Now, this was an interesting novel. I was very excited to read it from the little synopsis I was sent about it. --Margot and Myron Spielman move to a new town, looking for a fresh start and an escape from the long shadow of their past. But soon after they buy Rawlingswood, a foreclosed mansion rumored to be haunted, they realize they’re in for more of the same…or worse. After a renovation fraught with injuries and setbacks, the Spielmans move in to the century-old house, and their problems quickly escalate. The home’s beautiful facade begins to crumble around them when their teenage son uncovers disturbing details of Rawlingswood’s history—a history of murder, betrayal, and financial ruin. The Spielmans’ own shameful secrets and lies become harder to hide as someone or something inside the house watches their every move. As tensions build between the family members, the home’s dark history threatens to repeat itself. Margot and Myron must confront their own ghosts and Rawlingswood’s buried past before the house becomes their undoing.-- Reading that, I thought this would totally be my kind of book. I want to point out a couple of things that I thought were really cool and unique about this novel. First, at the front of the book, we get an actual floor plan of the sprawling mansion, level by level. Then, the writer, instead of using plain chapters and numbers, took the liberty of using the history of the families that lived there and the time frames they were there. For example, we start out with chapter one, titled House for Sale and then underneath that the date of April 7, 2018. The author does this throughout the whole novel, using the last names of each family that had lived at Rawlingswood and the dates, allowing us to follow each family’s experience while living at the house. Furthermore, the author bounces back and forth between all the different families so we get to experience their time at the mansion, past and present together, as it all unfolds. The incredible amount of suspense is another score for the author here. It’s not nail biting, pull your hair out, on the edge of your seat kind of suspense. I would describe it more like a constant feeling of suspiciousness and uneasiness, a feeling foreboding and darkness looming over as you read what these characters are going through. That feeling of eeriness follows as you read through each page, tugging on you as you keep pushing forward through to the end. I really enjoyed reading this book. I found it extremely difficult to find a good place to stop because it seemed like something enticing and interesting happened in every single chapter. It reminded me of that feeling you get when you are watching a television series and you just keep watching episode after episode, binge watching because you HAVE to see what happens next. It’s horrible to have to choose at which cliffhanger to stop reading because you have real life things to do. It was also very easy to get caught up in the story and the characters of this novel. You find yourself feeling a range of emotions throughout the novel directed at all different characters. I would definitely recommend this to those of you who like thrillers and subtle suspense. If you’re into things like urban exploring, abandoned buildings and things like that (which I love to watch those kinds of videos on YouTube) then I think you would really dig this book as well. RATINGS 4.5/5 Stars
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Luckily, this was another book sent to me from Blackthorn Book Tours. And what a whopper it was! First of all, it’s not epically long, just the opposite. Second, it has this whole crime show drama/thriller/Tales from the Crypt kind of thing going on. SO worth reading. I’m not going to give a whole lot of information about what happens but, I will give you a quick little rundown of the premise, just so you know what you’re getting. This story is about a young man named Kyle Broder and his former professor William Lansing. Now, Kyle will tell you that Professor Lansing was instrumental in his pursuit of becoming an author. In the end, Kyle has ended up making his money being an agent for other authors, until he gets his own off the ground, of course. All the while, Kyle has a nice little spot, a girlfriend and has just landed the newest and hottest author account on the market. Meanwhile, in between teaches others the finer points of the creative craft, he himself has spent the last ten years cooking up his first novel, his masterpiece. Lansing treats this manuscript as if it were his legacy. And though that may be his intention, he runs into some…shall we say obstructions…and detours. Nevertheless, the professor is determined in his venture. And the first person he wants to read his priceless work of art, the only person he trusts to read it, is his former student, Kyle Broder. But Kyle is busy with his new Rockstar author client and frankly, a little underwhelmed when he takes his first glimpse at a few pages. Things start to become more and more strange in Kyle’s view as he tries to figure out how to maintain his job, his relationship and handle the professor. It’s just a matter of in which direction things will go off the rails. THE END The whole time I was reading this I could see a great setup for a series. I also kept picturing the story running in my head as a Tales from the Crypt or Twilight Zone episode. There was a special craft to the way this particular book was written and the way it pulls you in. This is definitely worth getting. It won’t take you long to get to the good stuff and it’s a fast read. RATINGS 5/5 Stars More About the Author: Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of the novels THE DESIRE CARD, THE MENTOR, and SLOW DOWN. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the 2018 Prix du Polar. The second book in the Desire Card series, PREY NO MORE, is forthcoming in 2020, along with his first Sci-Fi novel ORANGE CITY. His new endeavor will be as the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Fringe Press and Fringe Digital, dedicated to publishing fiction that’s outside-of-the-box. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Book Pipeline, Stage 32, We Screenplay, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in the anthology DIRTY BOULEVARD, The Millions, Cagibi, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Underwood Press and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City. Follow him at leematthewgoldberg.com. |
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