Print Length: 492 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 13, 2025)
From Goodreads.com: For a haunted house to be born, somebody has to die.
In the sleepy coastal town of New Castle, New Hampshire, seventeen-year-old Billy Hasler's life is about to take a terrifying turn. When his best friend David Spivey inherits a mysterious house on a nearby island, it seems like the perfect place to spend their final summer before heading off to college. No parents. No police. No responsibilities.
As they dig into the island's dark past, they awaken an ancient evil that has influenced generations. What begins as an innocent summer adventure quickly descends into a nightmare.
*******************
My Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
DISCLAIMER #1: If you do read this book (or have read this book), make sure you read PAST the author's note at the end as there is actually another chapter of the story that comes after.
This book is ..... interesting, although a bit dull and too long winded at times for my tastes. In fact, numerous times during the first half, I contemplated just marking it as a DNF and moving on with my life. I get it, build up is important to any story, but this one seemed to go out of it's way to either be filled with pointless details that didn't matter to the story as a whole, or repeat information we had already been told. Also, while I know this is just a personal pet peeve of mine, as well as a certain character's "catch phrase", if I ever see the words "Nik nok" again, I might actually make good on my threat to throw my kindle into the street. Those two words were so overused that it started to literally make me rage every time I saw them because they never made sense in any context (and that's even after you take into consideration they are a play on Tik Tok something the character in question supposedly couldn't say as a child and was based off of a book title, but then shouldn't the words have been Nick nock)?
Told between alternating points of view between teenager Billy as he recounts those days spent on the island with his friends and the things that happened there, and Chief Whaley as he is desperately trying to piece together a mystery that few people can comprehend, I sometimes wondered just how (or if) these stories would intersect.
And then at around the half-way mark everything starts to change. At first, I thought this was just another case of teenagers being dumb and getting into things they didn't understand, until it became apparent that they did understand. Or at least, they understood more than they were letting on. And that was when things started to get interesting (and in some cases more than a little disturbing). Now, you would think that at this point the tide would have turned (no pun intended), and I would have been hooked right? Yeah.... not so much. Because you see somehow even in the midst of all of the creepy, paranormal things happening there were still sections of this story that were just.... boring.
To give credit where it is due, there were a few twists that I hadn't seen coming, but even those were not enough to save this novel from being more than two and half stars for me as when the novel ended I was still left with questions. Mainly about the house and how it fared after certain events that took place the night of the storm, and some of the inhabitants of the island and where they ended up after things had concluded (I can't say more than that unfortunately without giving away spoilers).
Going back to my first disclaimer, there is an author's note after it would appear the story ends. In said author's note we learn how they decided against renaming the locations to fictional ones, and instead insist that certain parts of this story are actually true. Now while I went down a rabbit hole of trying to ascertain if any of that was true or not, I did find websites dedicated to legends and ghost stories surrounding Wood Island, but nothing that corroborated anything said in this story as far as bodies being found on the specified dates.
However, in a weird turn of events, there is also another final chapter to this story that I almost missed that came AFTER that, which I found a little odd. Why not put the author's note at the start of the novel to have people wondering throughout which parts might be true (even if most of it sounds farfetched to even those of us who do believe in the paranormal)?
I saw someone say that this book is perfect for fans of Stephen King, and maybe they are right. He is another long-winded author whose books tend to fall short for me while being favorites among others. I may one day give this author another shot, but I do recommend if you like a lot of detailed world-building with a heaping of paranormal activities.
DISCLAIMER #2: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.
Post a Comment
0 Comments