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Fear Street Sagas #1
A New Fear
The Fear name brings fortune…and doom.
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.
Nora Goode and Daniel Fear hoped to end the curse of the Fear family. But on their wedding day, a horrible fire swept through the Fear mansion, taking the life of every member of the doomed family.
Except one. A new Fear. The child of Nora and Daniel. Will he be able to live his life untouched by the evil of his family? Or will the dark forces claim yet another Fear for their own?
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.
Nora Goode and Daniel Fear hoped to end the curse of the Fear family. But on their wedding day, a horrible fire swept through the Fear mansion, taking the life of every member of the doomed family.
Except one. A new Fear. The child of Nora and Daniel. Will he be able to live his life untouched by the evil of his family? Or will the dark forces claim yet another Fear for their own?
166 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1996
95 people are currently reading
2,058 people want to read
About the author
R.L. Stine
1,598books18kfollowersRobert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.
R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.
Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.
R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.
Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
January 8, 2019
1.25 Well...I finished it. And all I have to say is...the fuck? I just can't. I'm sorry. I felt it was badly written (more so than usual), read like bad fanfiction and didn't make much sense, like physics being ignored, stuff being way too convenient, cliches and predictability. I'm sorry but I just can't.
October 25, 2016
This book is your typical Fear book. So why am I giving it one star instead of the usual two or three? I mean, the story itself is sound and beside the horrible ending of "evil wins, good loses", what's wrong with it? Um....how about the fact that IT'S NOT CANNON??????? In The Burning, Daniel and Nora are married and go straight to tell Simon Fear. Unless they're consummating their marriage on a horse or in a carriage, this book couldn't have happened because Nicholas could never have existed. What makes me angry more than anything is the fact that this book clearly was ghost written as a way for the publisher to make more money off the Fear Street brand.
January 6, 2019
*re-read*
so this came out in 1996. i would've been 14. i'm sure i read this at that age. i remember LOVING the Fear sagas and i'm sure this one was no different. Reading it in 2019, i still found it enjoyable. i still like the sagas. i read this in one sitting so with all that being said, i went with 4 stars for this one.
so this came out in 1996. i would've been 14. i'm sure i read this at that age. i remember LOVING the Fear sagas and i'm sure this one was no different. Reading it in 2019, i still found it enjoyable. i still like the sagas. i read this in one sitting so with all that being said, i went with 4 stars for this one.
July 20, 2015
For a couple summers in a row in my early teens, I got to visit my step-mother's summer home in the Wisconsin north woods. The house was by a lake, so I'd just lie in a hammock, basking in the sun, listening to a tape that had Jethro Tull's "Songs from the Wood" on one side and "Heavy Horses" on the other, and read through all of R.L. Stine's Fear Street books.
I loved all of them, though I especially loved the Fear Street Saga trilogy and later Fear Street Sagas - which are different from the Fear Street books in that they deal with the cursed Fear family, rather than just anyone living on Fear Street.
Those were wonderful days and, by association, I still find those two Tull albums very haunting.
So when I saw A New Fear at a book sale, I knew I had to have it. I have no idea what happened to my old copies, though I assume that they made their way into a charity bin or onto some other young person's shelf. Either way, they're gone, and I was curious to see if the series would hold up to time.
And it totally does.
Don't get me wrong, A New Fear is pretty terrible. The writing is very much of the "telling rather than showing" variety, there isn't even an inkling of subtlety, and logic is occasionally set aside in favour of something gross and horrible happening. But A New Fear is such good fun that none of that matters, and the writing - while bad - is bad in a way that at least isn't distracting (except for the "faux old" lack of contractions).
I was surprised by how much of the story I could remember given that about 15 years (at least) have passed since I first read it.
Anyways, it's pretty horrible, pretty gross, and isn't about to instil a new generation with wholesome values, but it's fun read and you could do a whole lot worse.
I loved all of them, though I especially loved the Fear Street Saga trilogy and later Fear Street Sagas - which are different from the Fear Street books in that they deal with the cursed Fear family, rather than just anyone living on Fear Street.
Those were wonderful days and, by association, I still find those two Tull albums very haunting.
So when I saw A New Fear at a book sale, I knew I had to have it. I have no idea what happened to my old copies, though I assume that they made their way into a charity bin or onto some other young person's shelf. Either way, they're gone, and I was curious to see if the series would hold up to time.
And it totally does.
Don't get me wrong, A New Fear is pretty terrible. The writing is very much of the "telling rather than showing" variety, there isn't even an inkling of subtlety, and logic is occasionally set aside in favour of something gross and horrible happening. But A New Fear is such good fun that none of that matters, and the writing - while bad - is bad in a way that at least isn't distracting (except for the "faux old" lack of contractions).
I was surprised by how much of the story I could remember given that about 15 years (at least) have passed since I first read it.
