The Hungry Ones

For as much as I dug Chris Sorensen’s debut last year with The Nightmare Room, I wasn’t quite sure about its series potential, how Sorensen would stretch this premise out over multiple books, or what directions it could be spun in. Getting into a series requires a degree of blind trust from the reader — you have to hope that the author knows what they’re doing, that they have some kind of plan in place for future installments, and have faith in them to deliver on your goodwill. You also have to trust they won’t kick off a strong series with interesting characters only to abandon it once they’ve gotten you hooked (à la Dean Koontz’s Christopher Snow series, for instance). The author, meanwhile, is asking you to invest both time and money, not just once, but twice, maybe three times, possibly more if it’s a series with long-term expectations. They have to deliver on the goods over and over and over in order to keep readers invested and to feel both rewarded at the end of the latest installment and excited to keep going with the next book. Honestly, series are a pain in the ass, y’all. There’s a lot of give and take involved, a degree of commitment that’s necessary in developing a new relationship. It can be smooth sailing, or it can be downright messy.

Thankfully, The Hungry Ones is pretty smooth sailing, at least for readers. The characters, however, find themselves in some particularly messy situations. Sorensen takes an interesting route in this follow-up, presenting a sequel to The Nightmare Room that is ostensibly, in some ways, a reboot to the series following the prior novel’s climax.

We’re given a sort-of sideways re-entry into the world of The Messy Man with its focus on new characters and the reintroduction of the Larsen family in a new context. Jessie Voss is the new owner of the Intermission Motor Lodge, née the Crossroads Motel, the site of a murder spree two years prior. Although she’s aware of the Maple City Massacre, she has little understanding or belief in just how profane the grounds have become as a result. Added into the mix are the Larson family, who make the motel their base of operations so Peter can visit his dying mother and, possibly, move his family into the home purchased by his father. Their son Michael, though, carries more than just the baggage of his recent battle with cancer, and soon finds himself in the cross-hairs of supernatural forces seeking to possess him.

Sorensen takes the Go Big Or Go Home route to this sequel. Whereas The Nightmare Room involved a single entity haunting a family home, The Hungry Ones has an entire motel’s worth of the unruly dead to play with. There’s not just one ghost making life miserable for Voss, but a few handfuls of creepy things that go bump in the night. If you dug The Nightmare Room, then you already know Sorensen is adept at writing creeptastic scenes that’ll have you looking over your shoulder. However, If you haven’t read The Nightmare Room yet I highly suggest you do so first. And even if you read book one, you still might want to skim through it again or read the last couple chapters before diving into The Hungry Ones. I’ve read at least a hundred books in between these two Messy Man entries, so I was a bit fuzzy on some of the details surrounding the Larson’s and their current state of affairs. Although Sorensen spares you the details of a long-winded recap via infodump, it wasn’t long before I was able to get back into the thick of things and get a few pings on my recollection radar.

Although there’s good a deal of spooky ghostly encounters, it’s the living characters that have the biggest impact. I really dug Jessie a lot; she’s a cool, tough, determined heroine whose recent hospitalization allows her to form a natural bond and friendship with young Michael Larson. Given the events in The Nightmare Room, it’s only natural that Michael take on a more central focus in the proceedings while his parents move into the background of the narrative. Without spoiling things, though, I will say that one of the more fascinating aspects of this book is makeshift found-family unit that forms around Michael, Jessie, and Peter, with the two adults going to great lengths to protect the boy.

One of the hallmarks of a successful series is whether or not you’re open to the next installment by the time you reach that last page. Are there still avenues left to explore, adventures that you want to be a part of? Or have you seen enough? Are you bored and ready to bail? Me, I’m still open for more, especially since Sorensen ends The Hungry Ones on a note that promises to spin this series sideways yet again. The author has injected a particular element into the proceedings that allows for a certain malleability from book to book, and this novel’s ending indicates that Sorensen will be shifting focus once more come book three. As with the ending of The Nightmare Room, I’m not entirely certain where Sorensen is planning on taking things or what other tricks he has up his sleeve, but I’m more than ready to see what he has in store for us with The Messy Man. Hopefully that book comes out soon, because I’ve got questions and curiosities that need answering, and the sooner the better!

2018 was a banner year for indie authors, at least from my point of view. It may have been partly because I became significantly more involved in the community, but I think that played a small role in it.

As the releases kept coming, more and more indie authors pumped out fantastic release after fantastic release.

When all was said and done, Chris Sorensen’s release The Nightmare Room: Book 1 in The Messy Man Trilogy remained high on my list of top reads. It received universally high praise and even wedged itself into the Stoker considerations and rightfully so.

Book 2 now arrives and from all my interactions with Chris, it would be safe to say he is excited but also nervous. When a book delivers as The Nightmare Room does, who wouldn’t be nervous about its follow up? We’ve all seen the sophomore slumps in music before.

I finished The Hungry Ones last night and I can assure you all that Book 2 delivers in buckets.

For most of us voracious readers in the horror community, The Hungry Ones will be a one sit reading. I ended up reading it over a few days as I was trying to also finish two other books this weekend, but truth be told – almost any other time, this would be a 3-hour thrill fest for me.

The story picks up shortly after Book 1, but I need to let you all know this – Chris does such a fantastic job with this book that if you haven’t read The Nightmare Room and overlooked the trilogy description you’d be just fine. This is a sequel that works well as a standalone. It’s obviously connected through the trilogy storyline and all of the key characters from Book 1 are here, but the new setting and new characters introduced all play such a vital role that you’ll be just fine if you’ve missed part 1.

The story centres on Jessie and her purchasing of a motel. The motel played host to a horrendous rampage two years prior that resulted in numerous brutal deaths. So brutal that the spirits of those snuffed out still linger.

We get little rumblings of things to come at the beginning but when the Larson family from book 1 (Peter, Hannah and son Michael) arrive, things awaken and come into the light from out of the darkness.

Sorensen has this ability to keep you firmly on the edge of your seat throughout that you’ll need to stop and remember to breathe time and time again. As the action picks up and the puzzle pieces begin to fall in place Chris does a magnificent job of maintaining horror and scares while also building the emotional connections again that were so prevalent in Book 1.

I do need to point out that by moving the setting to a hotel, Chris is able to continue adding in new areas of creepiness. Motels have always been a staple of the horror world, but I didn’t feel like I was reading a book I’ve already read. It felt fresh and speaks to Sorensen’s ability to drive a haunted house narrative with possession themes in new exciting directions.

The ending was incredibly satisfying and answered a number of questions that Sorensen had asked earlier in the book. I enjoyed again that the ending closed the book but also gave an inkling into where Book 3 might head. I sure hope Jessie and Steph remain characters that play a role in Book 3 as they were both fun players added into this game. Jessie and Michael’s connection was really well done and I’d hope that Chris closes out some of their own stories in Book 3.

This was an easy 5-star read and I’ve already noted it on my spreadsheet as a book that will fall into my top reads of 2019. The anticipation for Book 3 will remain until it arrives on my Kindle. Here’s hoping we get to see it arrive in early 2020.