I just finished this book and I have to say that I thought it was horrible!! I felt like he kept dropping characters and facts into the book willy nilly!! It felt very choppy.I am glad it's not the first book of his I read because it would have totally turned me off.

 Having said that----- after I fifnished the book I went and looked at other peoples reviews on the book(here at PBS) and they were all mostly good! HUH! I did read that this book was put together after Laymons death from rough drafts and stuff(dont know if thats true but it would explain  alot).

 So what did you think?

Stacy

The Lake is considered by many to be one of his weakest efforts (I have not read it myself as of yet though).  It was published after his death, as well as Into the Fire (and I think one other, although I can't recall for sure).  The upcoming rerelease of The Woods are Dark has been restored  with original sections that were believed to have been removed from the heavily edited published version.  IIRC there were a lot of pages chopped out, and it was generally accepted as being butchered.  Laymon thought that the published work hurt his sales, and helped prevent him getting a larger US audience.  His daughter went through his original drafts, manuscripts and notes from that timeframe, and pieced together what she feels is a version closest to what he initially envisioned.  I recall hearing a few years ago that there were a few partial manuscripts left, and that one of them might end up being finished by another author (Steve Gerlach maybe?) and released.

Glad to hear your reviews. It has been sitting on my TBR shelf for a very long time. I think it may gather dust now.

I just finished Bad Things by Tamara Thorne and I have to say, it was very good. I enjoy her writing anyway.

I did it again, though. I left another book at work. At least I'm giving a GED exam so I CAN get a few chapters in.

Yeah, The Lake is all the worst things about Laymon gathered into one novel. Horrible. Almost reads like a pastiche.

It is currently on Mt. TBR.  So I think it will stay that way for now.  I just finished the beast.  I believe there is a third in that series?  If so I'm going to look for it.

Do you mean The Beast House?  The third book is The Midnight Tour.  There is also a novella entitled Friday Night at Beast House that was released as a limited HC.  I'm not sure if there are any plans to reprint that, but my guess is Leisure will do so, possibly when the reprint The Wilds, as I've heard they are planning.