RACHAEL RISING
Terry Moore
If you’ve never heard of Terry Moore then shame! The multi-threat writer/artist/etc. has created some of the greatest comics of all time. He’s mastered romance/drama with “Strangers in Paradise” and sci-fi with “Echo” but his most recent series strikes those horror and thriller cords that are so tough to pluck for a writer. “Rachel Rising” takes horror to new levels in a smart and addicting way.
Rachel is murdered. And wakes up. She claws her way out of a deep grave and staggers home. She’s changed. Her eyes are black and her pulse is… there? Going around to friends, Rachel has to reconnect herself with life. But something dark is happening in her town of Manson. People are acting irrationally, murdering, and being swayed by mysterious figures. It seems everyone in Manson has a secret. Thankfully, you want to know them all. Rachel’s aunt Johnny works at the morgue, a great place for a dead girl to find answers. Johnny is pure science and is trying very hard to find the logical explanation for something that is clearly supernatural. Then someone close to Rachel dies. And wakes up. A quiet, killer child. A disappearing blonde woman gaining “followers.” Creepy neighbors on the side of good. A snake vomiting lady. And a writer with the know-how to build a scary, get-under-your-skin story. This is how horror is done.
To craft a book that is more than terrifying, more than thrilling, something that sits with you, that makes you question the very snow that falls out your window takes the utmost skill. Terry Moore has proven time and again he has that skill. His masterful ability is to build the horror atmosphere of the “Rachel Rising” world with a steady burn shooting sparks of intensity and jaw dropping twists. The characters have real and distinct voices. Throughout all his books he understands how to write people. The crazy things that happen are believable because the characters that it happens to react like an actual person would. Terry Moore creates some of the most real fake people in literature.
It’s for those reasons than “Rachel Rising” has been picked up as a television series. And if they are able to capture a tenth of magic that Moore gives the book then the show will be incredible. Three volumes of the comic have been released and the book needs a larger audience. One of the best series out now and one of the best horror series ever, this book is an absolute must read for anyone.
Jo Schmidt