The House of Lost Souls

The House of Lost Souls
Written by: F.G. Cottam
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Genre: Fiction/Horror/Suspense

The publisher's description: Just weeks after four students cross the threshold of the derelict Fischer House, one of them has committed suicide and the other three are descending into madness. Nick Mason's sister is one of them. To save her, Nick must join ranks with Paul Seaton, who visited the house a decade earlier and survived. But Paul is a troubled man, haunted by visions that even now threaten his sanity. Desperate, Nick forces Paul to go back into the past, to the secret journal of beautiful photographer Pandora Gibson-Hoare; to a decadent gathering in the 1920s; and to the unspeakable crime that has haunted the Fischer House for decades.

*****This review contains spoilers*****

Okay, I love horror books. I love haunted houses, zombies, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, aliens, what have you. I did not love this book. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I hated this book.

What I thought was great: The idea. When I first read about the book in my library's recommended reading newsletter I thought it would be right up my alley. A man must return to a house that so irreparably changed him 10 years prior. Another man's sister is in danger and he will do anything to save her. What's not to love? I had all these questions in my head when I picked the book up. Why did these girls go to the house? What happened when they got there? What happened BEFORE they got there? What happened to Paul Seaton?

And then it got bad: As I read the book I found the beginning to be intriguing, but very slow and slightly boring. I stuck with it though. After all, books don't always start out with a bang. Sometimes the best ones take awhile to pick up. So I kept going. It's so hard to explain this book! Cottam is EVERYWHERE with it. There are stories within the story that are both boring and unnecessary. He takes about 100 pages to finally get to the crux of the story, why we're reading this book. The first time you read the name Pandora isn't until after much ado about nothing. Of course, you want character development. You want to root for someone, hate someone, love someone, but Cottam takes it a little too far.

His writing style was slightly similar to Stephen King. Painfully descriptive of needless aspects. I don't need to know the whole geography of the London. I don't need to know how familiar Cottam is with England. Don't care what color and pattern the wallpaper is in Seaton's room or what the leaves in the jungle Nicholas Mason found the devil were shaped like. I don't need anyone to tell me that grass is green. See how ridiculous this paragraph is? Imagine 340 pages of that.

Then, when the book finally gets somewhere and you want to know what the decaying house, the possible zombies or ghosts or demons look, sound and smell like he rushes through as if he was afraid of running out of typewriter ribbon. As if he was getting too close to his publisher's deadline. It was disappointing.

While trying to explain the book to my husband I realized how confusing and full of holes the story was. All in all the book was a mess.

Would I recommend this book to anyone? Absolutely not.