David Roderick
If you believe that a wealth of knowledge in the histories of: science & technology, Asia/Pacific, Film, and American History would be fertile ground for a historical horror novelist. You’d be right. Robert Herold’s second book, ‘Moonlight Becomes You’ (witty title, by they way), places his Eidola Project members in grave peril. Team members are specialists and gifted talents who, in the later 1800s, approach the supernatural as researchers and explorers. In their second outing they respond to a request to aid in solving some gruesome murders in a small southern community. In addition to the pleasure of a well-crafted, suspenseful who-done-it, we are witness to the lives of a community of African-Americans working, worshiping and surviving in a post-Civil war southern community. The story excites, scares and teaches. A fine combination for a veteran teacher. Robert Herold brings to his books decades of research and instruction… you feel witness to the characters’ lives and ways of life. Couple that with a sound sense of the macabre and you have a top drawer story. You, sir, are indeed a verified scholar and a gentleman.
Phil Shallat
"Moonlight Becomes You" – an advance copy of which I received in exchange for this review – is the sequel to “The Eidola Project”, which launched author Herold’s team of paranormal investigators into the world of late 19th Century America. "Moonlight" finds the newly minted quintet of paranormal investigators summoned to reconstructionist Petersburg, Virginia by a black pastor whose community has been terrorized by a series of flamboyantly grisly deaths. Excising this demon, whose mayhem expands as it is provoked, awakens private demons within members of the paranormal task-force which must be excised as well. The atmosphere of menace is exacerbated by the intervention and violence of the Ku Klux Klan. Herold maneuvers his cast of characters through this Gothic plot of multiple spinning plates with a sure grasp of pacing, an observant eye for detail, a keen understanding of history and the social mores of the time about which he writes, and a sharp ear for the cadence of creepiness. The reader can only anticipate the further blossoming of these talents as this series of paranormal romps down the fog-shrouded by-ways of “gaslight” America continues. Well worth the read.
Sandy Nygaard
It was fun to travel with the Eidola group on their second scary journey. Werewolves and witches and Klansmen, oh my! So many frightening beings. Who are the real monsters, the ones that roam at full moon, or the ones who ride horses through the night with their torches and white robes and by day masquerade as pillars of the community? Into this fiendish mix drop the members of the Eidola Project, each of them battling their own personal demons as they attempt to solve the mystery of who or what is behind the vicious attacks on those who venture out at night. Every chapter brings new challenges, new revelations, and new adventures, right up to its surprising end. This review is based on an advance readers copy of the book.