Review 41: Banshee Angel of Judgement by Billy Young

Banshee Angel of Judgement
by Billy Young
Copyright: © 2008
$12.60 Paperback
$2.27 E-Book
206 Pages

We’ve had a hauntingly good time this month, have we not?  Not only have we covered a nice selection of Lulu books from the horror and supernatural genre, but we also added a new reviewer to the team.  LK Gardner-Griffie is a fabulous writer focusing on young adult literature, and we are looking forward to what her fresh new voice has to bring in the upcoming months.

For our last Halloween Review this month, I searched for something that would resonate meaning and fear if it were read or told out loud.  After all, one of the long standing traditions of Halloween is telling ghost stories around the campfire.  I didn’t have to search far because one such story found us instead.  It’s called Banshee Angel of Judgement, by Billy Young.

Before reading Mr. Young’s book, I decided to Google the word “banshee.”  I discovered that in Irish folklore, a banshee is a spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to or is heard by members of a family as a sign that one of them is about to die.

In Billy Young’s frightening tale, she was falsely accused of witchcraft and is about to be released from her prison in a dark cabin cellar behind a wall where she has been entombed for many many years.  Frankie and Mandy have just moved into the old cottage, despite the rumors of it being haunted by a terrible ghost.  After exploring the cellar and prying a crucifux off the wall, unbeknownst to Mandy she sets the banshee loose.

Immediately, the banshee picks up her jar in which she plans to collect souls.  As the souls grow weak, the banshee grows stronger and goes screeching through the woods at night, a horrible cry that sends fear coursing through your veins if you hear it.  Throughout the book, the haunted cottage attracts various visitors who pass by it.  Despite what they’ve heard, they seek shelter there unaware of what is waiting inside for them.

I would love to be able to hear the author tell this story out loud.  There is enough mystery and intrigue, various plot lines, and an array of complex characters to definitely keep the pages turning.  The short chapters and the writer’s ability to push through the story also help.  Despite minor spelling, formatting, and grammatical errors, his story of the tortured banshee and her jar of souls is one that is easily remembered.

As I write this now, I find I could easily retell it out loud to someone else if I wanted to.  Of course, I’d probably end up changing names and forgetting some of the minor storylines, and probably add some of my own.  But when an author has created a story with such value and one that has lasting memory with the reader after finishing it, you know they’ve done a good job.

My favorite part has to be Chapter 6 where the author goes back in time to show us how the banshee came to be… a woman beaten in prison, accused of witchcraft, and eventually led to the gallows.  A priest approaches her to allow her to confess her sins before she is hung, and what does she say?

“You have nothing to fear my mother’s friend,”croaked Helen once her mouth was free of the obstruction, “but for all of you others who have falsely sentenced me to death I call a curse upon you, may the screaming of the banshee tear your very souls to ever lasting torment.”

My only real qualm with this book is the repetitive details such as “the banshee’s jar of souls used to give her strength.”  Rather than leave it up to the reader to hopefully remember the key points of the story once they have been explained the first time, when they come up again in the story the author wastes words by telling you its purpose all over again.  There were several elements like this which to a reader who was paying attention, make you feel like the author is repeating himself.  True, important aspects such as these probably would be reiterated again and again to give the story feeling if it was being spoken aloud, but they don’t work on the written page.  Also, the spelling of “judgment” is different on the cover of the book than it is on the book’s Lulu page (although both spellings of the word are correct), and inside the book on the cover page the book is just called Banshee.  This could make the book hard to find in a bookstore or online at other bookseller websites.

All this aside, Billy Young should be proud of his evil banshee tale.  With a bit of editing and tightening of the key story elements, I could easily see this book published as a serial in a magazine or as part of an anthology.  It has everything a “spooky” campfire tale should have to make you check over your shoulder before going to sleep.

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