With Nazareth Hill, Ramsey Campbell constructs a flawlessly plotted, wonderfully written, superbly scary haunted house story that doesn't shy away from the supernatural, but intertwines it with the psychological to produce a richly rewarding read.
Amy is a typical teenager -- imperfect and challenging -- whose mother died when she was a child. She lives with Oswald, her controlling father, in a newly renovated building, Nazareth Hill. Strange things begin to occur. Amy realizes she was frightened by something she saw at Nazareth Hill as a child. Spurred by the discovery of an old Bible used as a diary by a former inhabitant, Amy seeks to discover the truth as her father becomes increasingly irrational. Nazareth Hill is a nasty place and it seems to infect Oswald with its evil.
Campbell melds familial conflict with heart-stopping shocks and wraps it all up in a milieu of madness -- essentially dealing with themes that he has always used well in his writing -- but managing, with Nazareth Hill, to unite those themes into a masterwork of the macabre. -- Paula Guran