The Auctioneer

Something I absolutely loved about this book is the way that there's a tense uneasiness in the air that never goes away. In fact, it gets worse as the stakes get raised higher and higher.

The eponymous auctioneer is a cult of personality. He's nice. He's charming. Everybody loves him. So, what's the catch? Well...the catch is everything one could expect about this sort of character.

The first half of this book flies by, but the second half kind of drags in spots. The ending is also a bit unsatisfying, but it was a hell of a ride nonetheless.

This book doesn’t contain gore, there’s no animalistic monster, and for the most part, there isn’t much violence, but man does it scare me. The horror of this is creeping and is a notable example of show don’t tell. It's all the little things that build up that makes this so good. How could you force an entire town to give up their possessions? I now know and believe it could happen the way it did in the book.

As I read through this, I kept thinking come on fight back. This goes on for most of the book amplifying the feeling of helplessness the characters feel. It got to the point I wanted to put the book down, but the story was so good that I couldn’t. Which was a good thing, as after finishing the book I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I wish there could have been more books by this author. It’s such a good book I went out and bought it afterward.