[ 416 ]

[katara]

Title: Kill Creek

Author: Scott Thomas

Genre: Halloween, Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Paranormal, Adult, Mystery, Supernatural, Fantasy, Dark, Gothic, Book Tok

Date Started: February 20th, 2023

Date Finished: February 20th, 2023

Status: Finished

Rating: 4/5

Sypnosis: At the end of a dark prairie road, nearly forgotten in the Kansas countryside, is the Finch House. For years it has remained empty, overgrown, abandoned. Soon the door will be opened for the first time in decades. But something is waiting, lurking in the shadows, anxious to meet its new guests…

When best-selling horror author Sam McGarver is invited to spend Halloween night in one of the country’s most infamous haunted houses, he reluctantly agrees. At least he won’t be alone; joining him are three other masters of the macabre, writers who have helped shape modern horror. But what begins as a simple publicity stunt will become a fight for survival. The entity they have awakened will follow them, torment them, threatening to make them a part of the bloody legacy of Kill Creek.

Review: A haunted house story like no other.

I just recently started dipping my toes back into the horror genre. I had kept seeing this book pop up on Book Tok's recommendations and I thought: "Why not? This could be up my alley." Normally, I have been staying away from Book Tok's recommendations because a lot of the books I have read have been anything but stellar.

Haunted houses have been integrated into our collective minds and have been part of our pop culture. Haunted houses seem to be the center of horror novels. Some of them have a dark history filled with deaths, murder, and suicide. Most of the haunted houses are located on an abandoned roads. Others are dilapidated and no one has a clue about their past history. But there are always those nasty little rumors that tend to keep the haunted house alive. Whispers of hauntings and poltergeists linger within the walls. There are always tales of a horrible history when it comes to haunted houses in horror novels.

Characters of horror are always flawed. None of them ever come from great backgrounds. Some, more than others, have something to hide be it something in their past or an experience recently that has traumatized them. Some of these characters tend to end up being exactly the bad person. The one who draws them in and pretends to be their friend, but always the one who kills them in the end. In horror, sometimes they are meant to be relatable, especially through bad trauma.

This book is really no different from other horror novels. It is the same basic story about a house filled with a horrible history of death. Even more, this house may seem to be alive in some way or another. It really depends on how a character may perceive the feel of it. Most of the time, novels just tend to recycle the same old story just adding twists and turns to make it feel like their own.

This book had the feel of an older novel, Burnt Offerings. I don't mean all of it but the haunted house is nearly the same. It is a house alive.

This story has its own originality in places that are needed to separate it from others. Tiny twists and turns offer up a difference. But no book is meant to be perfect. There are some points that I didn't feel the vibe on - the female character. She felt a bit too much and her sarcasm seemed a bit cringy. I know she had been abused in the past and maybe that layer of anger keeps her from being hurt by others. Still, I wish the female characters were better written and much more likable.

This book was a nice read. I enjoyed it and it glued me to the very last page. I hope to read more of this writer later on.