2013 Winner — Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award — Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror
It’s Halloween, and life is grim for 23-year-old Dimitri Petrov. It’s the one-year anniversary of his parents’ deaths, he’s stuck on page one thousand of his Rasputin zombie novel, and he makes his living writing obituaries.
But things turn from bleak to terrifying when Dimitri gets a last-minute assignment to … gets a last-minute assignment to cover a séance at the reputedly haunted Aspinwall Mansion.
There, Dimitri meets Lisa, a punk-rock drummer he falls hard for. But just as he’s about to ask her out, he unwittingly unleashes malevolent forces, throwing him into a deadly mystery. When Dimitri wakes up, he is in the morgue — icy cold and haunted by a cryptic warning given by a tantalizing female spirit.
As town residents begin to turn up gruesomely murdered, Dimitri must play detective in his own story and unravel the connections among his family, the Aspinwall Mansion, the female spirit, and the secrets held in a pair of crumbling antiquarian books. If he doesn’t, it’s quite possible Lisa will be the next victim.
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I was really happy that I decided to get this book, it caught me off guard and made me love the characters. The writing was fun but still managed to convey a feeling of menace, maybe because even the bad guy had a sense of humor. The characters are all well developed and give you a sense of reality in who they are and who they may become. I could …
What a fun read! Good thrills, descent moments of brevity, and characters just out there enough to keep you entertained.
Kept me guessing, there was only one instense when I guessed correctly. More than once I was perched at the edge of my seat. I hope we see more from this author, with these characters.