He just spent everything on a house in disrepair, but he didn’t know someone was waiting inside. Tim Russell just put his last dollar on a handyman’s dream; a quaint but dilapidated farmhouse in New Hampshire. Newly single after a messy divorce, his plan is to live in the house as he restores it for resale. To his horror, as soon as the papers are signed and his work starts, ghosts begin to … begin to appear. A bone-white little boy. A woman covered in flies. Tim can’t afford to leave and lose it all, so he turns to his real estate agent Holly Burns to help him decide whether he has any shot at solving his haunted problem. Can they solve the mystery before he loses his investment…or maybe his life?
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Readers searching for a chilling ghost story, look no further. Michael Clark put everything he’s got into this trilogy and it shows. There is a bunch of extra material that helps enhance the reading experience to an already tense and suspenseful tale. Be mindful of your surroundings and keep the lights on while you read this one, you never know who or what could be watching… waiting…
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How the author managed to have me chuckling in between the horrors is beyond me. This was brilliantly written with all the creepy, suspense, and heart pounding action needed to keep me up late turning pages and listening for unexplained sounds. Can’t wait to read Book Two.
Highly recommended October AHHHHH read or any time you need to feel creeped out.
The Patience of a Dead Man by Michael Clark is not your run of the mill haunted house novel. While the paranormal elements of this book were very original the first third of the book was difficult to get through as I found dialogue and characters hard to relate to.
I really struggled with coming up how to write this review because I am torn over the character development and the inability to relate to anyone involved within the first hundred pages. There is a lot of exposition behind the mentality of a recent divorcee and he is coming to terms with it. Normally this would not be an issue because all good characters have faults, but the amount of time given to the characters consistent griping about his ex-wife made it problematic to relate, or even like him. The dialogue between the main protagonist and the “love interest” is stunted and unrealistic. Furthermore, there is nothing that sets the tone for what this book is going to be until after the first third which could be cumbersome to many readers.
However, once you pass this beginning portion of the novel it begins to pick up the pace and is a locomotive coming full steam ahead, turning up the heat as we experience major hauntings in the house and around its perimeter. There is a lot of back story for what is happening thanks to some well-placed journals that just happen to appear when they are needed the most (gotta love a helpful ghost). Just to warn you readers, there are time jumps that happen, but they are separated out, so they are easy to follow. With these time jumps we learn important information to help avoid the malevolent spirit that is hell bent on getting revenge because it is as putrid, and vile, as it is sociopathic in its actions throughout as the mystery is kept under wraps until the unexpected end. There are some creepy events that happens to the characters, that made it hard to stop reading.
Clark has the imagination to create an unsettling story, but the lack of set up within the first third of the book to indicate what the reader could expect, other than reading the synopsis, made it hard to get through. A simple, yet unsettling, moment towards the beginning would have made all the difference in making me care a bit more so I could get through internal dialogue and unrealistic, if somewhat disturbing banter, between the two leads. It’s not a terrible start, but it could have been so much more.
This is not your average haunted house, something is going on here and it’s been happening for a number of years! This author is able to draw the reader in to the story so you feel the terror, smell the putrid odors and go along with the characters as they try to figure out what is going on and stay alive at the same time! Boy, Mildred is a force to be reckoned with!! And poor Elmer! You will be picking up book 2 in this series after you finish!
The Patience of Dead Man was a wonderfully creepy and thrilling read. Tim is struggling after his nasty divorce when he decides to find himself again by purchasing a run-down farm in New Hampshire. He’s at rock bottom and putting his last penny on the line; until, things start happening in the house that causes Tim to question everything at this point.
The story is not your normal gore fest horror story. It is a well crafted, chilling, and suspenseful read. It has tons of tasty gothic elements: the creepy run down house, a dark and dirty secret, and danger at every turn. Tim is the perfect “Woman-in-peril” even if he was a man. He had nothing and can’t give up on the house. He literally has nowhere else to go. He strives to solve the mystery before he ends up dead. Also, Holly is the perfect romantic interest. She balances him out nicely.
Review originally published on: https://bloodrosewritings.blogspot.com
The Patience of a Dead Man by Michael Clark is an amazing and terrifying tale about a man that purchases a property and then learns that it is haunted by a family of ghosts.
But these ghosts aren’t just floating specters that he sees from time to time… They leave puddles of water on the floors, dead geese in the kitchen, and they can even get physical…
Oh. My. Goodness. THIS BOOK!
I loved that the author included a map of the property as well as a layout of the house right at the start. That really helped me to imagine exactly where everyone was at any time.
I also really enjoyed that the very first chapter opens with the previous homeowners… I had already fallen for them when things were turned upside down. Of course, from there, we dive into the story-line with Tim. I also fell in love with his character immediately! But thanks to that first chapter, I was already nervous for him!
