Book Review: The Reaping by Bernard Taylor

Book Review: 'The Reaping' by Bernard Taylor

4 / 5 Stars

'The Reaping' first was published in hardcover (237 pp.) by St. Martin's Press in 1980. A mass market paperback edition was published by Leisure Books in February 1982. The Leisure Books paperback edition is rather pricey; also available is a Valancourt Books paperback reprint, published in November, 2023, under the 'Paperbacks from Hell' imprint. The Valancourt edition has memorable cover art; certainly, more memorable than that of the hardcover and Leisure editions.......

'The Reaping' is set in the UK in the early 1980s. The protagonist is a middle-aged man named Tom Rigby who owns and operates an arts and crafts store in London. The store is a successful enterprise, but Rigby has considerable angst over his failure to live out his dream of being a celebrated artist. 

 

[Like many protagonists in Paperbacks from Hell, Rigby is a moron. Much of the storyline is propelled by his being too dimwitted to understand that he's lurching into some questionable situations.]  

 

His girlfriend, an attractive young woman named Ilona, is willing to date a widower with young children, but with a burgeoning career as a makeup artist, traveling around the world to film sets, Ilona is reluctant to take the relationship further than the casual stage. In the opening chapters we learn that Ilona's career aspirations are a source of tension in her relationship with Rigby.

When Rigby gets an offer from a matron named Mrs Weldon for a portrait-painting commission, for a healthy fee, initially he rejects it. But several chapters into the novel Rigby does agree to the commission, and travels to the Somerset countryside and an isolated estate known as Woolvercombe House. Woolvercombe houses a collection of eccentrics, foremost among them the mistress of the house, a crone named Miss Stewart. It is she who has commissioned the painting; the subject is Stewart's ward, a stunning girl named Catherine.

 

Rigby is told he can stay at Woolvercombe as long as needed to complete the painting, but finding his artistic ambitions renewed, he quickly gets to work painting Catherine.

 

As the days progress Rigby becomes aware of strange places and people on the grounds of the estate. There is the cohort of young women who wear nun's habits, and reside on a parcel of the grounds that is off-limits to Rigby. A room in the House that is outfitted as a medical clinic. A strange medieval tower, also located on a portion of the estate that is prohibited to visitors.  

 

Rigby's disquiet at the goings-on at Woolvercombe further are complicated when Catherine comes to his bedroom at night, in a decidedly amorous mood. Is she a damsel in distress, awarding her potential rescuer ?

 

As Rigby is about to discover, what he doesn't know about Woolvercombe House and its strange activities is going to rebound upon him, with unpleasant consequences...........

'The Reaping' is another of those novels ('Rosemary's Baby,' 'The Other,' 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane,' 'Burnt Offerings,' etc.) published early in the Paperbacks from Hell era, when 'good taste' demanded that the horror content be introduced with deliberation. It was commonplace for authors to salt their narratives with episodes of mild creepiness, but withhold more graphic depictions of grue and terror until well into the denouement. Unsurprisingly, these more dilatory horror novels required considerable patience from the reader.

I had my doubts about 'The Reaping' until well into the denouement, but there, I must say, author Taylor does deliver revelations and horrors that are well-crafted, uncontrived, and adequately repay the reader for his or her investment.

 

I'm fine with giving 'The Reaping' a rating of Four Stars. As the review at Too Much Horror Fiction states, readers must prepare for "Suspense [that] builds in workmanlike style," and if this appeals to you, then this Paperback from Hell is worth acquiring.