Seed

Once you have read "Seed" by Ania Ahlborn you will never be the same. Do you know why I write this? It is because in her marvelous new novel the devil is alive and well. Consider the following blurb: Jack Winter has a secret... He's spent his entire life running from something no one can see. After two decades, he's sure he's escaped the shadow that haunted his childhood. That is, until his youngest daughter, Charlie, begins to change. After a sudden highway accident and a flash of soulless eyes, Jack has no choice but to watch his little girl drown in what he's sure is a family curse. Jack begins to realize that he never outran the darkness. It's just been hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to make a reappearance... But this time, it hasn't come only for Jack. This time, it wants them all. The blurb ends with a warning for Stephen King, Joe Hill and Jack Kilborn fans to prepare to meet the devil. And it isn't wrong. In this novel, you'd better be prepared to meet the devil hanging out in a deserted convenience store in the middle of the night; stopping to offer you a lift on a dark and deserted highway; or catch a sudden movement in the darkened corner of your children's bedroom. I like ghost stories, tales of demon possession and very dark whodunits as long as they do not simply take me back over the same hallowed ground that we have all read before. This new novel used elements that we have experienced before, but I am very happy to report that the author was not content to retread the same tired old ground. Highlights of this novel for me were the author's use of description, her pacing of the plot and her characters. Young Charlie was very well drawn and will hold your attention. I also thought that things could have easily gone badly with the antagonist, but it didn't. Ahlborn revealed Seed's darkness just perfectly. Another point that I would like to make are the moments of flashbacks. I have heard many readers take issue with these. However, in this wonderful author's hands, you may find yourself, as I did, feeling not that you were in the middle of a stoppage of plot, but just exactly where you need to be. If you are looking for a dark road to travel upon which will eventually end up taking you to a wonderful destination, this is not your book. Sometimes the good guys do not win, and I appreciate that, too, from this author. Seed is dark, fresh, boundary-pushing and well-written. She wrote one-hell of a scare here, and I highly recommend it.

*3.5 Stars* For most fans of horror, it is easy to compare new stories with others that have been read. Seed is not an exception. Some of the situations and elements in the story resemble other well known stories and there is a reason for that. The idea of the devil, a demon or shadow lurking in the corner never seems to get old. It is just a matter of how the story is presented and what emotional effect it has on the audience. This is the highest strength of this novel. Ania Ahlborn did an exceptional job of creating the right creepy vibe for this novel. I have read some horror novels that have what could be a really scary situation but it is ruined by the lack of creating the necessary feel for the audience to be affected. Seed has this feel and I am impressed because, unless I am mistaken, this is the author's first written work. The story was very well written but I still had a few problems with it. As I said, the story had the creepy hair standing up on the back of your neck feel but the feeling ended for me about halfway through. However, that may just be me. I purposely look for books that will scary the pants off me but I have yet to find such a book. Maybe I just do not scary easy. However, the creepy scenes in this book were well worth it for me. I have not read anything really creepy in a while so this book was a treat in that aspect. Another problem I had was that there seemed to be some loose ends in the story. Unless I was just wanting there to be more to the story which may have been the case. I seem to want to know more about the darkness lurking in the stories than what they explain a lot of the time. Also, I thought Jack's character was going to have more going on in the ending that what happened. Sorry I cannot say more without giving anything away. Overall, a great first book by the author and good horror story to check out. Although there were a few disappointments for me, I really enjoyed reading this story and I was glued to the story the whole time. Seed moves at a quick pace and is easy to get lost in so you may want to make you sure you have plenty of free time before you start this book. Recommend for Fans of Horror For Readers that also love horror movies, if you liked Paranormal Activity or Insidious, this is a must read!

