Blister Paperback – July 13, 2016

Dammit Jeff Strand! I had other things I wanted to do this weekend, but I made the mistake of peeking at the first few pages of Blister and next thing I knew I was stuck on the couch for three hours. What a great read! Strand’s protagonist is Jason Tray. Yes, you’ve heard of him; daily comic strip artist and creator of Zeb the Beetle. Thirty-eight years old, divorced, and slightly reclusive, Tray has been known to make the occasional poor decision. And it’s surprising the kind of trouble a cheap Halloween costume, lots of blood and a fake chainsaw can lead to. Tray’s sent to hide out in his agent’s cabin in the woods. Well, already you’re getting the picture… Blister is a dark cottage in the woods suspense with all the accoutrements of your traditional horror story: murder, arson, small town superstition and intrigue. Throw in some vigilante justice, a surfeit of booze and a damsel imprisoned in a shed and you have all the ingredients for cracking good read. A pacy character driven narrative with moments of poignancy, hilarity, and wet-your-pants terror, Blister is about as much fun as you can have with a blowtorch.

Blister by Jeff Strand is a combination horror story, murder mystery, crime novel, comedy, search for justice, and love story, with at touch of backwoods culture thrown in. It is just so much fun to read that you won’t be able to put it down.Jason Tray is a popular cartoonist that isn’t handling stress very well. (Actually, his striking out was kind of funny.) So his agent lends Jason his cabin in the woods by a lake in rural Georgia to spend some time relaxing and fishing and get his head to a good place. What could possibly go wrong?One evening, Jason wanders into a local bar and ends up playing pool with some fine, upstanding, young local men. One beer leads to another, and the pool boys drag Jason out to the woods to catch a glimpse of a horribly disfigured monster, who is locally referred to as “Blister”, do to her her face covered with cuts and burns. Just some good clean backwoods fun.Sobering up the next day, Jason is personally ashamed of his juvenile behavior, so he decides that he should go back to Blister’s cabin and apologize to her for being a dick. This “monster” is a young woman named Rachel who was violently assaulted by a rejected boyfriend a few years ago and has been hiding out from society since the assault in a cabin on her father’s woodsy property. The boyfriend hasn’t been seen since the night of the assault, and the townspeople assume he just ran away. Right.One kindness leads to another and Jason the Rachel (aka “Blister”) begin to spend more and more time together. Oddly, this makes some of the local lads very unhappy, and they attempt to convince Jason to leave and never come back. Nothing suspicious there.Jeff Strand can create an alternate reality of wacky horror, violence, and slapstick comedy that is just an unbelievable tale of craziness. He gives Jason an irreverent sense of sarcasm and dark humor that serve him well in navigating this backwoods nut house. All this is layered on a violent tale of crime and a search for justice that Jason has put in motion to the everlasting disapproval of almost everyone else wrapped up in this sordid mess. You will race through reading this book to see what happens next.I am putting Jeff Strand on my “must read” list. He has the rare ability to make you laugh and cringe in horror at the same time.

This is a light, quick read. It’s almost paradoxical in that I found myself frustrated at times because the story misleads you into believing it might be predictable, but characters don’t always adhere to archetypes, and the plot doesn’t twist as much as I had expected.Finally I realized this wasn’t a bad thing. What we have here is a book that gently plays with your expectations right from the beginning. You think you know what is coming next, and what you want to come next. Then the book will take you on a different trajectory.Strand is often considered a horror writer, but this book is more of a bizarre love story with a light pinch of horror thrown in for good measure. You can tell this dude thinks outside the box when he writes. And it isn’t contrived. He doesn’t come across like he’s trying to go where few others roam. It just happens organically.I liked it. It reminded me how much I have come to rely on genre conventions, and how deviations result in pleasant surprises.

Jason Tray is a cartoonist who lives a secluded life. One day he gets into trouble and his agent sends him to his cabin in a very small town. Jason meets Rachael (Blister) who was horribly disfigured on her 18th birthday, she has spent her last five years in a small shed behind her dad's house. Jason and Rachael form a strong relationship. In this strange small town is vigilante conspiracy and some major twists to this amazing story.

