A bumpy, but twisted and fun Haunted House ride

This Haunted House story starts a little slow, but two seemingly disconnected stories eventually collide and the story turns twisted pretty quickly.

Pros:
- Chalking in under 7 hours this is a quick, fun listen.
- Some pretty interesting and grisly scenes of violence - the writer does a good job visualizing this through the writing.
- Interesting "world building" occurs as you learn about the haunting, "other dimensions", witchcraft, etc.
- Despicable villains - you will root against them!.

Cons:
- While I loved the world building, some of the revelations weren't necessarily earned IMO. It was more like a, "oh by the way this can also happen!"
- I'm no writer so take this with a grain of salt, but I felt some of the writing was simple & cheesy. While the action scenes were strong, I felt the character build up was weaker - a few times I cringed at the dialogue.
- While the brevity of the story was a plus, it does result in some lack of buildup and tension. Once the story gets going, it goes from 0-100 without much time for anything else.

Overall a solid listen and I'll be looking into some of Jeff Strand's other works.

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Some good parts

I would say that this book was ok. Not really scary. I swear the narrator kept say conscious instead of conscience! lol So much juvenile back and forth between the characters and toward the end, I almost stopped listening as the resolution took FOREVER.

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1 person found this helpful

Well, if Hempel is narrating a ghost story.....

IT'S GOING TO BE A GOOD ONE!

This book isn't a hardcore horror story, but it has some pretty cringe worthy scenes involving eyeballs, a tarantula,, and axes. There were a few sarcastic laugh out loud moments too. The story premise was interesting and of course Hempel did great!


I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Good to the last second

This book kept me intrigued the whole time & was absolutely great! I'd definitely recommend

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As far as horror stories go...

This one was the perfect length, (all the fat cut out) a clever premise, good characters, good plot, satisfying ending. Very enjoyable overall, great story. Phenomenal narrator too, perfect choice. Highly recommended.

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Not what I expected, or hoped for

I really wanted to , and tried to like this . It started out so good , and the idea of it is great ! I didn't rate it higher not because of the gore. I thought that and the story was good.
It just went on and on and on with this family. It got to the point that I spent more time feeling sorry for them than I felt feeling scared.
I thought there'd be a lot more of the haunting scary stuff. Instead its only a family physically fighting 3 ghosts who keep trying to kill them .
I was thinking the family would figure it out in the middle what was happening. They'd get away and then come back to do a ritual to get them back to where they came from .
Its definitely action packed but its pretty much the same action repeated throughout the story.
I'm pretty sorry I used my credit for this one.

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Stand Goes Dark!

This is an exceptional horror story. There was at least one moment where I was cringing, and if I was watching a movie would have been peeking through my fingers.
Strand outdoes himself.
Excellent narration by Hempel.

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5 people found this helpful

Excellent Haunting!

This was an excellent book. The story was intriguing, engaging and kept moving. It definitely held my attention. There were some flashback parts but they were done so well that there was no confusion between past and present. I find that sometimes flashbacks, if written in wrong, can cause confusion and take away from the story. Not this one, they were done perfectly. I didn’t think there were any “slow moving” parts either. The story flowed along very well and at a decent pace, making it interesting and easy to listen to. I thought that the narration was done very well too. It was a good horror story that had some unexpected twists and turns but I didn’t think they were bad ones; they added to the story and actually made it better than the standard haunted house book.

I was provided a free copy of this book at my request for honest and unbiased review.

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2 people found this helpful

Awesome Strand book, awesome Audible

I really liked this book and enjoyed the audiobook just as much. This story would be a great horror movie and the Audible only serves to further that notion. Jeff Strand writes a crazy haunted house tale and Joe Hempel narrates it efficiently. Check it out!

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1 person found this helpful

Just complete insanity,,,,in a good way.

If i were to ever buy a new house I would be sure to do full research on its past, solely because of this book. The way things blend together in the most spectacularly scary way left me shook for days. Loved every bit of this book. The narration was amazing, Joe Hempel captured the characters wonderfully.

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