The Gatherer
Jerry Bayne
Book Surge
ISBN: 9781419687365
Fiction, Supernatural Horror
Reviewed by Kell Smurthwaite

I’m a big fan of supernatural horror, so I was expecting a little more from The Gatherer than what I actually got, which was a bit of a disappointment. It has all the right ingredients for a terrifying read, but then just doesn’t deliver. At all times, I was just too far ahead of all the characters and felt that I was waiting for them to play catch up. Even so, their uncovering of the scroll’s message seemed to come way too easy once they had begun, despite the fact that from the pieces they put together at the start, they should have been able to guess at what was being revealed at a painstakingly slow pace in about five minutes flat.

The burgeoning relationship between Blake and Sams was a bit too twee and mushy, as well as happening far too quickly - the characters weren’t really given enough time to get to know one another properly before declaring their love for one another (which they then continued to do on every other page for the rest of the novel).

Still, there were just enough surprises in there to keep me going to the end, if only to try and find out the answers to a few questions that seemed to be ignored completely by the characters (those questions never did get answered, by the way, leaving me a little frustrated).

If you’re looking for an easy way to kill a few hours without having to think too hard, then you could read worse, but don’t expect miracles from The Gatherer.