Rating: 
Summary: A Great Novel
Review: I can't say enough good about this book. You Come When I Call You is one of those novels that you just sink into and don't want to let go of. I first read Clegg with Halloween MAn and enjoyed it greatly, but this one is one of the best novels I've read in years.The way interviews are interspersed with action with the way the characters develop over the course of the story. By the time I got to the end of this book, I wanted more of Charlie and Peter and Alison and Wendy and everything that went on in their lives. But what even surprised me more were the two older women, Nessie and Stella, who we meet halfway through and whose stories are fascinating and blended back into the main story. This is an epic horror novel with a great plot and characters that come alive. I give this one my highest recommendation of any horror novel of the past ten years. Last time I read a book this good it was probably Ghost Story by Straub or The Shining by King. It is that good. Clegg also is a remarkably good writer. There are passages that are just beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: the best horror novel of the year
Review: I am not a huge fan of horror books and movies. I love Stephen King and Peter Straub and sometimes Dean Koontz and sometimes Clive Barker. This book, You Come When I Call You, is one of the best horror novels I have ever read. It starts out with interviews with teenagers twenty years before the main action. They've somehow experienced some kind of supernatural terror in the desert of California. Is it demons or did they commit murder? Now, they are in their 30s and living their lives, when something happens again to draw each of them back to the same place, and to caves out in the desert. As simple as that description is, this is a complex and disturbing story about the dreamlike impact of the past on the present. Clegg manages to scare by just the subtle repetiton of ideas and images. But no doubt, the mystery of who Wendy Swan is and what she can do are the major draw of this book. I keep talking this one up to friends and online. I will go seek out Clegg's other books because I have never read him before. I would give this ten stars if I could. My main warning to readers would be that this is not for the faint of heart. There are some strong and even shocking scenes in You Come When I Call You. But its a solid novel of terror and really powerful writing. I also have to comment on the humor in this book. It really carries you through the dark times of the story. It isn't slapstick or anything, just a kind of gentle humor about the characters and their situations. My favorite character and by far the most interesting is a man named Charlie who begins as the nastiest kind of guy you can imagine and then through all the adversity of his life becomes a kind of hero. It was an unusual thing to have happen in a horror story, and it made it that much more interesting to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Short Attention Span Theatre; Poor Eyesight? Skip this one!
Review: One of the downsides of buying online is sometimes you don't get a "feel" for the book. This particular book brought that home to me. Whoever wrote the blubs for these books is a far better writer than the author himself.
Mr Clegg writes like an overly complicated John Saul; not necassarily giving our heroes much of a shot at surviving, nor being very likable.
It is also written in such a poor font, that if you have poor eyesight, or suffer from headaches from eyestrain, this is definitely not worth the trouble.
His writing skips around like ants on a hot skillet, and the book was released without being completely proofread. misspelled words, poor phraseology ... there are so many stumbling blocks in the book it was a chore to finish, even for a book-o-holic like myself.
I dislike leaving poor reviews, but I wish I had known these things Before purchasing close over half his available releases. Mr Clegg, please forgive me as I may appear unkind ... I am simply trying so save other people their money's worth.
Rating:
Summary: You run when he calls you
Review: "You Come When I Call You" is not the best book I have ever read, and that is being kind. The book is about three very unbalenced adults who are experincing waking nightmares because of an event in their childhood. Douglas Clegg is not very forth coming with an explanation of where the bad guy (or girl) Wendy came from. We get her back story, but it makes little since. In fact very little in the book makes any since. It's like a combination of Stephen King and Hunter S. Thompson. The book is a nightmare logic, meaning it is all surreal images (and very disturbingly graphic) with almost no narritive thread. It's like a very bad acid trip. The three main charcters, Peter, Alison, and Charlie , all have their psyche so messed up by the event in childhood (they all seemed to have been possesed by a demon and killed everyone in their sleepy little southern California town) that they are not very useful narrating the action through. The book is almost 400 pages long, and it seems like much more than that. The book is like wading through soup. I have heard that Clegg is a good writer; I don't know, maybe I just started with the wrong book.
Rating:
Summary: Short Attention Span Theatre; Poor Eyesight? Skip this one!
Review: One of the downsides of buying online is sometimes you don't get a "feel" for the book. This particular book brought that home to me. Whoever wrote the blubs for these books is a far better writer than the author himself.
Mr Clegg writes like an overly complicated John Saul; not necassarily giving our heroes much of a shot at surviving, nor being very likable.
It is also written in such a poor font, that if you have poor eyesight, or suffer from headaches from eyestrain, this is definitely not worth the trouble.
His writing skips around like ants on a hot skillet, and the book was released without being completely proofread. misspelled words, poor phraseology ... there are so many stumbling blocks in the book it was a chore to finish, even for a book-o-holic like myself.
I dislike leaving poor reviews, but I wish I had known these things Before purchasing close over half his available releases. Mr Clegg, please forgive me as I may appear unkind ... I am simply trying so save other people their money's worth.
