★★ out of ★★★★★
By Brian Kirk
I am not really sure where to start with Will Haunt You the upcoming release by Brian Kirk being published by Flamer Tree Press. I was really looking forward to this one, but it didn’t live up to the expectation I had based on the synopsis. From the publisher:
You don’t read the book. It reads you.
Rumors of a deadly book have been floating around the dark corners of the deep web. A disturbing tale about a mysterious figure who preys on those who read the book and subjects them to a world of personalized terror.
Jesse Wheeler—former guitarist of the heavy metal group The Rising Dead—was quick to discount the ominous folklore associated with the book. It takes more than some urban legend to frighten him. Hell, reality is scary enough. Seven years ago his greatest responsibility was the nightly guitar solo. Then one night when Jesse was blackout drunk, he accidentally injured his son, leaving him permanently disabled. Dreams of being a rock star died when he destroyed his son’s future. Now he cuts radio jingles and fights to stay clean.
But Jesse is wrong. The legend is real—and tonight he will become the protagonist in an elaborate scheme specifically tailored to prey on his fears and resurrect the ghosts from his past.
Jesse is not the only one in danger, however. By reading the book, you have volunteered to participate in the author’s deadly game, with every page drawing you closer to your own personalized nightmare. The real horror doesn’t begin until you reach the end.
That’s when the evil comes for you.
Doesn’t that synopsis sound like something you want to read? That’s what I thought but rather than a novel about a haunted text, what I got was a surreal, disjointed fever dream of a story that confused me in almost every chapter. Speaking of chapters, there are cipher keys at the top of each that you need to record and use a primer at the end of the book to decode- good fun or gimmick? I’ll let you decide. The biggest let down was that the deadly book is barely focused on! It’s mentioned but it’s provenance is hardly explored…unless it was and I was so confused I just didn’t get it, perhaps that is the case. Add to the mix characters that I didn’t really care about and it made this one hard to keep reading.
This book was really a let down. I wanted to like it so much but it just didn’t do it for me. Maybe I didn’t “get it” and like the mysterious book in the story if you read it you’ll get another story entirely, for your sake I hope so, but for this reader it totally fell flat.
If you decide to give this one a go, it will be released March 14, 2019 and is available for pre-order on Amazon.
Publisher: FLAME TREE PRESS; New edition (March 14, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1787581381