Anyways, it's pretty horrible, pretty gross, and isn't about to instil a new generation with wholesome values, but it's fun read and you could do a whole lot worse.
April 15, 2023
I am still going to keep my five star rating.
Time has still been kind to this one.
In early 1996, The Fear Street Sagas series began with this one, A New Fear. It continues right where The Burning in the Fear Street Saga Trilogy left off so you know spoilers for anyone who has not read that yet. Obviously.
Though Stine is credited as this book's author here on ŷ, it was written by Brandon Alexander. All of these Sagas are ghost-written so these were like almost Fear Street fan fiction.
That's not a bad thing but some of the books occur in such random times that do not fit with the family tree each Fear Street Saga Trilogy book featured. Family trees are not actually simple they can be very detailed and confusing but a few of the books are in line with the tree presented for the Fear family.
Nora Goode only got to be Nora Fear for one day until her whole world went up in flames. The families had been feuding since the colonial days and the curse on the Fear family could end if a Goode and Fear married. Daniel Fear was innocent to all the evil his grandparents, Simon and Angelica, had done but it didn't save him in the end.
Nora watched the Fear Mansion burn to the ground but not before seeing the faces of victims of the curse laughing at her in the flames as she escaped with only herself and the amulet her beloved Daniel had given her in place of a wedding ring of their eloped marriage. Simon's rage at their union in his old age caused the fire but no one will believe Nora's story.
No one believes that the two were married, no one believes that Simon Fear was able to stand even for a moment from his wheelchair to topple over the cake with its 75 candles into the curtains...no one believes Nora that the street they are building past the burnt remains of the mansion will be cursed for years to come.
Locked away in an asylum for the insane, Nora gives birth to her and Daniel's child. A son she names Nicholas. The nurse says this is no place to raise a child and he will be taken away from Nora until she...recovers. Nora doesn't believe her but still plans to escape with her son even when her doctor comes to sell the child to a wealthy family.
The Fear Amulet about Nora's throat can feel her fury and even when she goes almost feral to protect Nicholas, the pendant does all of the horrible work in destroying the doctor and his attendants by way of bringing Daniel Fear back from the grave through the fire in Nora's room.
He spares his wife and child and they escape from the asylum to board a ship for far away but the evils of the amulet almost leave Nora and nicholas drowned as a woman aboard is bad luck...especially when rats spare her and clean a crewman to the bone.
They manage to reach a place called Shadow Cove and Nora throws the amulet into the sea to spare her son from its curse. They take the surname of Storm and Nicholas grows up to be a fisherman on the boats when his mother becomes unable to work anymore. He hates everything about his life except for his mother and the beautiful Rosalyn, a young woman from Spain with a father who forbids her to be seen with someone beneath her.
At nineteen, Nicholas loses his mother but not before she says something about how his father left him a legacy yet too ill to finish just what that legacy is. Nicholas believes it may have to do with an inheritance and that night after her funeral, Nicholas encounters his own face and body telling him to journey to a place...called Shadyside.
Nicholas finds the town is real and he plans to go off and seek his destiny...perhaps a fortune that is enough for Rosalyn's father to end her arranged marriage to another man. Rosalyn sneaks to see Nicholas before he leaves and she gives him her most prized possession: the amulet with blue stones she found as a child upon the beach.
We already know who Nicholas is, what the amulet is and all of that but he finds those details out eventually. Nicholas looks so much like his father Daniel that he gets some pretty strong reactions, from calm to terrified in fact, from those who knew of him. He finds a boarding house and the woman who owns it has a teenage daughter named Betsy who is such a gossip but just too sweet to hate.
Learning that Andrew Manning is the richest man in town, Nicholas pays him a visit and is soon informed that any money he might have inherited is all in back taxes on the land on which the road called Fear Street is now located but most of the work undone because of...strange and even gruesome incidents.
The older man gives Nicholas a job working at his saw mill so he can pay off the taxes with his earnings and learn a trade to start a new life. It wasn't what Nicholas was hoping for but he accepts and he makes friends with two young men who work there named Ike and Jason. Nicholas also ends up meeting Manning's daughter Ruth and he treats her respectfully but he has no interest in her with her shyness and her almost lifeless, black eyes.
Nicholas is in love with Rosalyn, already accepting she will be his fiancee, but who could notice drab Ruth next to blonde, bubbly Betsy who brings Nicholas his lunch every day? She even draws hearts, arrows and roses on the lunchbag.
Ike finds it hilarious but Jason doesn't seem too thrilled.
Nicholas thinks it is just jealousy over Betsy but pretty soon, everything that seems to be going smoothly enough for Nicholas...takes a turn.
A dark turn involving death, hatred, suspicion and evil. It's Nicholas' legacy coming to pass just like he wanted but nothing he expected...
