NIGHTMARE KING

A boy just wants his old life back, but the Nightmare King has different plans.

Twelve-year-old Shane has finally recovered from a game of tag that went tragically wrong, landing him in the hospital with gaps in his memory and scars on his torso. He thinks things are looking up when he is finally cleared to play on the basketball team after having to take a year off. Unable to perform at his previously high skill level, however, Shane begins to doubt himself. To top it off, he starts having terrible nightmares, even worse than the ones he had after his accident. When Shane starts falling asleep at random times, coming to with fresh bruises and objects pulled from his nightmares, his twin sister, Sadie, and best friend, Doc, begin to worry about him. In this novel featuring a central cast that is cued Black, Hermon creates a middle-grade horror world that involves a Nightmare King who collects talented children. Unfortunately, despite the quality of the prose, the story takes a long time to build up to the parts that will get readers spooked. A lot of time is spent dragging out the details of Shane’s accident and exploring his self-doubt; readers won’t experience any significant creep factor until later in the book and might lose patience hoping for the scary parts to play out.

Well-written, but there’s a long wait for the scares.