“Kirk’s suspenseful and terror-driven novel employs supernatural elements to capitalize on the dread and horror of reality… [his] handling of visceral horror and human drama make for an immersive tale.” – Publisher’s WeeklyYou 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 … 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.
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launching in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
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This is a great horror novel but hard to understand! The horror that Jesse has to live with, knowing what he did to his son, living with that knowledge. But the means by which he is forced to acknowledge this fact are hard to understand! At least for me. The author writes some very truisms about addiction here:”We look for any and every excuse that will validate our desire to use our drug of choice. We’ll achieve world peace before we discover salvation at the bottom of a bottle.” The ending of this one was anticlimactic for me. Enjoyed the puzzle at the end!
A very clever premise. Interesting characters and starts off really promising. My issue was that it got slower as it drew on, I would have liked it to pick up a little more if I’m honest. This storyline will definitely make you question what you know and is a bit of a mind tripper. So if you lose focus easily then this won’t be the book for you. I still really enjoyed it and look forward to the next read.
Over the course of 2018 and now into 2019 two things have become abundantly clear. Indie horror releases have upped the level of quality and Flame Tree Press releases are stellar. Now while the two statements at face value would appear to be completely unrelated, I can guarantee you, they are one and the same.
There is nothing wrong with commercial literature. Many of the best horror novels of all time are considered commercial literature. But sometimes, and lately that has been happening a lot, commercial literature has a ‘happy ending’ or a ‘neatly wrapped up finale.’ Meanwhile, indie authors and indie horror strive to tell the tale they want to tell. No commercial editing, the release is designed to engage and enrage, not move to the #1 spot on the Bestsellers list.
Enter Flame Tree Press. They are fast becoming one of the go-to publishing imprints for top-notch releases. Why? Well personally I think it’s because their authors are not commercial authors at heart. They write tales designed to engage and enrage.
Which brings us to Will Haunt You.
This is my first Brian Kirk read, but it sure won’t be my last.
I came across the release of this book through the unique promotion Kirk and Flame Tree Press had on Twitter, where the prologue Obsideo was told. While the prologue itself was well done, the various puzzle pieces where Kirk utilized different bloggers was fantastic and it was great to see such an ‘outside the box’ marketing piece pulled off so well. I found some of the posts a touch cheesy (specifically the ‘I came inside and my books moved’ posts) but it definitely built some great momentum and word of mouth for Will Haunt You.
As I stated on Twitter when I started reading this; Brian Kirk’s use of prose is phenomenal. It’s like your favourite band. All you need to hear is the rhythm, not even the actual song, and you know who it is. I was sucked in immediately and found the author’s voice to be one I enjoyed. This story can best be described as a mash up of three movies; The Game starring Michael Douglas, The Cell starring Jennifer Lopez and 31 from Rob Zombie.
We follow the main character, Jesse, a former rock star-now jingle writer. The story picks up on the night of his band playing a one-off reunion show. Jesse longs for the glory days – young women, lots of booze and big arenas. Now he’s a recovering alcoholic and married with a special needs child.
Then he read a book recommended to him by a bandmate. Now he’s in over his head and Kirk puts the pedal to the metal. Things quickly spiral out of control and nothing is what it seems. Surveillance, the young-old character Malia, and a deepening mystery.
Will Haunt You is the ideal indie horror novel. Kirk takes the road less travelled, and in fact while it is written in first person POV, he breaks the fourth wall to talk directly to the reader a number of times. It works so satisfyingly well that it made me keep pushing deeper and deeper into the novel.
I don’t want to go too far into details, as I fear it will create spoilers. But here’s a Cole’s notes on what you can expect;
-Professor O.
-Hidden Labs
-Weird Beasts
-Abandoned cabins
-Heartbreak
If you read that list and still don’t find yourself interested, I’m so sorry. Because for me this book was the ultimate horror read. This will easily be on my best of 2019 list at the end of the year and look forward to checking out Brian’s other works!
Aging rocker, Jesse, has a bit of a problem. A mysterious radio broadcast fills his ears moments before his car crashes, and he finds himself fleeing into the nearby woods, chased by identical twins and strange creatures. It’s a lousy way to end a night that should have been spent celebrating the final performance of his band, Rising Dead. A recovering alcoholic, he should have been sipping seltzer and getting home early to his wife and son. Instead, he finds himself ensnared in a conspiracy far beyond his understanding, targeted for reasons he’ll never know. All because he read a stupid book.
Brian Kirk’s Will Haunt You is told entirely from Jesse’s first-person point-of-view, and readers will no doubt find themselves just as mystified and confused by the perilous, bizarre situations Jesse is confronted with. Jesse, of course, has no idea what the hell is happening, or why, but we’re in this together, our knowledge equally, and frustratingly, limited.