You know when you come across a book that piques your interest enough for you to add it to that wish list of yours? It may be some time before you get round to purchasing it and by then you’ve forgotten what enticed you in the first place. But it’s all good, the past-you must have made a good call so, trusting your previous judgment you dive head-first into it.And then you realise that the book isn’t really what you thought it would be.Well that scenario is exactly what happened with me here.The covers shows a gauzed-up chick shushing you. It’s a great cover and one that seemingly sold me. The book is about a severely disfigured girl whose been locked away from the world for five years. That’s probably as far as I read blurb-wise and if I’d have researched more into it I may not have actually read it.See, I like my horror. This is not a horror story. Although the subject of the girl’s quite frankly abysmal face is horrific, it’s pretty much a romance tale. Maybe a metaphor for beauty only being skin deep, eye of the beholder stuff, and for ignoring what others say and think in order to pursue your own happiness. So no, not a horror novel at all.But guess what? After all that, I really enjoyed it. My previous-self was definitely on to something.Jason Tray, a cartoonist, is advised to spend a few days in his agent’s secluded cabin in Georgia, while a certain ‘bad PR’ incident he was involved in is left to settle. Perhaps my media knowledge is lacking, but I felt this a little unlikely. Is Jason that famous? Anyway, it doesn’t matter too much, it gets the plot going pretty early on and without it, well, he wouldn’t be able to embark on his journey of love.Rachel, or Blister, was the victim of a blowtorch attack five years ago. From then on her father has kept her locked away in the shed, away from the staring eyes of the locals in the small town. When Jason gets bored with his boring cabin, he befriends some of the residents in the local boozer and is taken to witness the town freak for himself.At first he’s disgusted (say what you like, but we would all be a little shocked at this, to say the least), but Jason’s a good guy and feels bad about his reaction, so returns the next day to offer his apologies to Rachel and her father.And then he falls for her.The locals don’t take too kindly to this outsider taking an interest in their freak. As the novel progresses the details of Rachel’s ordeal become clearer, with flashbacks to the night in question when her whole world fell apart.Think kind-of redneck, small town America where everyone knows everyone else’s business. It makes you wonder why Jason wanted to hang around longer than he had to.The pacing was great, and the humour that Jason uses to relay his story caused more than a few chuckles to reverberate around my house. But I kept asking myself why he was doing all this for a burn victim he barely knew, it did seem a little far-fetched to be honest. Maybe I’m too much of a shallow, selfish prick.However, my disbelief was suspended enough to breeze through this book in only a few sittings, such was the awesome story telling. This was my first foray into Jeff Strand’s work, but it won’t be the last, I’ve already read that this is a departure from his usual style.So if you’re a fan of horror who fancies reading something a little more romantic, but without having to go full-on mush, this novel is a decent one to plump for!

What a refreshing change to find a book that held my attention all the way through. The story line is very good and the way that it is written is totally believable. The characters come to life and one can feel their emotions incredibly well. Some of the final parts to the story were a little hard to imagine as being realistic but they worked nonetheless. I was also delighted to find that someone had proof read this book and corrected any of the stupid mistakes that are all too prevalent at the moment.I read a vast amount and of late had almost despaired of finding a book that would capture my interest. This one did and I confess that despite being a cliche I did not put it down until I had finished it, about 3 hours after my normal bed time. If you want horror this is not for you. If you want a darn good story with a touch of romance and some mildly gruesome scenes then you may enjoy this. As a matter of interest, I regularly write reviews and this is, I think, the first 5 star review that I have ever given. Thank you to the author.

Blister - 5/5By Jeff StrandThis book was brilliant. This book has been on my wish list for months and as soon as it arrived I had to read it.As always it is so easy to get into books by this author. From the cover and the blurb I was expecting quite a twisted dark horror - however, it ended up being a fast paced thriller that had the perfect amount of romance thrown in!This is possibly my favourite Jeff Strand book! I would definitely recommend reading this as an introduction to his work!

Loved this book, read it all in one sitting, it had everything going on, tears, laughter, drama and horror, the story was well written, I would like another book with the same characters, I highly recommend the book.

Wow, what a brilliant book! It had a bit of comedy, horror, love, and also made me cry. Everything you could want in a story. From the very first page it had me gripped and I couldn't put it down. I want to be best friends with the main characters and I imagine I'll be thinking about them for a long time to come. Read it or weep!!!