Having read some of the 1-star reviews before reading a sample of this book, I was surprised to find myself buying the book after reading the sample. For $0.99, "Seed" was a pleasant surprise, although there are a few weaknesses in the book. First, the bad: -"Seed" really needed a once- or twice-over by a good editor. There are some metaphors/similes in the book that stick out because they seem forced, e.g., "blooming like a supernova," "suspended in the air like an astronaut waiting ignition," "wailed like a Greek at a funeral," and various descriptions of characters' expressions or emotions. Every character in the book smirks repeatedly, but it's always to express different emotions. I got tired of people smirking because they were happy, sad, frustrated, wry, or angry; regardless of the cause, everybody smirked. The author also uses "that" instead of "who" when referring to characters, e.g., "a daughter that x," or "a wife that y". All of these things would/should have been caught by an editor before the book was published, and this is a weakness I find in most self-published books. While the story in "Seed" is quite absorbing, these quirks, combined with some punctuation and word usage issues ("grizzly" where "grisly" should have been used, "Julienne" where "julienned" was intended, a truck's headlights having been described as the left one pointing outward and the right one pointing down, then referencing the headlights as "cross-eyed" after they'd already been correctly described as "cockeyed", etc.), distracted from the story line and I'd have to re-read the paragraph to try to get back into the flow of the story again. -The author doesn't transition well between flashbacks and current day. After multiple pages of flashback, a paragraph would begin with "Jack woke up the next morning," but not referring to the next morning in the flashback, rather to the current day. I got the impression that the author did this intentionally, but for me, it didn't work. I'd get through that first modern-day paragraph and realize that we'd jumped out of the flashback, so I'd have to go back to re-read the paragraph that didn't make sense when I thought it was still a flashback. Again, an editor could have fixed this. -For me, this one wasn't really an issue, but I suspect it explains a lot of the one- and two-star reviews: the subject matter in this book is disturbing, particularly, I suspect, to people who have children and who are emotionally affected by stories (real or fictional) involving children, because they envision their own children in the roles about which they're reading. My sister, for example, cannot stand to read newspaper accounts of bad things happening to children because she cannot help but imagine her children when she reads them. Bad things happen to children in this book. Bad things happen to adults in this book. Bad things are done in this book. For people who identify strongly with the children in this book, the plot is probably very disturbing. I can separate reality from fiction fairly easily, and while I was able to keep in mind that this is a work of fiction, there are certainly some unsettling themes in this book, particularly for Westerners, for whom children tend to be verboten subjects in most horror. (Not all, but most; Asian cultures tend to be more willing to portray small children both as victims and/or as evil beings than most Western horror does.) -The elder daughter's age. This one is really nitpicky, but the elder daughter's age is not mentioned until well into the book, and just at the point at which I was irritatedly thinking, "how OLD is this girl," her age (ten) was given. As I said, this is very nitpicky, but it stuck out to me. I may actually have missed the elder daughter's age earlier in the book, but if I didn't, it would have been good to have seen it mentioned earlier. In fact, in the opening scene, I thought at first that the elder daughter was actually a toddler and the younger of the children. -Misplaced cultural references. Others have noted things like songs being misattributed, but the one that stuck out the most for me was a character's reference to an Amber Alert at a time in which they did not exist. -Side plots that are sometimes a bit TOO convenient. While the plot moves well overall and there are places in which Alhborn brings in a side story very well, in other places, characters or scenes exist purely to provide a pat explanation for a lot of previously-inexplicable behavior. In some cases, the side plots and back stories are done very well, but in others, they're forced. -Another nitpick: in this book, the house in which the characters live is described as having the kitchen and living room at opposite ends of a hallway. While this probably sounds ridiculous, for me, it made the house really difficult to envision, particularly as no other details of the layout were really given. I am not sure I've ever seen a house in which living and eating areas were at opposite ends of the house, so it was just distracting to me every time a character ran down the hallway from living room to kitchen and vice versa. Now, the good: -This book, if you can get past the issues above, is well-written and absorbing. It flows well, the plot doesn't drag, and for the most part, the author's descriptions avoid most clichés. The characters are fairly believable, the dialog is generally smooth, and it's usually easy to achieve the suspension of disbelief required to allow one to immerse oneself in a story. -The plot is done well; there are areas where it could have become contrived and trite, but just as the reader is starting to question why a character is behaving in a manner that simply doesn't seem to make sense, Ahlborn weaves in a side story that brings clarity to the character's behavior. As noted above, in some cases, this isn't done as well as in others. -While the subject matter is disturbing, it's deftly presented, without gratuitous gore and violence. There's just enough of each to be unsettling and grotesque, but Ahlborn manages to skirt the edges of what could simply be disgusting and nauseating content. -The length of the book is just right, and you're kept absorbed right up until the end. Reading the book, I felt as if I knew how the book was going to end, but I kept hoping that something would change that. I won't tell you if something did change what seemed to be an inevitable outcome, but I will say that I was devouring the pages by the end of the book. I note, however, that this particular observation should really be listed as both a negative and a positive; you'll understand what I mean if you read the book. In short, had this book had a strong[er] editor before it was published, I'd call it a four- or five-star book, without hesitation. However, the spelling and grammatical errors, combined with the overuse of certain words, some awkward metaphors, inaccurate cultural references, and some dubious plot lines made this a three-star book for me. I originally gave it four stars as I know that I am fairly nitpicky, but after some more thought, I couldn't keep this rated at four stars. It's a three-star book to me. Finally, if I had paid as much for this book as, say, a Stephen King novel, I would have felt ripped off because of the lack of strong editing, but let's not forget that this book costs less than a buck. For $0.99, this book is a bargain. Ania Alhborn may have a very promising future as a writer of horror fiction, provided she gets a better editor who will give her honest feedback and catch the grammatical, spelling and usage errors that weren't caught in this book.