I don't want to spoil too much more but this book does eventually tie into the Fear Park trilogy that Stine actually did write.
There are some intense supernaturally driven deaths in the story but a few that are not in any way paranormal but...equally as graphic and terrifying. The saw mill is the backdrop for one incident that I don't actually think killed anyone but was still traumatic and bloody.
We have fire poker death and rat poison death and you also won't ever be able to look at that jar of yeast or flour on your mother's baking shelf the same way ever again...
It's still kind of sad how you think some of these Fear men just may be different but then the curse just grabs hold. Nicholas is just the next example tainted by the evil of the curse and he won't be the last unfortunately...
For the first entry, A New Fear is pretty good start. I didn't see any continuity errors and it is a cubic zirconia polished up so much you would think it is a diamond; you can not deny it has that Stine style.
I consider A New Fear a high recommendation to read if you have yet to discover it and a good follow up to the original Fear Street trilogy if you have ever had any doubts that this would be drivel compared to that.
Time has still been kind to this one.
In early 1996, The Fear Street Sagas series began with this one, A New Fear. It continues right where The Burning in the Fear Street Saga Trilogy left off so you know spoilers for anyone who has not read that yet. Obviously.
Though Stine is credited as this book's author here on ŷ, it was written by Brandon Alexander. All of these Sagas are ghost-written so these were like almost Fear Street fan fiction.
That's not a bad thing but some of the books occur in such random times that do not fit with the family tree each Fear Street Saga Trilogy book featured. Family trees are not actually simple they can be very detailed and confusing but a few of the books are in line with the tree presented for the Fear family.
Nora Goode only got to be Nora Fear for one day until her whole world went up in flames. The families had been feuding since the colonial days and the curse on the Fear family could end if a Goode and Fear married. Daniel Fear was innocent to all the evil his grandparents, Simon and Angelica, had done but it didn't save him in the end.
Nora watched the Fear Mansion burn to the ground but not before seeing the faces of victims of the curse laughing at her in the flames as she escaped with only herself and the amulet her beloved Daniel had given her in place of a wedding ring of their eloped marriage. Simon's rage at their union in his old age caused the fire but no one will believe Nora's story.
No one believes that the two were married, no one believes that Simon Fear was able to stand even for a moment from his wheelchair to topple over the cake with its 75 candles into the curtains...no one believes Nora that the street they are building past the burnt remains of the mansion will be cursed for years to come.
Locked away in an asylum for the insane, Nora gives birth to her and Daniel's child. A son she names Nicholas. The nurse says this is no place to raise a child and he will be taken away from Nora until she...recovers. Nora doesn't believe her but still plans to escape with her son even when her doctor comes to sell the child to a wealthy family.
The Fear Amulet about Nora's throat can feel her fury and even when she goes almost feral to protect Nicholas, the pendant does all of the horrible work in destroying the doctor and his attendants by way of bringing Daniel Fear back from the grave through the fire in Nora's room.
He spares his wife and child and they escape from the asylum to board a ship for far away but the evils of the amulet almost leave Nora and nicholas drowned as a woman aboard is bad luck...especially when rats spare her and clean a crewman to the bone.
They manage to reach a place called Shadow Cove and Nora throws the amulet into the sea to spare her son from its curse. They take the surname of Storm and Nicholas grows up to be a fisherman on the boats when his mother becomes unable to work anymore. He hates everything about his life except for his mother and the beautiful Rosalyn, a young woman from Spain with a father who forbids her to be seen with someone beneath her.
At nineteen, Nicholas loses his mother but not before she says something about how his father left him a legacy yet too ill to finish just what that legacy is. Nicholas believes it may have to do with an inheritance and that night after her funeral, Nicholas encounters his own face and body telling him to journey to a place...called Shadyside.
Nicholas finds the town is real and he plans to go off and seek his destiny...perhaps a fortune that is enough for Rosalyn's father to end her arranged marriage to another man. Rosalyn sneaks to see Nicholas before he leaves and she gives him her most prized possession: the amulet with blue stones she found as a child upon the beach.
We already know who Nicholas is, what the amulet is and all of that but he finds those details out eventually. Nicholas looks so much like his father Daniel that he gets some pretty strong reactions, from calm to terrified in fact, from those who knew of him. He finds a boarding house and the woman who owns it has a teenage daughter named Betsy who is such a gossip but just too sweet to hate.
Learning that Andrew Manning is the richest man in town, Nicholas pays him a visit and is soon informed that any money he might have inherited is all in back taxes on the land on which the road called Fear Street is now located but most of the work undone because of...strange and even gruesome incidents.