Once things kick off and we’re plunged into the thick of things, Will Haunt You is positively terrifying, and Kirk delivers what may be some of the best horror writing of the year thus far. The atmosphere induces an instinctual dread, coupled with the sheer craziness of the situation we’re launched into. It’s a chaotic and confounding assault on the senses. We don’t know what is happening, let alone what could happen next. Just like Jesse, readers are denied any sort of information or hints as to why these things are occurring or who is responsible, and it’s legitimately scary stuff. The total denial of information is wholly unsteadying. Almost immediately, the rug is pulled out from under us and we’re forced to run headlong into the dark, completely ignorant of what’s out there. Kirk’s writing is highly effective and he makes Jesse’s nightmare ours, whether we want it or not.
I can’t help but compare Will Haunt You to the David Fincher film, The Game, with Michael Douglas. There’s a measure of alternate reality gaming-cum-plot, although Will Haunt You is far more conspiracy driven. It also breaks the fourth wall on occasion. Jesse is fully aware that we are reading his story and that Will Haunt You is, literally, his story. He’s written this book as a warning, but the fact that you’re reading it at all means it’s already too late. They’re watching you, and you’re next!
How well these disruptions in the narrative work will vary by reader. It’s simply a matter of how willing you are to suspend your disbelief and play along, as it were. Personally, I found these moments of direct communication to be a bit clunky, and when they first occurred I found them to be the equivalent of an ineffective jump scare. It just didn’t work for me, and I’m not really a fan of this technique to begin with. I’m also not able to suspend my levels of disbelief long enough to take Jesse at his word. Rather than taking me deeper into the story and its alternate reality, it did the opposite, reminding me that I am just reading a book. Granted, it’s at least a book that is otherwise skillfully told and highly engaging. I would have much preferred to know more about the book Jesse read that dragged him into this whole affair, but instead that particular text is a barely discussed MacGuffin. We don’t get to know much about the book Jesse read, other than it’s a commercially, widely available read that anybody could purchase. Will Haunt You, itself, physically, takes on the role of plot device, becoming both object and subject, with frequent warnings aimed at the reader. It’s an interesting experiment, and I have to applaud Kirk for attempting something different, even if these ultimately minor elements didn’t fully work for me.
I also have to give Kirk credit for making Jesse a tragically flawed monster in his own right. Jesse is an alcoholic, a liar, and a cheater, but he’s also trying to redeem himself, even if he doesn’t particularly want or value that redemption. Readers who need a likable protagonist will find that Jesse falls well short of the mark, often and repeatedly. Reading Jesse’s story is a study in conflict, vacillating between wanting to see him punished for his various misdeeds, but also rooting for him to find some degree of answers just so you know what the hell is going on. Those answers, though, don’t come cheaply or easily…for anybody.
Will Haunt You is a consistently engaging meta narrative, even if its experimental form does take a few minor stumbles on those rare occasions when the story’s artificiality attempts to assert itself upon our own reality. This is ultimately a minor quibble. Taken on the whole, Kirk’s story is brutally, oftentimes maddeningly, engaging and presents some of the best, and most sustained, WTF?! sequences in recent memory.
This is a literary, occult-horror, splatterpunk, psyche-you-out novel with a heavy dose of metaphysics. Not a casual read.
PROS:
The protagonist, Jesse, is such a well developed character that my gut ached for his regret over past mistakes and screwed up, alcoholic stunts. Ugh, poor guy. I also found it easy to cheer him on. I was really pulling for the guy.
Kirk’s prose is effective for this genre. I love his verb choices. They up the freak-out vibe. For example, without making it feel like Kirk is reaching for a word, he uses verbs like pulsed, screeched, and lurched. Crawling, cleaving, and cutting. (Goosebumps!)
What’s with the runes at the beginning of each chapter? Is there some secret message? Actually, yes. The key is at the end of the book. I was too scared to translate it.
The runes thing is gimmicky. There are more gimmicks: a meaningful Latin word repeated throughout the book as if someone else dropped the word in mid-page, a website in the story that you should not go to, the narrator addressing the reader quite a few times, and the text looking like texting-typos when Jesse’s head was messed up. When all the gimmicks are used together, it gets really scary.
I actually looked up at one point to make sure no ax murderer, mad scientist, or demon was standing over my shoulder. Later, I was too freaked out to finish the book and tried to put it down 2/3 of the way through. I realized that’s at the .666 mark. Well, I couldn’t stop reading THERE! So I pushed through, glad I did.
CONS:
The book has a psychedelic feel at times as if the narrator is speaking from the midst of a bad acid trip. I liked that bold move by Kirk, but if you like your plot and prose served straight up, you may have trouble getting through this book.
OVERALL:
Scariest book I’ve read in years. Five freaked out stars.
2.5 stars.
WILL HAUNT YOU, by Brian Kirk, is a novel that had a spectacular marketing line: “You don’t read this book. It reads you.”
Along with that, there was a “prequel story”, of sorts, that could be found on some sites. The allure of a book that materialized out from nowhere, and ended up with the reader ultimately listed as a “missing person”, was a concept I was excited to read about.
