Boo Who »

Rene Gutteridge is the author of Boo, Ghost Writer and Troubled Waters and has been published extensively as a playwright. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Oklahoma City University and is a full time writer.

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”

Nobody in Skary seems to know for sure…

It appears that everyone in Skary, Indiana, is having an identity crisis of epic proportions–including the town itself. Once known as the haunt of the world’s most popular horror writer, Wolfe “Boo” Boone, Skary started losing tourist business after Boo abruptly abandoned his career. Now the little town with the big marketing hook is up a creek–and on the brink of bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, the former best-selling author is hawking [or selling] cars and wondering, like the rest of the world, if he’ll ever write again. Yet even as Boo’s literary career gracelessly plummets, his fiancée, wholesome Ainsley Parker, is shooting to stardom as the media’s darling new domestic diva.

Weave in a dreaming bride with a bargain dress and a few too many pounds on her hips, an unconventional therapist who has Skary in his thrall, a depressed cat, a dogged busybody, and a horde of strange, ghostly figures traipsing in and out of the woods, and it’s easy to see why Skary is the quirkiest–and most charming–town around.

Publishers Weekly

In this charming stand-alone sequel to Boo, Gutteridge pens a delightful suspend-disbelief-and-enjoy-it romp featuring the quirky characters from Skary, Ind. After bestselling writer and Skary resident Wolfe "Boo" Boone finds God and gives up writing thrillers, the horror theme that the town employed to attract tourists goes bust. Busybody Missy Peeple brainstorms ways to rebrand the town, while Wolfe experiments with selling cars, then recommends romance novels as a clerk at the town bookstore. Wolfe's fiancee, the Martha Stewartesque Ainsley Parker, is distracted from wedding plans by Wolfe's former editor, who plots to make her the Next Big Thing in homemaking stardom. Newcomer and presumed psychologist Dr. Jack Hass-yes, you read that right-is ready to provide counseling for everything from losing weight to pepping up the sheriff's depressed tomcat. Meanwhile, howling, ghostly figures walk the streets of Skary, the vet neuters a rampaging cat at gunpoint, and the mayor loses his mind and believes he's in the Caribbean. There's the infrequent bad line ("Like a hungry seagull, his mind dove into dark waters, fishing for reason"). But what makes this completely improbable plot, complete with an old map marked with an "X," so enjoyable are Gutteridge's offbeat characterizations and her sense of mischievous delight in the story. This engaging faith fiction will delight fans of Boo and capture some new readers. Agent, Janet Kobobel Grant. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.