Hex; The Lake

I've been reading a lot of horror lately, which is great, I really liked this one. It was originally published in Dutch and he reworked it a bit for American audiences, changing the setting and apparently the ending too. I spent some time online trying to find out what the original ending was, but didn't come up with anything and got bored of looking :) at any rate. In the Hudson Valley, there's a town called Black Springs, and they are being haunted by a witch that's 350+ years old. She just pops up in people's houses, her mouth and eyes stitched shut. The townspeople are used to Katherine and have strict rules about keeping her existence a secret. Folks who live in Black Springs aren't allowed to leave for more than a few days at a time, otherwise they commit suicide. Newbies are strongly discouraged from moving into town, because once they are there, they have to stay, they are cursed as well. Tyler is seventeen years old and convinced he and his friends can break free from Katherine's spell. A few of his friends get in trouble for taunting Katherine, though, and all hell breaks loose. Literally. It was creepy, I enjoyed it.

Wasn't such a fan of "The Lake" by Richard Laymon. He has a very, shall we say, male idea of how women think about sex (i.e. no). It starts out with seventeen year old Deana going off into the woods with her boyfriend only to watch him get murdered by a crazy lunatic. She's really traumatized, so traumatized she goes out literally the next night and meets another guy she starts fantasizing about hooking up with (in graphic detail) (again, no). The book then takes an odd twist when we learn that the details of how her mother got pregnant with her. Her mother starts a relationship with the police officer who comes around after the boyfriend was murdered. Because sure, why not? It's quite clear to anyone with half a brain cell that this cop is bad news, but it never occurs to either of these two bimbos (and I don't use that word lightly). He has everyone talk in a very casual slang, even people who barely know each other, which just put me off, and again, the women constantly thinking about sex EVEN WHEN THEIR LIVES ARE IN MORTAL PERIL was just ridiculous. It was good for a laugh at first, but after awhile it got tiresome.