The older man gives Nicholas a job working at his saw mill so he can pay off the taxes with his earnings and learn a trade to start a new life. It wasn't what Nicholas was hoping for but he accepts and he makes friends with two young men who work there named Ike and Jason. Nicholas also ends up meeting Manning's daughter Ruth and he treats her respectfully but he has no interest in her with her shyness and her almost lifeless, black eyes.
Nicholas is in love with Rosalyn, already accepting she will be his fiancee, but who could notice drab Ruth next to blonde, bubbly Betsy who brings Nicholas his lunch every day? She even draws hearts, arrows and roses on the lunchbag.
Ike finds it hilarious but Jason doesn't seem too thrilled.
Nicholas thinks it is just jealousy over Betsy but pretty soon, everything that seems to be going smoothly enough for Nicholas...takes a turn.
A dark turn involving death, hatred, suspicion and evil. It's Nicholas' legacy coming to pass just like he wanted but nothing he expected...
I don't want to spoil too much more but this book does eventually tie into the Fear Park trilogy that Stine actually did write.
There are some intense supernaturally driven deaths in the story but a few that are not in any way paranormal but...equally as graphic and terrifying. The saw mill is the backdrop for one incident that I don't actually think killed anyone but was still traumatic and bloody.
We have fire poker death and rat poison death and you also won't ever be able to look at that jar of yeast or flour on your mother's baking shelf the same way ever again...
It's still kind of sad how you think some of these Fear men just may be different but then the curse just grabs hold. Nicholas is just the next example tainted by the evil of the curse and he won't be the last unfortunately...
For the first entry, A New Fear is pretty good start. I didn't see any continuity errors and it is a cubic zirconia polished up so much you would think it is a diamond; you can not deny it has that Stine style.
I consider A New Fear a high recommendation to read if you have yet to discover it and a good follow up to the original Fear Street trilogy if you have ever had any doubts that this would be drivel compared to that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 13, 2021
Definitely not used to the fast pace and gaps in narrative to further the pace of the story - I only read a few Goosebumps books as a kid and haven't revisited any since - so the style threw me off for the first few chapters, but I adjusted and just went with the flow and enjoyed the story for what it is.
The Fear Curse is in full swing throughout A New Fear, it tells the tale of Nicholas Fear's origin, finding out who he is (as his mother - Nora Goode gave him a new name to protect him for most his life - Nicholas Storm) he sets off back to Shadyside to find out about his Father's Legacy and death follows not far behind.
The ending gets a little crazy and I feel like Nicholas is so easily persuaded and just goes with it without any reservations by the final few pages that felt really off character. But again, I figure it's just the style of the writing so I can overlook it.
Yes, it's a simple read. But it's full of death and dead bodies piling up in some pretty gruesome ways. An enjoyable tale if you're into that sort of thing haha.
I plan on reading more Fear Street tales.
The Fear Curse is in full swing throughout A New Fear, it tells the tale of Nicholas Fear's origin, finding out who he is (as his mother - Nora Goode gave him a new name to protect him for most his life - Nicholas Storm) he sets off back to Shadyside to find out about his Father's Legacy and death follows not far behind.
The ending gets a little crazy and I feel like Nicholas is so easily persuaded and just goes with it without any reservations by the final few pages that felt really off character. But again, I figure it's just the style of the writing so I can overlook it.
Yes, it's a simple read. But it's full of death and dead bodies piling up in some pretty gruesome ways. An enjoyable tale if you're into that sort of thing haha.
I plan on reading more Fear Street tales.
February 16, 2019
Ok, this was bad. I mean laughable-bad. Typos aside, the plot and the writing were some of the worst I've ever encountered.
The only reason why I picked this up was for nostalgia's sake. I read quite a few Fear Street books in middle school (the early 90s for me.) So I was curious to see the back story on why Fear Street was cursed. I never got around to reading this so I thought, "Hell, why not?"
Well, I'll tell you why not: It's ridiculous. We have Nora, a newlywed and now widowed, pregnant young woman who saw the Fear Mansion burn along with everyone in it. No one believes her when she speaks of the evil she witnessed in the mansion so she's thrown into a mental asylum. The beginning sorta has a V.C. Andrews feel to it, but a poor man's version of V.C. Andrews.
Anyway, back to Nora. She apparently wears an amulet (even though she's been committed, she's somehow allowed to keep her valuable necklace?) She has her baby while imprisoned and when the baby is old enough, the doctor tries to take the child from his mother. That's when the shit hits the fan. Nora becomes feral, as in biting, ripping flesh off with her teeth (no exaggeration) and the amulet sorta comes to life and brings her dead beloved husband back from his fiery death to basically char the doctor. (It's an eyeball popping, flesh bursting, bone blackening-kinda-death.)
Nora flees and stows away on a ship. One of the crew members discovers her and tries to steal her evil-amulet and then he gets eaten alive by rats. There's a storm. A shipwreck. The evil-amulet protecting her has horrific consequences, so she tosses the thing into the ocean and tries to raise her son on this island.
