Wicked Temper

By: Randy Thornhorn

Narrated by: Randy Thornhorn

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

To Kill a Mockingbird collides with Deliverance!

Hitch a wild-ass ride with two runaway teens - the runty but tough preacher's girl, Tizzy Polk, and her punk boyfriend, Matthew. They might think they are Bonnie and Clyde, but they might also race headlong into an evil far greater than their own. They may come to see things darkly different and seldom seen on that bewitched mountain known below as Riddle Top.

Take care, folks say in story and song. Watch your step. And beware up there where the wind doth howl like the hellhound electric. Up there, where Tizzy and Matthew come knocking on a strange door. For nobody knows what awaits once you've disturbed your disturbing host. Your hands are in his hands now.

And the scariest thing of all? He's got all the time in this world.

Stark, poetic, and haunting, Wicked Temper unfolds like a waking fever dream, a rockabilly heart of darkness - the kind you can kill but it don't stop beating.

Because in the long and jagged shadow of Riddle Top lies a mountain world of unholy mirth and madness of gods and demons you never knew existed....

Wicked Temper is the premeditated prequel to Randy Thornhorn's The Kestrel Waters.

©1996 Randy Thornton (P)2015 Randy Thornton

Slowly builds - interesting, different

This story is slow, long, drawn out but ultimately creepy and satisfying to a horror fan such as myself. Just enough dark, brooding, spooky suspense mixed with backwoods banjo-playing ambiance to keep it interesting. Wish the author had gone into more depth about the importance of the "hands" or maybe I just wasn't reading carefully enough. I may want to revisit this one, since there seems to be a lot of deep thoughts worth meditating over. For example, young Tizzy's statement that if you get turned around and head down the wrong path, you wind up in unfit places.
Overall, I liked it. Maybe there will be a part 2.

listening to this book was surreal and unsettling

This is a tale about Tizzy Polk and Matthew “RebelYell” Birdnell, both in their early teens. Both have their own crosses to bear – both want out of their current situations but can only find peace and freedom in their dreams at night when all is quiet and calm – for Izzy there are no yelling alcoholic preacher daddy’s or any dead end pig farming futures for Matthew in their nightly dreams. Matthew decides one day to remedy the situation. Matthew and Tizzy go on a stealing spree that leaves one little old lady dead in their wake. They have now crossed over the line from which they cannot return like Bonnie & Clyde.

Scurrying past the police, these two kids take to Riddle Top Ridge seeking a safe place to hide out. There they find more than they bargained.

This is my first Randy Thornhorn book but it is not my last! While I do not enjoy audiobooks that contain sound effects, the ones included in this rendition are very appropriate and important to the story. The dialect used in this story is very accurate and his ability to slide from one character to another is amazing. Thornhorn narrates his own novel and it is a move that I found very entertaining and riveting.

His use of vivid descriptions and details connects the reader to the characters completely. They are haunted; they just don’t know it yet. Thornhorn’s drawl is perfect and he’s mastered the ability to write the dialect, speak it and I would assume even dream in it. For those that are old enough, the references to different “sayings and actions” are spot on; for those too young, Thornhorn is presenting you with something that was one a very real part of life. Here in Thornhorn’s tale, “Old Wives Tales” are very real and very deadly.

The experience of listening to this book was surreal and unsettling in a scary thrilling way. His writing is unsettling – dark, almost poetic and smooth. As a listener you are drawn in and are as trapped in this tale as his characters Izzy and Matthew.

His plot and characters were well developed, if there were any inconsistencies they were not noticeable nor did they detract from the story.

There were no production issues at all.

Audiobook provided for review by the author.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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