Ross Gawley

It has been a long time since I last managed to read a book from cover to cover (ADHD'll do that to you!) but this book was the one that did it for me! I think you could have to call it an "acquired taste" type of read, as it is bleak, utterly joyless and each and every character in the book is an awful person, but I absolutely believe that they are real human beings. There are no heroes here, no great paragons of virtue waving the flag of righteousness against the bigoted trolls... Every character in the book seems to have been born with a certain level of damage, reminiscent of the characters created by Tennessee Williams or Shirley Jackson And as far as horror novels go, this is about as close to believing as I, as a rational man can get to. Haunted house books usually follow the same tired formula, set in an area at least 20 miles from civilization, and there's usually a dog who can see everything, but this one is actually a little different, and actually had me intrigued to carry on at the end of every chapter As mentioned above, there's nothing cheerful, and very little room for laughter in this novel, so if you're looking a little romance, try a Dean Koontz novel, but if you're like me, and like your horror novels to have a certain heaviness and real characters with real feelings, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Very much looking forward to reading more from Ms. Murray-Browne