The rest of the characters were amazing as well! I loved Johnny and Holly for their humor, loyalty to Tim, and their willingness to dive right in to help. Each of the ghosts were really interesting as well! I loved that we slowly learned more about them. And man, what a force Mildred was!
As this was a scary and very unsettling story, I had a really hard time putting it down! I just couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. There were quite a few scenes that startled me quite a bit! On more than one late-night reading session, I found myself turning on an extra light in the house… just in case.
This is a book that I could easily go on and on about, but it’s really best if you just dive right in!
Hello my fellow Book Dragons and welcome to this week’s Freakish Friday. What a Gem we have today! A real topper to head into the weekend, especially if it has been a hard week for you and you need to bury the hatchet. This little Gem sits in it glass box, enclosed, we cannot take it out, it’s rather creepy. A bit of what appears to be black onyx carved into the shape of a fly with crystal wings and iridescent eyes. Just when you think it’s perfectly still and take your eyes away, you notice the wings move. If you hold the glass up to your ear, you can hear a faint buzzing that fills you with an awful sense of foreboding. This, my Freakish Fafnirs, is Gem Maker Michael Clark’s “The Patience of a Dead Man”.
This is the tale of a farmhouse in rural New Hampshire with a personality all it’s own. It is back a country road, with a beautiful barn and carriage house, a pond, a forest within a forest and large trees that very nearly hide the entire property, including the huge turreted house from the prying eyes of civilization. In the beginning of the book, a couple enjoying their retirement live here, but not for long.
Then a few years later, a recently divorced building contractor named Tim decides to flip the house, but this being the early ’70s he doesn’t refer to it that way. He’s going to buy an old fixer upper and sell it for a profit and continue to do that until he has the money he needs to financially recover from the blitzkrieg his wife, I’m sorry, his now ex-wife put him through. Things go fairly quiet and smoothly until the renovating gets going..then, someone who liked things as they were, lets it be known that this isn’t Tim’s house. This will never be anyone else’s home if they have a say in it. Tim is about to find out what the phrase “Buyer Beware” means in the New Hampshire countryside.
I loved this book! I loved it! Clark has managed something that hasn’t happened to me in 20 years. He made me sleep with the candles lit until my mate came to bed. I haven’t done that since I read “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. I burned the candles three nights in a row. My mate threatened to send him a bill if I didn’t stop. Fortunately I grabbed hold of my senses and shook them soundly until they came round. I haven’t told them there is a part two and we are reading it in a few weeks.
Clark’s characters are sound, solid and frighteningly real. I found myself rooting for Tim, actually talking out loud to him (haven’t done that since “Hill House” nor Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”) and I stayed up long past my bedtime, getting only three hours sleep on a morning I knew I had to be up early, because honestly, who can sleep at a time like this.. I needed one more chapter..and then another and another. Mr. Clark may well be America’s next Poe! How fortunate for us! As a fellow Book Dragon, I can tell you, the fright is palpable. The atmosphere intense. I felt as though someone were actually staring at me at times and had to get up and walk around a bit to get a breather. This was a phenomenal tale of the supernatural. If you love old ghost stories, if you love being too scared to sleep alone or in the dark, if you love feeling the goose flesh on your arms and the scales lift on the back of your neck… you will absolutely love this book.
It is reasonably price at most book sellers, for example it is currently free on Kindle Unlimited and available for purchase at a most wallet easy price. You will probably want this in print as you will want to read this one over again, well after your heart has settled down from the first go round. I know I will!
The absolute best news is that part two “Dead Woman Scorned” is currently available as well, so you don’t have to sit around twiddling your thumbs and feeling all nervous and bothered for heaven only knows how long! Truly wonderful, indeed! Thank you, Mr. Clark, for sharing this Freakish Tale with us all. You are truly a gentleman.
Until Sunday, I remain, your humble Book Dragon, Drakon T. Longwitten
I’m not going to lie; I had never heard of this author or this book. I was in a horrible reading slump and couldn’t find anything to drag me out of the pits of slumpdom. One day I was scrolling through one of the social media platforms and I see an ad for a book. Now this cover was very intriguing. Just a woman’s neck covered in flies. Then there was the title, The Patience of a Dead Man. Huh, I wonder where this is going?
Jump to Chapter One. What just happened? And it NEVER stopped! I actually had to put the book down a couple of times (especially at night) because I was so creeped out. And I swear I am hearing footsteps all over my house when no one but me is there. Now that is an awesome ghost story!
This a story of a guy, Tim, who buys a fixer up after a really crappy divorce. This is no ordinary fixer upper though because it’s haunted and when I say haunted, this house is in a league of its own. Tim has to figure out the mystery of the woman who haunts the house before he winds up like all of the former owners. Dead.
This world was so wonderfully written and I was so invested in these characters I genuinely got angry at a certain point of the book. I can not wait to read the next book, Dead Woman Scorned, when it comes out.