Sweetheart, Sweetheart Horror Book Review

Bernard Taylor is one of the horror genre’s greatest authors and has never received the accolades for his talent that he should have, especially outside of England.  His second novel, Sweetheart, Sweetheart, first published way back in 1977 capitalised on the momentum from his debut novel The Godsend and proved he was no one hit wonder.  Although he hasn’t published as large a volume of work as say Stephen King you can rest assured that when you pick up one of his novels it will always be good.  His most terrifying novels in my opinion are the ones that don’t involve the supernatural at all and instead show the world the true evil of humans and I recommend you don’t leave the library, bookstore, Amazon or wherever you get your books from without reading his masterpiece Mother’s Boys!  If you want something that will make it hard to sleep at night, then that’s the novel for you.


In the classic and ageless Sweetheart, Sweetheart, David returns to England after living in the USA to visit his twin brother and wife and check out their countryside cottage they’ve been raving about.  To his shock and heartbreak he learns from his estranged father that his brother actually died in a car crash, his funeral’s been and gone and that he has actually inherited his brother’s cottage.  Puzzled as to why his brother didn’t leave the cottage to his wife Helen instead of him, David decides to visit the cottage and find out why.  At the cottage he meets Jean Timmins who reluctantly tells him where he can find Helen, which is the cemetery.  His brother and his brother’s wife both died violent deaths outside the cottage within a week of each other and Jean and others in the nearby village seem reluctant to give him any details.  David decides to stay on until he finds out exactly what happened. It seems someone who regularly visits the cottage will kill to have him around permanently anyway.