Horror is the first genre I really fell in love with, the first genre I sought out as a reader. Not when I was too young, of course. I started with mysteries, but once I was old enough for Stephen King, I was hooked.

I know exactly when I discovered the appeal of horror films. It was my freshman year of high school. My sister was on the staff of our high school newspaper and had to write a review of An American Werewolf in London. She invited me to see it with her, and while I watched almost the whole film peeking between my fingers, I loved it.

As I got older, I wasn’t turned off by the gore or the supernatural elements. I don’t hesitate to read or watch horror at night in a dark room when no one else is awake. (Honestly, that’s the best way.) I don’t jump-scare easily. In fact, when I worked security in college, I read Helter Skelter (complete with crime scene photos) while I was alone at the security desk on the 2 a.m.-6 a.m. shift. The roving security guard that night questioned my sanity a little bit, but it didn’t phase me at all.

I introduced Corinne to some of my favorite Stephen King movies in the last few years. I started with the milder ones (if any of them can be called “mild”)—Misery, Cujo. We’ve watched quite a few of them together, and she definitely scares easier than I do.

But she’s developed her own interest in horror and supernatural. She binge-watched the latest season of Stranger Things so that she could finish before we went on our cruise last summer. She plays Five Nights at Freddy’s on a regular basis, and I laugh when I see her jump. For Christmas, she asked for Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach for the PS4, and she turned it off after 10 minutes one night because it was late and she was the only one awake. 🤣 Both of us are looking forward to the movie, which is apparently filming now.

Over the years, I branched out into other genres. I have found myself reading more women’s fiction and contemporary fiction as I get older. But I’m still up for a good horror story…something that will grab me and make me not want to stop reading.

I recently finished a new release horror novel. It did not grab me, and reading it at night didn’t scare me. It just made me want to go to sleep. 😴 Considering it was about nightmares and I still wanted to go to sleep, it clearly was not for me. 😬

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Book Review

⭐⭐
2 Stars for The Nightmare Man by J.H. Markert

336 pages
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Publication Date: January 10, 2023
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books.

Publisher’s Description

Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of Crooked Tree. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.

Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks, and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookman’s latest novel. When another family is killed in a similar manner, Mills, along with his daughter, rookie detective Samantha Blue, is determined to find the link to the book—and the killer—before the story reaches its chilling climax.

As the series of “Scarecrow crimes” continues to mirror the book, Ben quickly becomes the prime suspect. He can’t remember much from the night he finished writing the novel, but he knows he wrote it in The Atrium, his grandfather’s forbidden room full of numbered books. Thousands of books. Books without words.

As Ben digs deep into Blackwood’s history he learns he may have triggered a release of something trapped long ago—and it won’t stop with the horrors buried within the pages of his book.

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Main Characters:

• Benjamin Bookman – New York Times bestselling author of horror novels; he and his sister inherited Blackwood mansion in Crooked Tree from their grandfather Robert, a child psychiatrist specializing in sleep studies and nightmares at the Oswald Asylum
• Amanda Bookman – Ben’s wife; a reporter, currently seven months pregnant with their second child
• Brianna Bookman – Ben and Amanda’s nine-year-old daughter
• Emily Sanders – Ben’s older sister, also a psychiatrist
• Devon Bookman – Ben and Emily’s younger brother who disappeared and was presumed dead at 10 years old; Ben has always felt that Devon was still alive
• Winchester Mills – 66-year-old detective in Crooked Tree who originally investigated Devon’s disappearance
• Samantha Blue – Mills’ daughter, known as “Blue”; also a detective; married to Mills’ former partner’s son who is a defense attorney, which created animosity between her and her father

Trigger Warning: Suicide, Self-Harm

The Nightmare Man is J.H. Markert’s first foray into horror fiction, having previously published historical fiction as James Markert. Based on other reviews, I definitely hold a minority opinion on this one because I did not enjoy it as much as I hoped.

The novel begins with Detectives Mills and Blue beginning an investigation of a gruesome murder in a barn—four victims and only one (the youngest) left alive. In the next chapter, we meet Ben Bookman promoting his newest novel at a book signing when a man approaches the table, accuses Ben of stealing his nightmare, and then commits suicide in front of everyone in the store. What eventually comes to light is that the initial murder being investigated, and new murders discovered as the story progresses, follow the murders in Ben’s newly released book.

Ben’s grandfather Robert taught his grandchildren the folklore of “mares,” evil spirits that ride on people’s chests at night bestowing bad dreams upon them, and “baku,” benevolent spirits that eat bad dreams. Robert based his entire career on curing children of their nightmares, and over the course of the story, we learn how he cured them. We also learn how Ben’s book becomes reality.

This story relies heavily on the folklore of mares and baku and the Nightmare Man and Mr. Dreams. There are a number of “Before” chapters that offer some back story, but they’re not in any particular order. As a reader, you have to try to figure out the timing. Some of them are before Devon disappears. Some of them are before Brianna is born. Some of them are when Brianna is young. One of them is eight months before when Mills’ wife dies unexpectedly. None of them are sequential.

Flashbacks used effectively do a great job of advancing a story, of creating suspense, of throwing a reader in the wrong direction so they don’t figure things out too soon. But non-sequential flashbacks, for me, are especially not effective when I’m not provided with a timeframe. They pull me out of the story every single time because I have to figure out how long ago the action takes place.

I want to get lost in a story, get caught up in the suspense. I don’t want to work at figuring out the timeline because then the suspense is gone. Each time that build-up starts over, the author loses me a little bit more. I couldn’t get lost in this story at all.

There are also so many characters and so many villains that keep being added to the story that they are difficult to keep straight. It feels like the author would just randomly decide…oh, it’s time for another villain to add to the chaos. And for a town of 6,000 people with more crime than most towns of 6,000 people, it’s hard to believe they have such a small police force and the FBI wouldn’t have been brought in at some point. Literally dozens of children have vanished, multiple murders and cold cases, and it’s still just the local police force?

This story has a ton of potential, but it is a definite miss for me.

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