I mention this, because the expectations it gave led me to expect something quite “supernatural” and “haunting” in style.
The novel starts out really strong. The former metal group known as The Rising Dead, were having a ten year reunion at a local bar. Aside from more missing or grey hair, and bodies no longer in their physical prime, most of the members acted as they had a decade before. Only Jesse Wheeler had really changed. He was now sober–for seven solid years–married and with a son–selling jingles to ad companies, instead of rocking out and getting drunk every night.
“. . . What the biggest mistake had been. The lifestyle, or bringing others into the mix . . . ”
Then the story deviates from what I was expecting, and heads off in a different mind-altering reality.
To be fair, the writing is good. I think part of why I became so lost in the plot had to do with the fact that it was nothing like the earlier “Prologue” had led me to believe. There were some scenes where I thought I knew what was going on, but seconds later we were in some new mental state with Jesse.
I’ll openly admit that I was completely confused as to the hows and whys–even after the final scene. When our main character goes from his own tale into “talking directly to the reader”, I was pulled right out of the story, and never really seemed to get back in.
Overall, Brian Kirk is an excellent writer, in my opinion, but the direction this particular novel took was simply not for me.
“. . . I’m the one truth in a house of lies.”
Aside from not having a clue why/where this was headed, I believe my problem had a lot to do with the pre-conceived notions I got from the early marketing. If I hadn’t read that, would I have seen the book in a different light?
I honestly don’t know.
I would love to see Kirk write a full horror novel in the future, and get the chance to connect to his writing in a less confusing/chaotic setting.
“. . . Life is mostly spent waiting for something else to happen.”
Scary and surreal, Brian Kirk’s Will Haunt You will do just that. A mind-bending trip where, like our unreliable narrator, you are never sure if the horrific events unfolding page by page are real or imagined. Deliciously creative, devilishly terrifying, the plot twists and turns all the way to the end.
Will Haunt You by Brian Kirk is a character-driven tale of cosmic horror that reminds readers that there are dark, dangerous, possible futures lurking on the horizon, unexplainable, inescapable, beyond human comprehension.
Jesse Wheeler, former guitarist for a heavy metal band called The Rising Dead, is a sellout. He gave up his musical pipe dream to become a commercial jingle writer. However, he has two good reasons–a wife and a disabled son who count on his support. Jesse is a good guy with a raunchy backstory of sex, booze, drugs, and rock and roll. He has been living on the straight and narrow for seven years. One bad decision changes everything; he reads a cursed book. He was warned, but he read it anyway. On the night of a successful Rising Dead ten-year reunion, his life path goes sideways. While driving home from the concert, Jesse’s car dies. He quickly finds himself being attacked by tire-iron wielding backwoods mechanics. After a prolonged attempt to escape, he is eventually captured and wakes on an examination table in an underground torture chamber that operates like an alternate universe. Thus, he begins his true journey. He must fight for survival and to get home to his family.
The most notable aspect of the book is the main character Jesse Wheeler. The first-person point of view allows readers an intimate, honest access into his thoughts. This character is unconditionally developed. His voice is real, accurate, and honest, offering entré into the life of a rocker with nothing held back. Readers will wonder how the author gained such detailed insight into this ill-fated personality. Kirk manages to reveal the character in a natural, unstrained way. Jesse possesses deep insight into his past and its ramifications. Many of his thoughts are perceptive, often philosophical. His number one drive is to protect his family and perhaps to gain redemption along the way.
Although the cursed book or item trope is not an original concept on which to base a plot, the unique protagonist in Will Haunt You tells the tale from a distinctive, quirky perspective, thereby creating a denaturalizing effect. The plot becomes somehow new. Since the story is driven by a single, marginalized character, it lacks complexity except for a short episode that includes Jesse’s wife and child. A diary episode interrupts the flow and fragments the plot trajectory, but it manages to add intertextuality to the mix, which fans of postmodernism will enjoy. The only significant weakness in the plot are the torture scenes which may appear pointless or repetitive to some. However, readers who enjoy the genre will dig in, hoping to find meaning or the possibility of commentary on modern society.
The prose is smooth, conversational, and easy to read. All aspects of the text are on the surface and thus lack the inclusion of the finer things of literature such as symbolism and sub-textual undercurrents. However, one could say that the entire journey is a metaphor that attempts to warn readers to closely consider their life choices before it’s too late, before they must strive for redemption.
The audience most likely to enjoy Will Haunt You might be a younger crowd that will identify with the protagonist and relish a truly disturbing tale of cosmic adventure.
The cosmic question might be whether reading any book can change a reader. Many would say the answer is a resounding yes.
Rougeski Reads
This was an interesting read that makes you think. I could not help but feel a little paranoid while reading this story. A fast-paced read that was hard to put down. I really liked the character and could relate to him and his struggles. The writing was also interesting as it was telling you a story but it was also talking to you which really upped the paranoia factor. Definitely read this with the lights on and the doors locked!