Reviewed by Lee Ashford for Readers' Favorite

The Dead Lands by Rick Hautala is one more in a long string of top-notch horror stories by this author. Megan McGowan didn’t come home with her brother, Mike. Megan never came home again. Young Mike saw something, but his mind had buried it, because it was too awful to consider. Megan’s ghost is met by the ghost of Abby Cummings, who died more than a century earlier, but is still stuck in “The Dead Lands,” a kind of holding area where she has been waiting for something or someone to escort her to her final destination. In the meantime, she has helped numerous other “stuck” ghosts to finish up whatever it is they’d left undone in life that was now holding them back from moving on. In The Dead Lands, Abby had to help Megan figure out how and why she died, before she, Megan, can move on into the light. However, in order to do this she needs to find some way to communicate with the living, and to help Detective Gray solve the mystery.

The Dead Lands is hard to put down. It is a very captivating story that will entrance you right from the start. Rick Hautala was a master at character development. This story will wring you through the gamut of emotions, from sorrow to anger to blind rage. Rick Hautala’s name will be remembered as one of the best in the horror genre for one reason… he is. His writing has a magical aura to it, bringing the reader right into the thick of the action, to feel the horror alongside the characters in the story. If you can read only one story by Rick Hautala, you'll need to rearrange your schedule, so you can read them all.