I don't know if there's a specific word to describe the feeling I'm currently experiencing, having just finished my second Patrick McNulty read... it's the feeling of excitement, knowing I've found yet another indie horror author who is a freaking master of his trade, and that I now know I have to read everything the guy's written.

But that's the feeling I'm feeling right now.

This book...what do I even say about this? McNulty takes the clunky "family inherits haunted property, finds out how bad it is" trope that's so ridiculously overdone that I absolutely avoid that kind of storyline at all costs now, and he mostly ignores every aspect of it and makes it his own. So, that's the first plus.

Then, he crafts a story that's so simple it shouldn't actually be enough story to fill a novel...and he fills a novel with a perfectly paced, well-written, intelligent storyline that builds and builds and then explodes. Second plus.

There's very few authors that I read lately that I have trouble setting their books aside. I can read a couple of pages, or a couple of chapters, and yeah, the story's still gonna be there whenever I pick up the book again. But this one had me very reluctantly setting the book down and thinking about the story all the time before I could pick it back up again. I blasted through this in two sittings. Third plus.

I am officially a fan now. This book was absolutely phenomenal.