Flashback Friday is a weekly tradition started here at Bookshelf Fantasies, focusing on showing some love for the older books in our lives and on our shelves. If you’d like to join in, just pick a book published at least five years ago, post your Flashback Friday pick on your blog, and let us all know about that special book from your reading past and why it matters to you. Don’t forget to link up!

This week on Flashback Friday:

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez
(published 2008)

 Synopsis (Goodreads):

Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them. Home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all…

And from Publishers Weekly:

Novelist Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box, crafts a gripping account of the shattered Locke family’s attempt to rebuild after the father/husband is murdered by a deranged high school student and the family subsequently moving in with the deceased father’s brother at the family homestead in Maine. But as anyone who has read horror fiction in the past 70-odd years will tell you, it’s a bad idea to try to leave behind the gruesome goings-on in your life by moving to an island named Lovecraft. What begins as a study in coping with grief soon veers into creepy territory as the youngest Locke discovers a doorway with decidedly spectral qualities, along with a well that houses someone or something that desperately wants out and will use any means available to gain freedom, including summoning the teenage murderer who set events in motion in the first place. To say more would give away many of the surprises the creative team provides, but this first of hopefully several volumes delivers on all counts, boasting a solid story bolstered by exceptional work from Chilean artist Rodriguez (Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show) that resembles a fusion of Rick Geary and Cully Hamner with just a dash of Frank Quitely.

The sixth and final volume of this amazing series was just published in February, and I hate to admit that I haven’t read it yet… but I have read volumes 1 – 5, and was simply blown away by the storytelling and the illustration. Not for the faint-of-heart, the Locke & Key series is disturbing, brutal, and awful, but also clever, wildly unpredictable, and tightly woven. Using the comics medium to tell a suspenseful horror tale, both the writer and illustrator are in complete control of their story. The story itself is un-put-down-able, and the artwork is intense, creative, mind-boggling, and sometimes almost too much to look at (and I mean that in the best way possible).

I’ve been holding off on reading #6 (Alpha & Omega) until I have time to re-read the first five volumes, since the impact is that much greater when read all in a row. But I really need to do it! Meanwhile, if you’re a horror fan looking for something new, check out the beginning of the Locke & Key series. Chances are, you won’t be able to stop with just one volume.

What flashback book is on your mind this week?

Note from your friendly Bookshelf Fantasies host: To join in the Flashback Friday fun:

• Grab the Flashback Friday button
• Post your own Flashback Friday entry on your blog (and mention Bookshelf Fantasies as the host of the meme, if you please!)
  
• Leave your link in the comments below
  
• Check out other FF posts… and discover some terrific hidden gems to add to your TBR piles!

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