When I first met Ania online (Because she FIRST followed me on twitter), I visited her website and check out her first novel callled: SEED. After I visited her website, I decided to buy her book somewhere in 2012 (Because I don't have money). My Summary: When I first started to read the preview chapter (Which is the first chapter of SEED), my mind was blown like an atomic bomb that's just about to blow up the big land, which means that I must read Ania's book RIGHT NOW. When I see characters, such as Jack, Aimee, and their kids, Charlotte & Abby who are going to ride on their Saturn vehicle, their car was thrown off balance very crazy, it made Jack and others scared. When I read this quote, "Something ran into the woods. Over there," I sense that the monster is going to destroy Jack and his family, but it did not. It was waiting and setting a plan to "play" with The Winters, of which I was thinking that this monster is going to kill them very soon. After I read more chapters of SEED, I begin to get scared as soon as Charlotte begins to change drastically and this is where the book becomes very very.....scary. Just after I continue to read more chapters, the book reviews the reason why Charlotte is acting crazy and that reason...is behind the demon named, Mr. Scratch who is responsible for POSSESSING Charlotte. Jack is attempting to find his daughters, Abby & Charlie in the woods alone with no one else aiding him. Jack is now surrounded by Darkness, and he's ready to save Charlotte from Mr. Scrarch's terror. Unfortunately, Jack died after Charlotte (who is still possessed by Mr. Scratch) stabbed her father with a knife, and ready to leave Louisiana for good. My review: This book is really really a scary good book. This book features cool characters: Jack, Aimee, Abby, Charlotte and more. These character's role are much inspired from horror movies, like The Exorcist movie franchise + The Exorcist, a novel written by author and filmmaker, William Peter Blatty. The elements of SEED are very much similar to other horror novels and other books as well. And the story line of SEED is well written (Even though SEED may contain grammer errors and other conjuctions, but it doesn't matter. It happens a lot), the plot of the book is fantastically marvelous, filled with scares and treats that will blow your mind good. I give this book five stars because its marvelous and what I just said in my previous sentences (Yes Yes Yes, I write things imperfect, but it happens), and especially that my nice friend, Ania just created a book that's very well creative. I recommend anyone to buy this book if anyone loves to read any books that involves monsters and ghouls. I love this book!! PLEASE read this book and you will be so satisfied to read Ania's first ever book.

