Description:

Home is where the haunt is.

"Fans of Stephen King and Dean Koontz will appreciate this atmospheric gem." ★★★★★ "Kept me on the edge of my seat!"★★★★★
A children's game played in the dark brings on a terrifying rampage in this gothic horror page-turner by the NY Times bestselling author of Neverland and The Children's Hour. After the brutal murder of a loved one, Nemo Raglan must return to the New England island he thought he'd escaped for good . . . and the shadowy home called Hawthorn.

"Douglas Clegg has become the new star in horror fiction, and The Hour Before Dark is his best and most exciting novel to date. This is pure imagination, and it is wearing speed skates." -- Peter Straub, New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story and, with Stephen King, The Talisman.

"A classic of modern supernatural horror."

"...An eerie psychological tale of supernatural horror that builds suspense gradually as the characters slowly peel back the layers of their past and face the terrors of their shared childhood. Clegg approaches horror with a stark and vital simplicity that is utterly convincing. Fans of Stephen King and Dean Koontz will appreciate this atmospheric gem." -- Library Journal*.

"I was compelled to keep turning the pages as fear...raised my pulse to racing level from cover to cover." -- DarkEcho.

From the Publishers Weekly Starred Review:
"Suspenseful and relentlessly spooky, told in economical prose yet peopled by characters as fully realized as one’s own blood kin, this is at once the most artful and most mainstream tale yet from one of horror’s brightest lights."

"... A dark,psychologically astute novel that pushes beyond the horror genre
and into raw suspense...THE HOUR BEFORE DARK is a powerful and deeply engaging novel of disturbance and redemption...highly recommended to any reader who enjoys Stephen King, Dean Koontz, or Pat Conroy. " -- The BookReporter.

"In his finest novel to date, Clegg establishes himself firmly as one of the leading authors in the horror genre...Hold onto your chair; The Hour Before Dark is a powerhouse of a read." -- Cemetery Dance Magazine.

A gripping read that is refreshingly character-driven, yet still produces a palpable sense of dread." - Fangoria.

Books by Douglas Clegg

The Children’s Hour
Goat Dance
Purity
Dark of the Eye
The Words
Wild Things
Nightmare House
Bad Karma
Red Angel
Night Cage
Mischief
The Infinite
The Abandoned
The Necromancer
Isis
The Hour Before Dark
You Come When I Call You
Naomi
The Nightmare Chronicles
The Machinery of Night
Breeder
The Attraction

Praise for Douglas Clegg's Fiction

"Douglas Clegg knows exactly what scares us, and he knows just how to twist those fears into hair-raising chills..." - Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series.

"Clegg is the best horror writer of the post-Stephen King generation."
— Bentley Little, author of The Policy

"Clegg delivers!"
— John Saul, bestselling author of Faces of Fear and The Devil's Labyrinth.

"Clegg is one of the best!"
— Richard Laymon

"Douglas Clegg is a weaver of nightmares!"
— Robert R. McCammon
author of The Queen of Bedlam and Speaks The Nightbird.

About the Author

Douglas Clegg is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of more than 35 books, including Neverland , The Children's Hour , and You Come When I Call You. He is married and lives near the coast of New England. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Alongside the dominant stream of horror fiction that, at whatever level of artistic achievement, relies on shock and gore, runs a quieter stream that relies on atmosphere and inference for its unsettling effects (think Machen, Blackwood, sometimes Ramsey Campbell). Clegg (The Infinite; Naomi) has added a superior new title to this latter tradition, with a psychologically astute and genuinely shivery story of a young man who returns to his ancestral home on a remote island off Massachusetts. Nemo Raglan, a failed novelist, is back at Hawthorn, on Burnley Island, because his father, Gordie, has been found slaughtered in the family's smokehouse. Also at Hawthorn are Nemo's errant younger brother, Bruno, and their sister, Brooke, a high-strung artist who'd been living with Dad; the siblings' mother had disappeared from the family when they were children. The killer has, weirdly, left no traces and thus no clues; but then much about Hawthorn and the siblings is weird, particularly the game they played as children, a risky form of mind-projection taught them by their father, who used it as a POW, whereby they were able to explore worlds known and unknown. As brothers and sister get reacquainted and ponder the murder, the air grows tense but also dark. Nemo senses an unseen presence; is the house haunted? Clegg delves deep and precisely into the familial ties that bind but also sunder even as he celebrates the magical isolation of a New England island so adrift from the mainland as to be its own planet. Suspenseful and relentlessly spooky, told in economical prose yet peopled by characters as fully realized as one's own blood kin, this is at once the most artful and most mainstream tale yet from one of horror's brightest lights.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Library Journal

The brutal murder of his father brings Nemo Raglan back to the New England home of his childhood, where he joins his brother and sister in unraveling the mystery of their father's death and solving the frightening puzzle somehow connected to an old childhood game. The author of The Nightmare Chronicles constructs an eerie psychological tale of supernatural horror that builds suspense gradually as the characters slowly peel back the layers of their past and face the terrors of their shared childhood. Clegg approaches horror with a stark and vital simplicity that is utterly convincing. Fans of Stephen King and Dean Koontz will appreciate this atmospheric gem. For most horror collections.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Publisher

From the terrifying imagination of Douglas Clegg, comes his most powerful novel yet. The Hour Before Dark is a page-turning blockbuster of a novel about the shadow between good and evil, innocence and brotherhood. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

"Hold onto your chair. THE HOUR BEFORE DARK is a powerhouse of a read." -- Shannon Riley, Cemetery Dance Magazine.

"I was compelled to keep turning the pages as fear...raised my pulse to racing level from cover to cover." -- Paula Guran, DarkEcho, Cemetery Dance

"If Pat Conroy had grown up in New England...he might have produced...this disturbing, memorable book." -- Bill Sheehan, author of At The Foot of the Story Tree: An Inquiry into the Fiction of Peter Straub --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.