Hoarder House

Title: Hoarder House
Author: R.C. Bowman
Publisher: Soteira Press
ISBN: N/A

“If you could transform the essence of madness into sensation, that sensation would be itching — chronic, merciless, immune to scratching and sleep.”

Kris cleans houses for a living. Not normal houses, though. Houses of the dead. Houses of the recently and brutally murdered. Houses with brains splattered across the walls and mattresses infused with the smell of death. These hoarder houses contain piles upon piles of objects, valuable only to the one who stockpiled them in the first place. There’s a lot of weird stuff in these rooms. Which may be why the portal to a gorgeous, new world doesn’t really scare Kris.

But it should. Because doors go both ways. And Kris isn’t the only one who’s hungering for something new.

I can’t stand horror movies. They’re either too weird or too scary for me. But there’s a special place in my heart for a well-written horror story, and Hoarder House definitely fits the bill. Bowman’s prose is simple but effective. Her descriptions are vivid and every word has its place. The plot’s fluidity, the way one scene segues naturally into the next, makes it feel more like watching events play out than reading a novella. And the protagonist’s inner monologue is so exquisitely human that you feel like you’ve known Kris for years.

So about the horror. It really doesn’t seem so scary at first. I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for gore and body horror, so I read through those passages without a problem. At least, I thought I did. Flesh-eating worms? Squishy rupturing eyeballs? A weird heel snake? No problemo. But fear is insidious (that’s a horror movie too, I think). And let me tell you, you will feel itchy after reading this book. Dark creatures will flit around at the edges of your vision. The paintings on the wall will move. And you won’t be able to do a thing about it.

Because the beauty of Hoarder House is this — that it stays with you. Whether you like it or not.

Warning: Swearing (g*ddamn, f*ck, etc.), Kris describes someone as “retarded.” Body horror (lots of it), the supernatural, gore, monsters, a god who never really appears.

Disclaimer: I received an advance review copy of this book for free in return for an honest review!