Well. She dies. The now-grown-son ends up back on Fear Street, back to the mansion, and the evil amulet magics itself back to him. (I guess, I don't know, I skimmed the crap out of it at this point).
The writing is choppy, predictable, absurd, with lazy, I mean LAZY plotting devices. I don't even think my 13-year-old-self could've finished this stupid book.
I give this the finger.
The only reason why I picked this up was for nostalgia's sake. I read quite a few Fear Street books in middle school (the early 90s for me.) So I was curious to see the back story on why Fear Street was cursed. I never got around to reading this so I thought, "Hell, why not?"
Well, I'll tell you why not: It's ridiculous. We have Nora, a newlywed and now widowed, pregnant young woman who saw the Fear Mansion burn along with everyone in it. No one believes her when she speaks of the evil she witnessed in the mansion so she's thrown into a mental asylum. The beginning sorta has a V.C. Andrews feel to it, but a poor man's version of V.C. Andrews.
Anyway, back to Nora. She apparently wears an amulet (even though she's been committed, she's somehow allowed to keep her valuable necklace?) She has her baby while imprisoned and when the baby is old enough, the doctor tries to take the child from his mother. That's when the shit hits the fan. Nora becomes feral, as in biting, ripping flesh off with her teeth (no exaggeration) and the amulet sorta comes to life and brings her dead beloved husband back from his fiery death to basically char the doctor. (It's an eyeball popping, flesh bursting, bone blackening-kinda-death.)
Nora flees and stows away on a ship. One of the crew members discovers her and tries to steal her evil-amulet and then he gets eaten alive by rats. There's a storm. A shipwreck. The evil-amulet protecting her has horrific consequences, so she tosses the thing into the ocean and tries to raise her son on this island.
Well. She dies. The now-grown-son ends up back on Fear Street, back to the mansion, and the evil amulet magics itself back to him. (I guess, I don't know, I skimmed the crap out of it at this point).
The writing is choppy, predictable, absurd, with lazy, I mean LAZY plotting devices. I don't even think my 13-year-old-self could've finished this stupid book.
I give this the finger.
May 15, 2011
I really liked this series. It seemed like it was geared toward an older audience and readers got more history of the Fears and I love stuff like that. I'm 22 and I might even read this series again someday. Some of Stine's best.
September 4, 2020
This is not the first one in the Fear Street Saga. This is the first one in the Series of Fear Street Sagas. To be read after you read the trilogy (The Betrayal, The Secret, The Burning).
Read
July 24, 2022these books are a great interval when reading bigger books. you don’t have to think much and they’re kind of fun. at least this one was.
August 22, 2024
Was going to watch the series for Fear Street on Netflix, but decided to look for the book versions.
This was nothing like I was expecting. About the Fear family and the Goode family.
They both apparently did dark magic
Part One, the mum being interviewed by police after the traumatic deaths of the Fear family (including her husband Daniel Fear). Then getting out in a mental asylum after what she said happened. And having her baby in there.
Part Two, escaping the asylum with her baby, and making the journey to move far away from where anyone would know the Fear, or Goode family. So her son never has to know what happened or what his family was.
Part Three, the son’s POV, his mother dying, and him finding out about his father, where he came from and who he really was. He goes to this town, only to find out his family was extremely hated and even feared. Multiple murders happen.
That is all I will say. And for a short book, I actually really enjoyed it.
Onto the next!
This was nothing like I was expecting. About the Fear family and the Goode family.
They both apparently did dark magic
Part One, the mum being interviewed by police after the traumatic deaths of the Fear family (including her husband Daniel Fear). Then getting out in a mental asylum after what she said happened. And having her baby in there.
Part Two, escaping the asylum with her baby, and making the journey to move far away from where anyone would know the Fear, or Goode family. So her son never has to know what happened or what his family was.
Part Three, the son’s POV, his mother dying, and him finding out about his father, where he came from and who he really was. He goes to this town, only to find out his family was extremely hated and even feared. Multiple murders happen.
That is all I will say. And for a short book, I actually really enjoyed it.
Onto the next!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2018
Nora Goode thought that the Fear family curse whwn she married her love, Daniel Fear. He died in the fire at the Fear mansion as she watched from outside. Nora was institutionalized & had their child Nicholas in the hospital. When she learns that the staff plans to take her son, she stages an escape.
Nora raises Nicolas without the knowledge of gis father's family or the fued between his parents two families. After the death of his mother he travels to Shadyside to start a new life. But his the family curse followed him?
Nora raises Nicolas without the knowledge of gis father's family or the fued between his parents two families. After the death of his mother he travels to Shadyside to start a new life. But his the family curse followed him?
August 18, 2020
Fun re-read from my youth.