I recently learned that I tend to write in the horror genre. I don't read horror so it really didn't cross my mind. So I did some research on the subject and in my research I stumbled across Ania Ahlborn's Seed. I thought it had a cool title--Seed, and you can just keep saying it, "Seed, Seed, Seed, Seed." It's always cool. And unlike other horror covers, it didn't look cheesy, stupid, forced or anything else that might make you not pick it up. And, oh, yeah, it was .99 cents. Here's my thing with horror, or my preconceived notion of horror--I don't like that it tries to scare you. Because I just don't scare. And this book was no different. It didn't scare me but it did something better--it got me involved in the characters and when it needed to be creepy it was a deep creepy that I had to think about. There were a number of places where I paused and put myself in the room with the characters and understood the moment whole-heartedly. It's simply a good piece of writing that doesn't let up. The story goes like this: Jack has parts of his past that he's forgotten because of trauma or other forces. Either way he's forgotten it and the story slowly bleeds this information out nicely. He truly starts to think about his past when the same type of events that happened to him begins to happen to his youngest daughter, Charlie. The story stays away from an intricate arc and instead focuses on tone; mood, you know, stuff to mess with your head. Real fun stuff. Jack's wife Aimee is great throughout. You just buy her, and believe her. Period. Outside of Jack being haunted he plays the male role in the house with his wife and two daughters well. The younger daughter, Charlie, who reminded me of the little girl from Poltergeist, is great as the maybe possessed younger daughter, only sometimes she has shark teeth and a lot of attitude. The bummer is that she won't hesitate to string you up to a tree by your intestines. Anyway, the point is the story is worth reading. There aren't any road blocks for the characters to get over, not really. There is a very clever illusion that there is but it's not really there. Jack is in a band. Not so much a hurdle. They could use more money in their life, but you don't get the sense any decisions is going to be made on this fact. Rather the story goes through where it should go through, the demon of Jack's past that is following him from childhood. It's not to say I would have made every decision as far as story went. One thing I might have done different towards the end is make Aimee closer to Jack. Would have loved to see her and Jack team up and handle their business when the climax finally comes. The results wouldn't have mattered and I don't think it would have changed the story but it sure would have brought an extra sense of purpose and empathy. I read this on my kindle and it is well formatted and also not too long. Buy this book. Read this book. U.L. Harper was here. U.L. Harper is the author of several books including In Blackness which you can find at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and smashwords.com for $2.99 and everywhere books are sold. Or join the hundreds on the goodreads.com giveaway.

Absolutely loved this book! Had just the right amount of everything from backstory to details, horror…I was not expecting the ending at all and loved it! She is becoming one of my favorite authors

This review can also be seen on horrornovelsreviews(dot)com Coming from a Hollywood screenwriting background, I tend to approach stories from a conceptual standpoint - what is the hook or big idea (the high-concept in Hollywood speak) that drives the narrative and makes it stand out from the pack? Seed by Ania Ahlborn feels at first like it is mining well-trodden territory - on the surface it plays like another possession story. But great writing and effective scares elevate the material. Ahlborn takes familiar tropes and gives them a new whirl - there are a number of spine-chilling scenes that linger in the reader's imagination. There is one shock-moment in particular where one of the parents checks on their possessed child early in the novel that really packs a punch. The demon/villain of the piece is also effectively visualized and the moments where we actually catch a glimpse of the dark entity are effectively creepy. But beyond the special effects, the story is powered by relatable themes that serve as the psychological underpinning for the surface chills and action. The parents of the possessed child are having financial/family issues. The husband is still chasing the dream of making it big as a musician and the romance of a bohemian lifestyle is losing some of its appeal as the financial responsibilities of adulthood become more encroaching. Add some heady familial pressure to the mix with a disapproving mother-in-law, and you have a dramatic powder keg that serves as effective subtext for the spooky goings-ons. As the novel unfolds, Ahlborn also throws a curveball at the reader and adds a twist that separates it from all other possession stories I've come across in my reading. This isn't an isolated incident but history repeating itself as we learn that the husband was possessed in his youth by the same demon that is now tormenting his daughter. This element adds bit of frustration to the read- the husband never comes clean about his past and how it relates to what his daughter is going through but his reticence ultimately make sense within the context of the tale. Overall, this is an excellent read, and it is clear why Amazon picked up this indie and optioned it for film - it has horror movie written all over it. Ahlborn recently released The Shuddering which has hit the top of my reading queue and little is known of her newest piece, The Bird Eater, slated for next March, but the highly evocative title has my attention. Ahlborn is a new voice in horror, and I'm eagerly looking forward to what she has to say next.

