The Remaking

Written by Clay McLeod Chapman

Narrated by Clay McLeod Chapman, Corey Allen, Morgan Hallett and Suzy Jackson

Inspired by a true story, this supernatural thriller for fans of horror and true crime follows a tale as it evolves every twenty years-with terrifying results. Ella Louise has lived in the woods surrounding Pilot's Creek, Virginia, for nearly a decade. Publicly, she and her daughter Jessica are shunned by their upper-crust family and the Pilot's Creek residents. Privately, desperate townspeople visit her apothecary for a cure to what ails them-until Ella Louise is blamed for the death of a prominent customer. Accused of witchcraft, both mother and daughter are burned at the stake in the middle of the night. Ella Louise's burial site is never found, but the little girl has the most famous grave in the South: a steel-reinforced coffin surrounded by a fence of interconnected white crosses. Their story will take the shape of an urban legend as it's told around a campfire by a man forever marked by his boyhood encounters with Jessica. Decades later, a boy at that campfire will cast Amber Pendleton as Jessica in a '70s horror movie inspired by the Witch Girl of Pilot's Creek. Amber's experiences on that set and its meta-remake in the '90s will ripple through pop culture, ruining her life and career after she becomes the target of a witch hunt. Amber's best chance to break the cycle of horror comes when a true-crime investigator tracks her down to interview her for his popular podcast. But will this final act of storytelling redeem her-or will it bring the story full circle, ready to be told once again? And again. And again . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781980056249

Clay McLeod Chapman

Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of “The Pumpkin Pie Show” and the author of Rest Area, Nothing Untoward, and The Tribe trilogy. He is the co-author, with Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick, of the middle grade novel Wendell and Wild. In the world of comics, Chapman’s work includes Lazaretto, Iron Fist: Phantom Limb, and Edge of Spiderverse. You can find him at claymcleodchapman.com.

Reviews for The Remaking

[Michael Clancy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set up for the plot is somewhat simple. Are there many scares? No. But what you get are some amazing descriptive scenes of ghoulish terror brought on by main characters visions. The last ten chapters there is a perspective shift and you hear from a paranormal investigator of sorts until the end. I have to give it to the story: a very simple yet satisfying ending.

[lvstrongpuff · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked the actual story, but the repeating of the same thing over and over bothered me. It was like it was being done as a filler. Otherwise it was a good spooky story.

[irenecole · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Well this is awkward. Whisper Down The Lane by this author is going on my best horror of the year list. I thought I would love this book too but I didn't care for it much.
Ella Louise has been ostracized from her family and from the town. She keeps to herself and is rarely seen by anyone. On one of her rare trips for supplies when it is noticed that she is pregnant, the gossip mongers chitter away that it must be the devils child. As her daughter grows they are both shunned, except when people visit for potions and tinctures to cure their ails or get even with those who've offended them. When one such tincture leads to a death the mother and child are burned as witches.
Years later terrifying things happen to a child playing the part of the daughter in a movie filming in the graveyard...

I was all set to love this book. It's got the makings of absolutely everything I could want. However it was really difficult for me to connect with the writing style, which is all over the place, and unbearably repetitive. Words. so many of the same words. Words being typed on my keyboard. Words showing up on the page, on the review, in my head, words combining to create this review, the review that I will post here on the page, the page of the internet, the page you are reading...
Are you ready to tell me to shut up yet? Because for me this is what it was like reading this book.

[carol420 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this book. It was horror but yet not horror. Creepy would best describe it but I don’t believe that is a genre. If sitting around a camp fire telling ghost stories is something you like...or have ever liked to do... then this book is diffidently written just for you. Some of the facts in the story are true...and yes...I asked “Mr. Google.” I learned that it is based on an unsettling horror story and does contain true events that took place in 1931 in Pilot’s Creek, Virginia. The townspeople accuse Ella Louise Ford and her daughter, Jessica, of witchcraft and burn them at the stake. This begins an urban legend that echoes through the decades. I love a good ghost story. I am the “Ghost Story Junkie”.

[carole888fort · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman is a horror story I was prepared to enjoy but, unfortunately, I found it to be stagnant and boring. This is the story of Ella Louise Ford and her daughter Jessica who were burned at the stake under suspicion of being witches. This crime was committed by some of the townspeople of Pilot’s Creek in Virginia who subsequently met their end in grim fashion. Twenty years later, an ambitious director comes to town to make a movie about the unfortunate mother and child. Things do not go well and twenty years after that, a remaking of the movie is undertaken. I read the entire book because many reviewers found this novel to be excellent and I wanted to be fair by making sure that I was not missing anything. Unfortunately, it only seemed to repeat itself, at a slow pace, over and over again. Maybe this is not my kind of book and please remember that this is only my own opinion. Thank you to Quirk Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.