February 16, 2022
Out of the 3 Fear Street books i’ve read I like the plot of this book the most, It was written great and the plot was amazing. Overall great read
Read
October 1, 2023Objectively I know these books are outdated and poorly written. But the ✨nostalgia� makes it all worth it. Seven year old Tabitha was OBSESSED with these. So glad my library has the majority of the Fear Street books available.
April 14, 2022
I’m happy to be done with the Goosebumps series and familiarize myself again with the Fear Street series.
I miss these great covers. They’re awesome.
I miss these great covers. They’re awesome.
January 1, 2016
Posted originally on my blog:
This is yet another of those Fear Street stories that I read as a child. It's actually amazing how many of them were hit and miss with me. I guess I probably should have taken advantage of my access to them when I was younger. But with me rebuilding my collection in full, I suppose it doesn't matter.
This particular book picks up right where The Burning leaves off. Nora Goode/Fear is stuck in the insane asylum following the death of her beloved Daniel and his entire family. The doctors don't believe her account of what happened that evening and proceed to lock her away for good. This is tragic as she is pregnant. Now, my adult mind is curious as to when the conception actually took place? Obviously she and Daniel were hastily married before they made their appearance at Simon Fear's birthday party. But I suppose it's only luck that their first and probably only moment of hanky panky left her with a bun in the oven.
For the sake of not going into all of the details for this book, I'll stick to my thoughts on some of the aspects of it. For one, I was impressed by how far Stine was willing to push the gross factor in this book. It's one thing to have your characters starve to death, it's another thing to have them eat live rats. Or to morbidly discuss the way flesh blisters and changes when introduced to flame. Also I was pleased to that he continued the Fear storyline. It's hard to understand how there are still Fears in the other books, when you basically kill them all in one blaze of glory.
Is the book perfect? Of course not. It's written for preteens and teens. It's not meant to be a great piece of literature. But it's entertaining and it continues drive some aspect of horror into a series that has been fairly mundane up until this point in my rereading.
This is yet another of those Fear Street stories that I read as a child. It's actually amazing how many of them were hit and miss with me. I guess I probably should have taken advantage of my access to them when I was younger. But with me rebuilding my collection in full, I suppose it doesn't matter.
This particular book picks up right where The Burning leaves off. Nora Goode/Fear is stuck in the insane asylum following the death of her beloved Daniel and his entire family. The doctors don't believe her account of what happened that evening and proceed to lock her away for good. This is tragic as she is pregnant. Now, my adult mind is curious as to when the conception actually took place? Obviously she and Daniel were hastily married before they made their appearance at Simon Fear's birthday party. But I suppose it's only luck that their first and probably only moment of hanky panky left her with a bun in the oven.
For the sake of not going into all of the details for this book, I'll stick to my thoughts on some of the aspects of it. For one, I was impressed by how far Stine was willing to push the gross factor in this book. It's one thing to have your characters starve to death, it's another thing to have them eat live rats. Or to morbidly discuss the way flesh blisters and changes when introduced to flame. Also I was pleased to that he continued the Fear storyline. It's hard to understand how there are still Fears in the other books, when you basically kill them all in one blaze of glory.
Is the book perfect? Of course not. It's written for preteens and teens. It's not meant to be a great piece of literature. But it's entertaining and it continues drive some aspect of horror into a series that has been fairly mundane up until this point in my rereading.
July 17, 2015
I always loved the Fear Street Saga books as a kid. They were better written than the regular series, and seemed to target an older audience.
I used to check this one out from the library over and over again as a kid. I remember being fascinated and terrified by the amount of detail in this one. Fear Street books are full of murder of course, but they didn't usually go into as much detail as this one did.
I was surprised at how good this still was after all these years! I had a lot of fun re-reading this, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the Saga books since I don't remember them as well.
I used to check this one out from the library over and over again as a kid. I remember being fascinated and terrified by the amount of detail in this one. Fear Street books are full of murder of course, but they didn't usually go into as much detail as this one did.
I was surprised at how good this still was after all these years! I had a lot of fun re-reading this, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the Saga books since I don't remember them as well.
January 7, 2019
Predictable, this one. After a while, you note the pattern of R.L.Stine's style - the one who seems suspicious is almost never the culprit. But it was interesting to see the Fear family expanding / becoming crazier.
May 1, 2023
Wow! Gripping!
I was hooked from page one. This is a great book and I can’t wait to read the rest of this saga!
This book just adds to why R. L. Stine is one of my favorite authors.
I was hooked from page one. This is a great book and I can’t wait to read the rest of this saga!
This book just adds to why R. L. Stine is one of my favorite authors.
August 26, 2012
a new tragedy begins.
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December 9, 2014I've read most of the fearstreet and Goosebumps series during middle school. As I remember them they were amazing Scary but not terrifying, and easy to read.
