The Fear Street Sagas miniseries follows the lives of various members of the doomed Fear family. I love when R.L. Stine takes a step back in time and I love origin stories and this series is the perfect combination of both. Each book is its own standalone chapter and takes you back to the lives touched by the evil of the Fear family, long before Fear Street even broke ground. Every book in this series is a new experience, because I haven’t read any of them before, and I am having some fun getting familiar with all of those Fears that came before… This book is special because it focuses on the origin of the Fear family and the source of their power; the Fear family amulet! Don’t miss it! 🙂
The dark power of the Fear family consumes all those connected with it. The Fears. Those they love – and hate. The entire town of Shadyside. All are tainted forever by the evil of the family’s curse. No one can escape…
“Fear Street Sagas #4 – A Sign Of Fear”
Fear Street Scale: 4 out of 5 Fears
The Fear family’s ancient amulet is the source of their evil power. Learn how the amulet was created in this story of the very first Fear… Fieran, a young warrior is betrayed by someone he loves and driven to revenge. Fieran, a spellcaster creates the Fear amulet as a source of great power – little does he know he has just cursed his entire family for all eternity… Several centuries later, Christina, a young servant girl finds the Fear amulet. But she does not know of its horrifying legacy and may soon be destroyed by its evil.
Last night I was watching Project Runway and saw an outfit that left me confused. Part of me cringed and another part of me was intrigued. But minutes later I could not decide if I had really liked it, or had really been put off by it, but it definitely got a reaction… this book was like that outfit. So I apologize in advance if this review is somewhat confused.
This book had a lot of potential. In fact it was the one of four “Sagas” that I was really excited to read. The story of the very first Fear and how their evil legacy and the amulet were first created – heck yes! But I’m not sure if this book lived up to any of my hype. I’m thinking that it didn’t. The book keeps flashing back between two time periods – Fieran’s time 50 A.D. and Christina’s time period in 1679. If you’ve read my Fear Street posts before, you know I really love the books that go back in time so this had that going for it. Both Fieran and Christina are betrayed by those closest to them. Fieran wants revenge while Christina simply wants to overcome. But she happened upon the amulet so you know bad things are going to happen to whoever has wronged her anyway.
I liked that the book went back and forth between these two times/storylines. I also liked the individual storylines. Fieran is cheated out of being his tribe’s chief when his enemy pulls a nasty trick with dark magic. Fieran is determined to make this great injustice right and so he does not particularly intend to create a source of great evil – but he does understand the risk that that might happen, and that risk doesn’t stop him. Christina is sold by her wicked aunt, who I wanted to kick after page two – no joke! (Don’t worry, enemies of Christina are enemies of the amulet – cue evil cackle.) The family she is sold to is said to practice the dark arts and all of their previous servant girls were never heard from again.
Fieran’s story should have mattered more, but to be honest it kind of annoyed me. Fieran annoyed me. What a putz. He was played and then played again and yet played a final time. He was the key of his own destruction and it was out of sheer stupidity (optimists would call it faith but the whole “fool me once, fool me twice” thing plays in my head, and Fieran was fooled too damn much). But his child took on his name – Fier, so Fieran really was the first Fear and since he created the amulet, the curse really begins with him. He was a Celt and he mentions going to this great circle of power, which I am pretty sure was Stonehenge and that was cool (it was a circle of large ancient stones that could be seen from the sky) so he at least had that going for him. Oh and he fell for a redhead, but I don’t want to claim his wife as a part of my people. She would give us redheads a bad name!
Christina meets a young Matthew Fier (from the original Fear Street Saga trilogy yo!) and he falls in love with her as she does with him, but he leaves to try and find his family’s heirloom, promising Christina he will return. Matthew Fier gave us no reason to like him in the original trilogy and he still doesn’t, but who didn’t see that coming? Christina’s new owner Mistress Peterson, and her daughter Emily have a dark and dangerous secret and I found this to be the most interesting story in the book. And the only actual twist in the book involved what their secret was! By the end, Matthew discovers Christina has the amulet and chalks up his feelings as, “Well, I was really just feeling the amulet.” Dude, she’s a hot chick and you’re a young man – yeah, I’m sure that was all you were feeling. On that note, check out the right side of this book’s cover. Can we say romance novel cover? Eek!
This book was all right. If I hadn’t been so excited, I may have even rated it slightly higher, but I felt at the end of everything it was just a lot of hot air. But I was feeling something, even if I wasn’t sure if it was love or disappointment. Oh well!
-DMW
