't quite as adept yet in that department. It isn't that the book contains more gristle and guts than a Chicago slaughterhouse. In fact, compared to a lot of contemporary horror books, "Sam" is a bit on the tame side. It's more that once the story reaches the first big crescendo moment it feels like it's pedal to the medal from that point forward. It makes the story feel a bit lopsided - as if the first third exists for the purposes of character development and to set the atmosphere and the remainder is crammed with as many set action pieces as the author could cram into the pages. Also, there are several places where liberties are unnecessarily taken with the scriptures to include concepts from apochryphal or Gnostic texts. Truly great horror stories are surprisingly rare and because of that I tend to hold horror novelists to a high standard. I know I'm tougher than many readers in that sense, so your mileage may vary.Either way, "Sam" is good enough that it held my interest and then some. It also left me eager to dive into more of Iain Rob Wright's writing and that doesn't happen very often for me. I also visited the author's blog site and learned that Mr. Wright greatly enjoys hearing from his readers. Since becoming disabled recently, I've spent a lot of time reading as well as researching for my own writing efforts. I'm glad I took the time to read "Sam" because it not only made for a decent (although slightly flawed) read, it introduced me to a new author possessing all the tools necessary to be an extraordinary writer. I can't wait to find out what places his mind will take us to next. I also can't wait to meet some more of the well-developed and interesting people that will populate said places.

A rich kid of a couple who runs one of the most famously evil corporations in the world is possessed and needs an exorcism, so the woman of the house calls on both an ex-priest who's done many, and an ex ghost hunter who debunks these things with science to try and get to the bottom of what's going on after multiple doctors and psychiatrists have been no help. You may think you know what's going on...but there's so many twists and turns in this novel, right up until the very end, that you're sure to be surprised! Very well written and draws you in right from the start!