November 13, 2022
so when they adapted this into the fscu and they have ash play daniel and ted play nicholas then what.
December 30, 2018
I love Fear Street. I think I love Fear Street as much as I love the Goosebumps series.
A New Fear gives you some backstory about the Fears and how Fear Street came to be; how Nora Goode and Daniel Fear had hoped to rid their family of the curse that the Fears gave themselves.
This book had me hooked from the beginning. I wasn't planning on finishing it in a day, but I kept saying to myself: just one more chapter, okay maybe one more � the next thing I knew I finished the book. I just had to know what happened.
I liked a lot that when I thought I had the whole mystery figured out, something in my gut told me I wasn't correct, it was too obvious; but then I did figure it out because there were only so many suspects surrounding Nick. I honestly thought he was cursed, right away, I also thought maybe the town is cursed because he never had a problem before he went to Shadyside.
Anyway, I felt all sorts of things with this book. I felt for Nora and her journey to free herself from the asylum with her baby boy. I feel like that amulet was the only reason she survived that crazy storm on the ship though.
I also had a feeling that Nick would get the amulet back somehow. I didn't think it would happen the way that it happened.
Also, the ending wasn't something I was expecting either. I expected Nick and Rosalyn to run off and be happy together, but boy was I wrong.
I think I'm going to read another one because now I want more!
A New Fear gives you some backstory about the Fears and how Fear Street came to be; how Nora Goode and Daniel Fear had hoped to rid their family of the curse that the Fears gave themselves.
This book had me hooked from the beginning. I wasn't planning on finishing it in a day, but I kept saying to myself: just one more chapter, okay maybe one more � the next thing I knew I finished the book. I just had to know what happened.
I liked a lot that when I thought I had the whole mystery figured out, something in my gut told me I wasn't correct, it was too obvious; but then I did figure it out because there were only so many suspects surrounding Nick. I honestly thought he was cursed, right away, I also thought maybe the town is cursed because he never had a problem before he went to Shadyside.
Anyway, I felt all sorts of things with this book. I felt for Nora and her journey to free herself from the asylum with her baby boy. I feel like that amulet was the only reason she survived that crazy storm on the ship though.
I also had a feeling that Nick would get the amulet back somehow. I didn't think it would happen the way that it happened.
Also, the ending wasn't something I was expecting either. I expected Nick and Rosalyn to run off and be happy together, but boy was I wrong.
I think I'm going to read another one because now I want more!
November 28, 2018
I really mis-remembered this one. I think the misleading cover didn't help. So A New Fear continues the story of Nora and Daniel with their son Nicholas. Nora is locked in the insane asylum for believing a curse killed her husband Daniel. When they threaten to steal her baby however, she unlocks the power of the Fears and burns her prison to the ground. On the run, she uses the forces of evil to get her safely away from Shadyside...leave a large stack of bodies in her wake. She throws the amulet in the ocean and declares a new life for her and her son, as Nora and Nicholas Storm. When Nicholas becomes a young man he vows to marry his love Rosalyn despite her father claiming he'd rather Nicholas die than marry his daughter. So Nicholas goes to Shadyside...searching for his family history. Discovering he's a Fear he befriends a local rich guy who sets him up at a sawmill...that's when the disasters happen. In probably the most interesting death yet, we see someone die by bread dough rising in their throat and nose effectively choking her to death.
In the end, the pacing was off for a twist that was unsatisfying and rushed. It wasn't even worth it due to the slow build only to freight train through. Where was Nicholas' transformation into the Fear evil? It was just...thrown in on the last couple pages because reasons. A disappointing start to this series for sure.
In the end, the pacing was off for a twist that was unsatisfying and rushed. It wasn't even worth it due to the slow build only to freight train through. Where was Nicholas' transformation into the Fear evil? It was just...thrown in on the last couple pages because reasons. A disappointing start to this series for sure.
February 26, 2019
A recent look through my TBR book has me desperately reading a lot of stuff while I can still get my hands on it. You know that book that you meant to read twenty years ago when you were 12? Well, you're not getting any younger. I love me some Fear Street, too. Stine is great at writing thrilling horror stories. If they don't give me a little shiver, they'll either leave me shaking my head at how terrible people can be to each other or chuckling about eyes popping out of heads and sizzling in the fire. You know... perfectly normal stuff.
This story begins with the aftermath of the wedding between Daniel Fear and Nora Goode. The Goodes and Fears are notorious for their feud and when Daniel introduces his new bride, his family freaks out and the Fear mansion burns down leaving Nora the only survivor. But Nora is confined to a sanitarium where she gives birth to Nicholas. When she finds that Nicholas will be taken from her, Nora escapes.
