Shrine

By: James Herbert

Narrated by: Kris Dyer

Force for evil. A little girl called Alice, a deaf-mute. A vision. A lady in shimmering white who says she is the immaculate conception. And Alice can suddenly hear and speak. And she can perform miracles. Soon the site of the visitation, beneath the ancient oak tree, has become a shrine, a holy place for thousands of pilgrims. But Alice is no longer the guileless child overwhelmed by her new saintliness. She has become the agent of something corrupt, a vile force that is centuries-old. Innocence and evil have become one.

James Herbert was one of Britain’s greatest popular novelists and our #1 best-selling writer of chiller fiction. Widely imitated and hugely influential, he wrote 23 novels which have collectively sold over 54 million copies worldwide and been translated into 34 languages. Born in London in the forties, James Herbert was art director of an advertising agency before turning to writing fiction in 1975.

His first novel, The Rats, was an instant bestseller and is now recognised as a classic of popular contemporary fiction. Herbert went on to publish a new top ten best-seller every year until 1988. He wrote six more bestselling novels in the 1990s and three more since: Once, Nobody True and The Secret of Crickley Hall. Herbert died in March 2013 at the age of 69.

©1984 James Herbert (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"Herbert was by no means literary, but his work had a raw urgency. His best novels, The Rats and The Fog, had the effect of Mike Tyson in his championship days: no finesse, all crude power. Those books were best sellers because many readers (including me) were too horrified to put them down." (Stephen King)

"There are few things I would like to do less than lie under a cloudy night sky while someone read aloud the more vivid passages of Moon. In the thriller genre, do recommendations come any higher?" (Andrew Postman, The New York Times Book Review)

"Herbert goes out in a blaze of glory." (Daily Mail)

Didn't live up to its billing

I was really excited to listen to this book because I had just seen the movie based on it the unholy. There are a couple of draft spots more than a couple actually where I found myself not knowing what I was listening to and having to go back I'm not sure If it was the story or the narration .Everything I have read about this author is pretty positive and I am definitely a fan of this genre So I will definitely try one of his other books

Disappointed

Don’ t get me wrong. The horror parts are magnificent, but overall is once more the story of church condemming women and disabled persons to a second place, and the forgetting all about it in a flash, lime nothing ever hapened. At the end and without spoilers ,I felt bad about the characters; just hope the movie takes a different twist r a better ending without sacrifice.

Shrine

Author tends to be long winded BUT creepy as hell. Pretty in depth look into the Catholic Church and what really drives it. And some pretty chilling scenes and descriptions that had this old horror lover looking over her shoulder in the dark more than once. Reader is exceptional with voices!

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enjoyable

Fun book with a decent narration. the character arcs aren't very satisfying, but it delivers well on the horror elements. major flaw of the narration is just a terrible american accent for a major character in the book's second half.

Narration = British Wildlife Documentary Style

As in..."and here we see a lovely gazelle as it prepares to leap from danger" in very proper upper crust English accent. Very droll darling. Story is a bit of a snoozer too so I dozed a lot during this book. I DID finish it however but was uninspired. Overall: Meh.

Literally no reason to bother

This book... oh boy.... first of all, every chapter begins with a quote from another book. EVERY chapter. Come on... really? And, not only the annoyance of that - most of the times the quotes basically tells you what’s about yo happen in that chapter. The performance was great and the performer did the best he could with the story that was given. But it’s mostly a complete snooze fest with little to no excitement. Nothing you haven’t read before and a ton of character development on side characters that really had no business having the extra time involved in the story. I almost never have a negative review to give on a book. I’ve written one and it isn’t close to being a masterpiece of any kind and I know what it’s like for people to ridicule your story. That said, there were all these positive reviews and I can’t find a reason for any of them. The story was really dull and could have cared less for anyone that was introduced. I’d suggest no one else waste their time on it.

Descriptive

Unfortunately I only made it a little over the first chapter. Maybe it gets better, but I found my mind wandering during the descriptions of seemingly every detail.