Review: The Nightmare Room

The Nightmare Room by Chris Sorensen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Pete Larson's father's health begins failing him, Pete and his wife Hannah head back to Pete's home town. They move into an old farmhouse his father owns and stir up some old demons, both figuratively and literally...

Chris Sorensen hit me up to read an ARC of this and I took the bait after reading the teaser.

The Nightmare Room is the story of both a haunted house and a haunted man. The house is haunted by the spectre of a grey man and the child he is tormenting. Pete and Hannah are haunted by the death of their son.

The book is a slow burn and I have to admit I had my doubts at first, though the abusive older man chasing a kid around was horrifying on its own. Things started popping for me around the halfway mark. I loved when Ellen Marx showed up and turned out to be not quite what Pete expected. The resolution to the haunting was fantastic and well worth the build up. Hannah, Pete's wife, wound up being my favorite character. Even though I knew it was a haunted house book, I had my doubts about Pete's sanity at times.

The writing is pretty slick and actually felt like a crime book at times. The book was relatively gore free and the few scenes of gore were used to accentuate what was going on, not gore for gore's sake.

Since this is a small press book, I'm going to point out that it was impeccably edited and not filled with typographical errors. It's a very professional-looking product. I shouldn't have to spell that out but we've all ran into small press books that looked like they were rushed into print.

The Nightmare Room is the best haunted house book I've read in a while. Four out of five stars.




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