Years later, Nicholas is in love and wants to find his fortune so that he can marry. When he sees a vision that he thinks is himself in the woods and the vision says only "Shadyside," Nicholas decides to try his luck there. Will he learn about his family before it is too late?
I kind of devoured this. That's all I've got for you.
This story begins with the aftermath of the wedding between Daniel Fear and Nora Goode. The Goodes and Fears are notorious for their feud and when Daniel introduces his new bride, his family freaks out and the Fear mansion burns down leaving Nora the only survivor. But Nora is confined to a sanitarium where she gives birth to Nicholas. When she finds that Nicholas will be taken from her, Nora escapes.
Years later, Nicholas is in love and wants to find his fortune so that he can marry. When he sees a vision that he thinks is himself in the woods and the vision says only "Shadyside," Nicholas decides to try his luck there. Will he learn about his family before it is too late?
I kind of devoured this. That's all I've got for you.
July 14, 2024
Part one was rather intense with a frantic escape from a blazing asylum by a desperate woman and her infant son. Freed, her mission was to escape the curse of the Fear family. The details in the scenes were much grosser and bloodier than you would expect from a typical R.L. Stine story. In fact, it feels more like Stephen King. I must admit that I really didn’t care for the gruesome details like the rats biting off the eye lids. Yuck! I wanted to get through Part 1 so I could get to Part 2 to see if it would keep my interest. So far this was just okay. This young mother seemed to be like a freaky Carrie with all those scary powers.
In part 2, the boy is fully grown and is reunited with his family amulet that gave his mother all those evil powers. He will find out who he really was and who is father was. The last part continues the story okay as the son learns he is a Fear. The rest of the read was too long (I had to skip parts just to get through it.)
I was curious to see how this ended though. So that is how Fear Street was re-built and how it opened up all those Fear Street stories. This was okay.
In part 2, the boy is fully grown and is reunited with his family amulet that gave his mother all those evil powers. He will find out who he really was and who is father was. The last part continues the story okay as the son learns he is a Fear. The rest of the read was too long (I had to skip parts just to get through it.)
I was curious to see how this ended though. So that is how Fear Street was re-built and how it opened up all those Fear Street stories. This was okay.
May 5, 2022
I've only read a couple of the Fear Street Sagas books, but I'm pretty sure they're all readable as stand alone stories. I haven't looked too closely at any particular reading order since there are like 13 different series with Fear Street in the name. I kind of learned from this one that Fier, or Fear, is a recurring family name in the series, even though they don't exactly connect.
The description is a little misleading. Nicholas is not the only family member who survived the fire. His mother also survived, but I suppose one could debate whether or not she's actually part of the Fear family.
I don't know what I was expecting, because the description was extremely vague, but I was pleasantly surprised to like the story. It was divided into two or three parts. The first part followed Nora, and it switched to Nicholas in part two.
I find it refreshing to read books that don't necessarily have a happy ending, and that seems to be a running theme for this series from what I can tell. However, knowing that makes it slightly predictable.
The description is a little misleading. Nicholas is not the only family member who survived the fire. His mother also survived, but I suppose one could debate whether or not she's actually part of the Fear family.
I don't know what I was expecting, because the description was extremely vague, but I was pleasantly surprised to like the story. It was divided into two or three parts. The first part followed Nora, and it switched to Nicholas in part two.
I find it refreshing to read books that don't necessarily have a happy ending, and that seems to be a running theme for this series from what I can tell. However, knowing that makes it slightly predictable.
May 28, 2023
I picked this up purely out of nostalgia. It piqued my interest in Fear Street when I read several of its books in my elementary school. Being a first-time reader, I was curious about Fear Street’s curse.
Newlywed Nora, now widowed, was pregnant when she saw Fear Mansion burn with everyone in it. No one believes her when she speaks of the evil she witnessed in the mansion, so she’s thrown into a mental asylum.
As Nora flees, she stows away on a ship and tries to raise her son in a different environment. Upon her death, the grownup son ends up back at Fear Street.
A New Fear is pretty awful. In the writing, there isn’t an ounce of subtlety, and logic is sometimes overlooked in favor of something gross and horrible happening.
The ending of this book was also an issue. There is no resolution to the story, which is built up by the author.
No one should read this book.
You can see all my reviews
Newlywed Nora, now widowed, was pregnant when she saw Fear Mansion burn with everyone in it. No one believes her when she speaks of the evil she witnessed in the mansion, so she’s thrown into a mental asylum.
As Nora flees, she stows away on a ship and tries to raise her son in a different environment. Upon her death, the grownup son ends up back at Fear Street.
A New Fear is pretty awful. In the writing, there isn’t an ounce of subtlety, and logic is sometimes overlooked in favor of something gross and horrible happening.
The ending of this book was also an issue. There is no resolution to the story, which is built up by the author.
No one should read this book.
You can see all my reviews
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