This was a real short horror story - only took me about an hour to finish the book, but it was fast paced and I thoroughly enjoyed the book even if it was a short story - wish it had been a little longer, but I liked how the author got right to the point and kept the horror vamped up till the end. I have added this author as one of my new horror authors. I enjoyed this book enough to download a couple of other books by this author. ( )

The book starts off as all do with an urban myth and disappearances at a house during Halloween after an event happened years ago. Without giving any spoilers away, I had a very hard time distinguishing between Mason (his main character) and the author himself. There was so much changing from first to third to first to third to I am not sure where we went that it made the book difficult to read for me. As I am an avid reader, I decided to buckle down and white knuckle it to the end.

The setting of the book is very difficult to keep up with. I completely see where the author was going with this book, but in one chapter you are being told it is Hallowwen and Mason is ready to confront the house, and the very next chapter, the date is 3 days before Halloween again. I am not sure if he forgot he had already moved the book along to the "final showdown" as they say or if he was just so grateful to get all of his thoughts for his story on to paper and send it to the editor/ printing.

What I thought would be a creepy and suspenseful haunted house story turned into me trying to rush the words through my brain as there were many times when the author just started to use uncalled for profanity. Believe me as a RN in an Emergency Room, you can not say a curse word that I have not heard and rarely they offend me, however I think the over use trying to make his main character sound "tough," really ended up hurting the tale he was trying to tell. (And that was ignoring the the misspellings and the choppy editing where things quit and picked up and nothing made sense.)

Overall, I think if the author changed the tone and depth of his characters and gave them a personality, someone to root on and someone you just want to go away, he could do well with his idea for this story. I personally try not to prejudge someone so I would probably give him another try, however it would not be one that I recommended to my friends. Friends don't let friends watch train wrecks because the fell asleep trying to finish it.

From me he gets 2 parachutes out of 5 as I hope he revises and resubmits this idea. He could be on to something with a little love, care, adding depth, don't drink beer and edit the book, and maybe a few less swear words in awkward places. Thank you for the opportunity to review your book, "The Boyland House."

***AGAIN, I WAS GIVEN A FREE COPY IN EXCHANGE FOR MY HONEST REVIEW***
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Trying hard, but just not there

It's trying really hard, and I've struggled through worse writing. But it's honestly at the level of a good college fiction writing workshop. I think there's a story hiding behind the predictable twists, the repetitive descriptions, the flat characters, and the page-filling delays. But there's no *atmosphere*, no chill-in-the-air. And the sloppiness bothers me. It has been edited in places where he surrounding sentences weren't then polished over the gap. ( )