Better than some of the clunkers he did like 'Moon,' but not at the level of his classics like 'Once' and the 'Rats' series, which I still need to finish reading. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his 19 novels have sold more than 42 million copies worldwide. Soon the site of the visitation, beneath an ancient oak tree, has become a shrine, a holy place for thousands of pilgrims.

There are also a few sex scenes in it that actually worked quite well, though I’m not sure how necessary they were to the plot. To sum up, a good story which was, for me at any rate, a little too verbose and dragged on a tad in places.Unbelievably, it’s not long before another such miracle takes place, and through Alice Pagett’s newfound healing powers, those afflicted with an illness find themselves miraculously cured. Whilst the author is lauded as "UK's Stephen King," ardent readers of Steve may find this book as a little too draggy for their taste. Remember, the tension has been mounting from the very beginning of the novel, constantly working its way to this final moment. The level of gore is, by the author's standard, fairly mild but the lurking malevolence still comes across strongly. And this brings me to the one point with the novel where it seems to either make or break the story for most readers – the ending.

It felt as though he was just including them for the sake of including them, knowing that a certain percentage of his readers are into that sort of thing, but at least he didn’t use awkward phrasing like “most wetness” or “engorged shaft”. There are some great scenes regarding the background characters and townsfolk and how the sudden fame of the town and tourism impacts them and how they can benefit from it. However, when the finale plays out (don’t worry, I won’t give it away) Finn is left very much a bystander in the final proceedings.

But all is not as it seems and there is an evil lurking underneath it all ready to exact its terrible revenge. A film is being made of the book - entitled 'The Unholy' - but it is boringly being set in contemporary Massachusetts (oh dear, Salem again! But back to the great moments - there are wonderful descriptions, some genuinely creepy scenes (including one involving a statue in a basement that freaked me out! The miracle scenes brought tears to my eyes, yes, but not because they're well executed (they're not badly executed either), but because, well, I love miracles (haha).

Widely imitated and hugely influential, his twenty-three novels have sold more than fifty-four million copies worldwide, and have been translated into over thirty languages, including Russian and Chinese.I’d certainly rate this effort above The Fog but Herbert still hasn’t really justified his popularity for me yet – he’s getting better though! Forget the horror for the moment and read it for a fine evocation of rural Sussex as it was at that time and as a sympathetic but realistic portrayal of the Catholic Church and its servants. Here we get Herbert’s effort to craft a sceptical, flawed anti-hero but unfortunately we just end up with the thoroughly dislikeable little weasel of man Gerry Fenn – a crap local reporter working for a crap local paper with a crap attitude to the world/people around him using crap one liners on his long suffering girl friend. When she suddenly begins to perfectly hear and speak, talks about Mary and the immaculate conception and heals other people too, literally all hell breaks loose. A one-off, a true horror original’ Peter James --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.