I’m thrilled to see reviews for my ghostly gothic horror mystery novel Spectre of Springwell Forest continue to pour in. Here are a sample.

Increasingly famous horror maestro Neil D’Silva (who I recently interviewed on this blog) had this to say (full review on Amazon):

“I recently had the pleasure of reading Simon Dillon’s Spectre of Springwell Forest, my first from his oeuvre. And I must say, I was quite taken by it… A horror fan like me was impressed by this creepy feeling that the scenes slowly unravelled… You cannot shake off the feeling that something is constantly watching you. The author’s choice to use first-person narrative only helps to boost this feeling… But the biggest pull for the book is the climactic revelation. Here, the author deserves full points. Though there is a good deal of foreshadowing, few might anticipate how the story turns.”

Next up, another fellow author, the excellent Claus Holm (who I also recently interviewed on this blog), had this to say (full review on Amazon):

“As a horror fanatic, it takes a lot to scare me in writing. Very few books manage to do it, but Simon Dillon’s Spectre of Springwell Forest gave me nightmares! That’s saying something! After reading this book, you will never look at a painting of a tunnel the same way again… I can’t recommend the book enough, if you want something well-written, believable, and scary for a cold, dark night.”

Pretty exciting stuff, and wonderful to get the endorsement of such talented writers. Elsewhere, I’ve had a few other recent Amazon five-star raves for Spectre of Springwell Forest, including this one from Alice in Germany, which I rather like. It’s another of those “I don’t like horror but…” variants, which always amuse me a little.

“For someone who doesn’t normally read horror novels, I positively relished reading Spectre of Springwell Forest, which admittedly alarmed me a bit. I couldn’t put it down. It’s a gripping page turner to the very end. I enjoyed the eerie, gothic atmosphere; the first-person narration and how that leaves us guessing as to how reliable the main character really is in her narration. Is she imaging things? Is it really happening? Or is it something else altogether? I enjoy that kind of storytelling, not least because it’s very well-written. And that painting …eek! I will never be able to look at gloomy landscape paintings again without inadvertently checking whether it has that certain something in it…” (Alice, Amazon)

I’ll end with this snippet of another Amazon five-star review that reflects the slow-burn nature of the novel’s central mystery:

“I didn’t expect the twist at the end till it was upon me and I had no escape route!” (Ciaran, Amazon)

Intrigued? Pick up your copy of Spectre of Springwell Forest here (in the UK) and here (in the US).