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Title/Author

Once

James Herbert

Average Review Rating Average Rating 9/10 (1 Review)
Book Details

Publisher : Macmillan

Published : 2001

Copyright : James Herbert 2001

ISBN-10 : HB 0-333-76140-5
ISBN-13 : HB 978-0333761403

Publisher's Write-Up

Remember the faery stories you were told when you were a child? Tales of tiny, magical, winged beings and elves, wicked witches and goblins. Demons…

What if one day you found they were true? What if, when you became an adult, you discovered they were all based on fact? What if you met the fantasy and it was all so very real?

That's what happened to Thom Kindred. The wonders were revealed to him. But so were the horrors, for not far behind the Good, there always lurks the Bad. And the Bad had designs on Thom. The Bad would show him real evil.

He would see the hellhagges and the demons. He would be touched by perverted passion. And corruption. And he would encounter his own worst nightmare.

The Bad would seek to destroy him. And only the magic of the little beings would be able to help him.

Once, James Herbert's masterful new novel of erotic love and darkest horror, will take you to a realm where fantasy and reality collide, where faerytales really can come true. From Britain's Number One bestselling author of chiller fiction, this is James Herbert's finest novel to date.

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Reader Reviews

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Review by Nigel (010502) Rating (9/10)

Review by Nigel
Rating 9/10

WARNING - Sexually Explicit (the novel, not the review:)

Seriously... I read the cover plate for this novel and wondered what I was going to come across:

Once
A scary Tale of Faerefolkis & Evildoers, of Lovers & Erotic Passion, of Horror & Belief. Written only for Adults by James Herbert.

Believe me, this is all very true. I personally haven't read any particularly erotic fiction, just your normal stuff you come across in novels, and not the pure 'adult' novels the guy in Waterstones says are their best selling books! I've heard modern Mills & Boon can be pretty racy but I couldn't say. However, I can confirm Once contains some very erotic (and in one case horrific) scenes that will have the more sensitive readers blushing...

Once is a very well written story that has great depth, yet flows along nicely, as only an author of James Herbert's calibre can create - you feel the years of experience in the writing and the visual images created are unhindered by broken prose.

Thom Kindred has returned to the house of his childhood, Little Bracken, to recover from a stroke induced during a car accident. Little Bracken is a woodland retreat in the Bracken Estate that has many memories for Thom, most of which have been unknowingly suppressed. During his rehabilitation strange events unfold that have a lot to do with his past and even more to do with his future... a future that looks pretty grim at times.

The characters are wonderful, erotic, devious and evil... a fantastic book, but not one for your mum (I don't think I could bring myself to give mine a copy anyway:)
Nigel (1st May 2002)

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