The first thing potential readers should know is that while Seed does have its creepy moments, it's not a scary book. There are some graphic scenes described in great detail (especially as the entity's power grows), but to anyone who has read a few horror novels, this is nothing new. SO, let's hop right in. I'll list spoilery pros and cons separately near the bottom. Pros: The premise is interesting, and the story will keep you turning pages just to see how it all pans out. Some of the plot twists were pretty clever, and while not like 'omg no way!' I for one didn't see them coming. There are some genuinely creepy moments, and the ending is pretty ballsy, I'll give it that. Cons: This is definitely a matter of personal taste, so other people may have different opinions, but one of the reasons I had trouble getting invested in the story was just how little I cared for the characters. I sympathized with the main character a bit, but I couldn't stand his daughters or his wife. So I didn't care much what happened to them. Also, for someone who knows what is bothering his family and what it is capable of, the main character sure tolerates a lot of its crap before putting his hero cap on. On another note, we are never really told what the entity looks like, which normally wouldn't be a problem, as readers can fill in the gaps on their own, but the main character is described early on as having a massive tattoo of the thing on his back, one his wife sees quite often. So why can't we know what it looks like? ***SPOLIERY STUFF*** Pros: When the main character finally remembers all that he and his family went through at the hands of the entity and how it possessed him, it was pretty creepy. To have something like that buried deep in your brain is a chilling thought. And the ending had some guts. It's not often that horror stories end with the family brutally murdered and the bad guy skipping away. But it happens here, which I was not expecting. Having the truck driver be an extension of the entity was a nice twist. Cons: As I mentioned before, I found the family really irritating. I have an issue with getting annoyed by characters too easily, but here I honestly wanted his family to die. His wife nags and bugs him constantly, and the kids are just too perfect and too cute. Once the serious stuff starts happening, Aimee totally falls for all of Charlie's crap and Jack and Abigail roll over and take it. I seriously just don't get it. If my younger sibling knocked over her ice cream and then started screaming and crying and blaming me, I would reach over the table and smack her in the face. And if I knew what this entity was capable of and saw it using my daughter to start this cycle over again, then I would get rid of my daughter. Sounds cold and awful, but if it comes down to killing your possessed kid or letting her kill you and your family before leaving to start the whole thing over again, it isn't much of a choice. I'm just of legal age and I would do whatever it took to keep my family safe, no matter how unpleasant, something this grown man is incapable of doing. Which is why he, his wife, and his oldest have such awful ends. Okay enough ranting. I guess in a nutshell I felt like the entire family took this lying down with bellies in the air. At least Jack's parents TRIED to do something. ***END SPOILERY STUFF*** So overall, I wouldn't say this book is awful. Some people may even really like it. But the issues I had with the family and the entity kept me from getting into the story, which kept the tension from building and meant the climax, for me, wasn't much of one. If you like creepy girls and nasty pasts coming back to haunt you and just want something to pass the time, this book is for you. Just be aware that it never gets all that scary and you may find the main characters grating. Since the prose was pretty good and the premise was interesting and all the nitpicks I had were my own fault, I gave it 3 out of 5.

The book is really good

From a bleak childhood, marked by a dark and mysterious shadow, a desperate mushroom with the disturbing hope of hiding the most terrible memories forever. After a horrific car accident, Jack Winter discovers a resurfacing sign; what tormented him as a child has returned. A nightmare that this time demands the whole family. A breathless read, with bated breath that grows and relentlessly. A story waiting to be discovered.

Muy entretenido, se lee enseguida. Nunca había leído nada por esta escritora, y este libro me sorprendió gratamente. A ver cuando saca el siguiente.

I was going to give this 3 stars for my overall enjoyment of it but it deserves 4 stars for the writing alone. I really loved the writing style of this book; simple, immediate and very believable prose that sucked me in from line one. The story is centred around Jack, Aimee and their little family of two young daughters. Life is tough, money is in short supply and while Aimee's parents are on hand they don't approve of Jack. Jack is estranged from his own parents and the reason for this unfolds during the course of the book. The horror starts one night when Jack is driving the family home. A pair of eyes that suddenly appear before him causing him to swerve the car and crash. Those eyes belong to something from Jacks dark past; what he hoped was over forever isn't - it's back and with a vengeance. Mixed in with a little back story here and there is a fast paced account of the return of Jack's nightmare and it is pure horror, quite graphic and shocking at times. *****Spoiler alert***** What, for me, could have been a five star+ read diminished considerably in the last chapter. The ending would have suited a very chilling short story and, as such, would have been fine but, for me , the investment of time and the attachments formed with the family through the length of a novel; (though it is quite a short one) meant that the gruesome outcome with no hope for this family or future generations was horrific in a way that gave no satisfaction or even a sense of closure. I felt flabbergasted by the certainty that a six year old girl was going to grow up through all the travails of life only to be horribly murdered by her own child. I suppose the only way to break the `cycle' would be for one generation to remain childless but then the `infected' one seems to go through a period of life when they are unaware and the evil is `dormant' until it is too late. I didn't expect, or think it appropriate for Seed to have a fairytale ending but just one glimmer of good prevailing, would, for me, have made all the difference.

Lo compré para un amigo, le gustó mucho