Grimalkin Manor by Sherry RoitMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Time taken to read - Over 8 days
Pages - 288
Publisher - Snow books
Source - Pound shop
Blurb from Goodreads
The case seems simple enough: prove to a wealthy client that his mansion is not haunted. Five American ghost hunters and one English psychic converge on the old house to complete the routine task. One night, like so many others they've spent, to put to rest the frightening rumors. Apart from the clashing of personalities, nothing will happen. Or so they assume. It would seem Grimalkin Manor has other ideas… and she knows their secrets.
My Review
Hired to stay over night in a haunted house and disprove the rumours or get conclusive proof of ghost a team of five ghost hunters and an psychic from England team up. The man who hired them is nowhere to be seen but they have their equipment and set out to do their task. Tensions are running high, the team have their own issues and things quickly start to get out of hand.
I found this story quite hard to get into, there always seemed to be something I was missing. Everyone has their own secrets, James (the English psychic) is a sensitive, can read people and places so it puts the rest of the team on edge. There is a lot of in house bickering and I felt it took an age before anything really kicked off in the house.
When it started to get into it, the scenes in the house did get a bit eerie and I liked the tension and spooky aspects. You are constantly left in a state, or I was, of perplexity, I genuinely wasn't sure what was happening a lot of the time. I had to put it down and read a book or two inbetween as I found it hard going. Not because it was badly written but I didn't like how the characters interact with each other, their lingo, cutting sentences off half way through. I felt I was left with a lot of questions and had to go back and re read a few bits just in case it was me missing something. The chapters themselves aren't too long which is great for putting it down and dipping in and out as required.
Dark, intrigue, mystery and certainly spooky in places, I am sure many will love this wee book, sadly it just wasn't for me, 2/5 for me this time.
The story, as you describe it, reminds me of The Haunting of Hill House, I have not read that book but I have seen both film versions. Too bad that this was disappointing.
ReplyDeleteToo bad this one wasn't better; I love a good haunted house story. :)
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