Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Naomi

Naomi
Naomi
Author: Douglas Clegg
Genre: Horror
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
wss4 avatar reviewed on + 389 more book reviews


This is one of Douglass Clegg's less horrific books. It was an enjoyable read with enough twists and turns to keep it interesting.

Naomi Faulkner and Jake Richmond were childhood friends who grew up in Virginia's backcountry. They shared love, happiness, and a terrible secret -- until the day Naomi disappeared. As an adult, Jake moves to Manhattan, marries, has a child, and then gets divorced. Unbeknownst to him, Naomi is also in Manhattan, leading a life filled with sadness and despair. By the time Jake discovers that Naomi is living nearby, she is dead, having thrown herself in front of a subway train. Dead, but not exactly gone.

In Greenwich Village, a middle-aged woman named Maddy discovers that some sort of witches' holocaust took place on the land beneath her brownstone, which is undergoing extensive renovations. The exposed graves contain some gruesome artifacts and a centuries-old diary that belonged to a woman named Naomi. The diary reveals the terrible truth about this Naomi's life and death and provides a key to a formidable power. When Maddy succumbs to her curiosity and delves deeper into the diary's secrets, it leads her far underground to a vast maze of tunnels beneath the Manhattan streets. Also drawn there, by what seems to be the ghost of the modern-day Naomi, is Jake. Awaiting them is a dark and evil force that is about to break free of its bonds and wreak terror on the world. For Maddy and Jake, the stakes couldn't be any higher -- they must risk more than just their lives if they hope to emerge triumphant.