Product Description

Alice, a deaf-mute, has a vision of a lady in white who says she is the immaculate conception. Suddenly Alice can speak, hear, and perform miracles. The visitation site becomes a shrine. But Alice is no longer the guileless child overwhelmed by her new saintliness. She has become the agent of something corrupt, a vile force centuries old.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47180 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 534 pages

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable but predictable possession story
James Herbert's previous novels have all been short and pacey affairs, but with Shrine the author has veered into Stephen King territory, and produced a bloated brick of a novel. The upside to this is the controlled build-up gives this novel a more rounded feel than his sometimes pulpy shorter novels, but the downside is that the action sometimes drags, (in fact the novel seems to peak midway through with the most gruesome car crash I've ever read).

The initial premise is intriguing: a deaf-mute girl experiences a vision and can suddenly hear and speak - soon the area where this occurred becomes a shrine, and while the girl's healing powers seem to be a force for good an undercurrent of evil seems to be stirring...

Herbert does well slowly building up the media circus and mass hysteria that grows around the girl, and examining the conflict of interests between the religious authorities and local businesses over hyping the shrine. Unfortunately when the revelation comes as to what's really happening to the girl it turns out to be a very obvious and well-worn tale of possession by a long-dead evil, with even the manner of the revelation (an uncovered old tome telling the tale - "I leave this warning for those who seek it" etc) being rather hackneyed. I also felt Herbert should have shown us more of how the girl at the centre of these events felt, rather than just concentrating on the reactions of those around her.

The ending of the novel is somewhat flawed as well, as while the shift from agnostic to religious believer for the hero is perfect thematically, from a plotting point of view the hero is an impotent bystander at the novels climax. With his actions having no bearing whatsoever on either the resolution of the plot or the defeat of the evil the hero does come off as rather pointless, ultimately turning out to be more of an observer than a participant.

Shrine is still a mostly enjoyable and well-written book, it's only real failing is that it's telling a tale that has been told many times before in the horror genre - as such this is a book I'd recommend more to newcomers than long-time readers of weird fiction. A slightly new spin on a very old idea.

Let it Shrine
Some books have flaws, but I really still enjoy them. 'Shrine' is one such book. Fenn is your typical local town reporter and he does not think anything exciting is going to happen on his night shift. This can't be further from the truth when he stumbles across a small girl lying in the road. She takes him to a strange tree and turns and speaks one sentence; nothing odd about this? It turns out that Alice is a deaf mute and that her talking is a miracle. Alice becomes increasingly drawn towards the tree and slowly a following of people gather to see her. It seems that she can harness the power of Mary to heal the ill, but is this a divine power for good or evil?

I really enjoyed the concept of 'Shrine' as it was not only a horror thriller, but an interesting discussion how religion and the media would treat a modern miracle. The book does feel a bit dated, but the core still holds up really well. I found the gentle pace matched the story perfectly and that the action set pieces in particular were described well.

I can see why some people find this book average as the pace is slow, it's dated and the middle is better than the end. However, for me the central threads of the story make it a lot better than its parts and it made me think about the story long after I finished reading it. This is the best complement that I can give a book.

Rushed and ill thought.
This book is okay but as other people have pointed out the ending does not really fit in and left me feeling a bit deflated after reading over 500 odd pages I`d expected a tense and unexpected ending but it was too predictable and not at all well thought out...definately one to miss.