Rating: 
Summary: A disjointed affair
Review: You come when I call you is an ambitious horror novel. Instead of rehashing the well-beaten path of formulaic horror, it tries something new. I once read in an issue of Fangoria that Clegg struggled mightily writing this novel and actually took upwards of ten years to finish this book. Sadly, instead of delivering its promise, the novel falls flat on its face. The story flip flops between two time frames. THEN takes place in 1980 in the sleepy desert town of Palmetto, California. We get to meet several teenage characters whose routine lifestyles are turned upside down when a demonic force takes over them and makes them perform brutal acts of murderous rage. NOW is set in 2000 and the teenagers are now grown adults living in different cities across the country and doing their best to forget the horrible memories of their past. But now the demon of their past is "calling" them and they will reunite in Palmetto in an attempt to put the demon that haunts them to rest once and for all. This is not an easy book to read. So much of the events take place through dreams, memories, hallucinations and flashbacks. After a while it becomes hard to decipher what's real from what's not as well as if something's occuring now or if it happenned in the past. The main secret behind this book seems to be of what ritual the kids performed that was so terrifying and that ended up scarring them emotionally. However, as I read deeper into the novel I found that I really didn't care anymore. Most of them have become dislikeable burnouts and schizophrenics that are difficult to sympathize with. The most thrilling part of the book was actually reading about two elderly ladies sitting on rocking chairs on their porch and recounting events of 40 years ago. How sad. One major positive is that the ending is strong. But the last 50 pages still don't make up for the mud that were the first 350. After reading this exhaustive and confusing novel, I'm hesitating reading anything else by this author. Too bad because I liked its concept. Maybe I should try reading King's "IT" instead.
Rating: 
Summary: A nicely chilling horror tale
Review: "You Come When I Call You" is different from other horror novels I've read, in that I tend to read vampire novels, and this one was about demons. Still, it was a great novel, and had me hooked from beginning to end. The characters, except for Allison, were well nuanced, and some scenes were positively chilling. I do have to agree with other reviewers who thought the ending was weak, and that there was too much whining and not enough doing. But overall, it is worth the price of admission, and the Demon that Would Not Die will haunt your dreams for nights!
Rating:
Summary: Please dont come any more Mr Clegg
Review: This book was terrible. It lacked narrative, there was no real reason for any of the protagonists moves and it was poorly written. I read a lot of books, 60-70 per year and I have no doubt that this was the worst book I have read in the past 5 years. Do yourself a favour and avoid this book as if it was a demon.
Rating:
Summary: You Will Read When Clegg Writes....
Review: ...Is the best way I can sum up the man's unique talent! This book is fantastic, and the man who wrote it deserves lots of praise. This is something I rarely say when I am new to an author's work, but it is so true in this case. This book grabbed me from the very first page, and keeps getting more interesting with each page I read. I am only a little under half way through the book and it is already scaring me silly! One of the things so appealing about this novel is that it goes from past to present and back again through out, making for a psychological rollercoaster as you try to figure out exactly what the characters indured that was traumatic enough to affect their lives even twenty years after "it" happened! Pick up this book and I promise you will not regret answering "the call"! This won't be the last time I visit Clegg's strange and exciting world!
Rating:
Summary: Grisly
Review: Doug Clegg seems to be on the short list of popular horror authors currently churning out tales of bleak terror. His books probably fall somewhere between powerhouses like Stephen King and those who write gore laden stories for the small press companies. In "You Come When I Call You," Clegg reworks the classic theme of demon possession, setting the story in a small town located in the stony deserts of California. Demon possession is a staple of the horror genre, which means that any horror author worth his salt must visit the concept at least once in his (or her) career. Clegg not only visits this theme, he decides to set up camp while he is there. Palmetto, California is a ghost town. It wasn't always a ghost town-up to 1980, the town housed a few hundred souls slowly wasting away in the harsh climate. In that year, a devastating fire ravaged the town, not only destroying the entire place but also making it impossible to find any bodies of those who didn't escape. The only ones who got out were four kids with a weird tale. According to these kids, a creature destroyed the town by infesting the locals. The kids did something to the demon, but how they did it is something so horrible that it takes 20 years for the full story to emerge. During these long years, the kids grow up while still harboring their terrible secret, a secret that must be revealed when they are "called" back to the ruins of Palmetto to face a horror beyond reason and time, a horror with the name Lamia, a horror who wants something the kids took from it and have kept inside themselves for two decades. The blurb-like description above really won't prepare you for this gross, scary book. The book is gross because people are killed and tortured in the most exquisitely detailed ways. The book is scary because of Clegg's ability to heap layer upon layer of suspenseful dialogue on the reader right from the beginning of the story. He sets his sights high with the buildup, almost too high as suspense begins to become a substitute for plot. By the time the middle of the book is reached, the reader still doesn't have a good idea of what is going on, or where Clegg's story is heading. Fortunately, all is resolved at the conclusion of the book (which doesn't always happen with horror novels). The main characters are well developed, although it is a development that comes mainly through hallucinations, memories, and dreams. One major character doesn't even appear until late in the story, when she provides some background about the evil the kids/adults are up against. Clegg does provide a thorough history on his major characters by splitting his story, first showing us how the kids are coping as grownups, and then taking us back to 1980 Palmetto. This "split-level" storytelling works, although the flashbacks provide more background on the characters, and are more entertaining than the present day accounts. "You Come When I Call You" serves its purpose well: an effectively scary book that is good relaxation reading. It isn't brilliant horror, but it does give a few chills and thrills while reworking an old horror theme.
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