BY JOHN BENDER Peter Larson and his wife Hannah need a change of scenery. After a tragedy rocks their lives, they pick up and move back to Peter's hometown of Maple City--an apt name for a sleepy little college town in the sticks. Unfortunately, Peter's father, a man everyone affectionately calls Big Bear, has lost the ability to look after himself in old age, and must be moved to a residential care facility near the town. He is moved into a room with his wife Myrna. He leaves behind two houses--one that the local university quickly purchases for student housing, and an unoccupied house that he rented to various people over the years. It is this vacant, ominous home that Peter and his wife move into, looking to fix it up and put some of their painful past behind them. Peter, a successful audiobook narrator, quickly discovers a small room in the basement that seems to be perfect for setting up his recording booth. He begins to notice odd occurrences, unexplained noises on audio tracks, and feels strange in the basement. As the house begins to wake up and come alive around them, the Larsons must fight the rising darkness and struggle to escape this sinister abode. Okay. The brief synopsis above barely scratches the surface of what lurks in THE NIGHTMARE ROOM. As a full disclosure, I received this book for review purposes and was not promised any compensation or other incentive for a positive review. Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I've never read anything by the author, Chris Sorensen, before, and all I knew about the guy was that he is an accomplished narrator of audiobooks. Naturally, his character Peter shares this profession, but Sorensen is never boring or heavy-handed with unnecessary technical details. Before I get into the meat of the review, I'll just warn potential readers: spoilers lie ahead. Some are minor, some are major, but if you don't want your reading experience to be ruined, please consider skipping ahead past the paragraph break. ---------------------------------------- Okay, so, THE NIGHTMARE ROOM took me by surprise. I am not the biggest fan of haunted-house stories, mostly due to the multitude choking the reader's market today. It can be difficult to wade through and separate the good from the bad. Also, as a mildly-busy guy, I don't have a lot of time to sift through everything in the mountainous TBR pile taking over my house and lurking on my Kindle. Thanks to the world of social media (Twitter and Goodreads), I kept seeing very positive reviews for this book. After so many, I figured I had to at least give this story a shot. Right away, ten pages in, I knew this would be a quieter affair. Sorensen focuses less on gore and outright terror, and more on characterization and atmosphere. I was disappointed at first, as quiet, ghostly horror doesn't do very much for me. However...all of a sudden, I was halfway through the novel. Much like Peter Larson experiences dissociative episodes and dreamlike hallucinations, I felt as though I had just snapped out of a spell. Chris Sorensen's choice to detail the relationship dynamics of Peter and Hannah's marriage, as well as their shared loss of their son Michael, well, it sucked me in. I am a sucker for the depiction of parent-child dynamics in horror fiction. It always adds to the stakes and hits the reader right in the sensitive spots. I cared about these characters. I felt hope when they moved into the little house and started over. I agonized as Peter slowly learned the nature of the dark entity known as Whisper/Mr. Tell. As this freight train picked up momentum towards the conclusion, Sorensen threw in plenty of twists. Every time I thought I'd predicted where things were going, based on classic haunted-house tropes, I'd get a vicious curveball. By the time I reached the end, I felt as though I were trapped in the nightmare too. Disoriented, unsettled, confused. Sorensen has a very unique concept of the haunting and the entity itself--we're talking time loops, bonding rituals, a symbiotic relationship, and other interesting concepts. This brings me to what I enjoyed most about this novel. Chris Sorensen writes matter-of-factly about hauntings and interactions with the spirit world. Throughout this work, I kept getting the feeling that maybe the author himself has had paranormal experiences. I was quite pleased to reach the afterword and see I was correct. Not once in this story does any explanation of ghosts and other entities feel forced, or like an awkward info dump. Sorensen's use of the character Ellen Marx moves the story along in this aspect, giving the reader just enough technical stuff to understand what's going on. The author's efforts to depict a plausible haunting were successful. I just want to say, for the last fifty or so pages, I was mesmerized. I just kept thinking, this is a story about a man who literally can't trust his own shadow, and if you have read the novel already, you'll know what I mean. Peter Larson's strange connection to the dark entity Mr. Tell intrigued me. What if you could forget the pain of memories? It's depicted here, and it's pretty chilling. Oh, and one more thing. You'll notice that the cover of this book denotes it as Book One of the Messy Man Series. I spent most of the time wondering when the story would get around to that, and the payoff was incredible. The final scene leaves enough unanswered questions for me to follow up with this series and keep an eye out for the next book. ----------------------------------- Okay, the spoilers are over. All in all, I'm giving THE NIGHTMARE ROOM a rating of four stars out of five. I'll definitely check out book two in the Messy Man Series, called THE HUNGRY ONES, coming soon from Harmful Monkey Press. Thanks for taking the time to check out this review! Until next time, check out the rest of the Ginger Nuts of Horror site, and if you absolutely need more of my ramblings, I'm active on Twitter, @TheRealJohnBend, and I keep a personal blog at http://slashersandscoundrels.blogspot.com. Thanks!   EXPLORING THE LABYRINTH: TERMINALComments are closed.
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