Elderwood Manor by Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes : Review

Things fall apart—Bruce Davenport knows this all too well.

On the heels of his wife’s death, laid-off and penniless with an eviction notice on the door, the only thing left for him and his four-year-old son Cody is Bruce’s childhood home, secluded deep within Ozark forests, haunted by the ghosts of his past.

After he receives a strange phone call from his dying mother, who has lived alone in the house for the past 15 years, Bruce reluctantly returns to the estate with his son.

But they soon find that something else dwells in the home, in the earth, in the woods. Unseen things are out for vengeance and blood. If they can survive the night, they may just find out what truly lies within the walls of…Elderwood Manor.

Elderwood Manor by Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawks is a new story from publisher DarkFuse’s novella line, and the first book by either author that I have read. I have been on a horror story binge these past couple weeks, always looking for that story that will keep me up at night reading, and leaving on the television before I go to bed afterwords. DarkFuse has delivered yet another creepy story I was unable to put down until I had finished, it kept me up till well past three in the morning, and left me wishing it hadn’t been quite so short.

Widowed and destitute, on the verge of both eviction and starvation Bruce Davenport receives a call from his dying mother and soon finds himself along with his son Cody on the road back to his childhood home. Returning to the dark and foreboding Elderwood Manor after so many years of thinking himself free from his miserable past is a final desperate act for Bruce and an attempt to secure some sort of future for his four-year-old son Cody. Barely reaching the manor ahead of a vicious winter storm that snows in and ices over the road behind them, Bruce soon finds out his mother has been long gone and the dark and malicious force has taken possession of the house, and he and his son must find a way to survive the night if they want any chance of ever leaving the manor with their lives.

The descriptive writing of the authors is one of the things that made Elderwood Manor an enjoyable story, they made it really easy to see the manor in your mind and to feel the dark presence that has taken root inside of it. I’m a huge fan of both horror movies and stories, and it is very rare for something to truly scare or creep me out, but this did it. I found early on in the story that I was huddling in on myself as I read and freezing at even the slightest noises from inside and outside my house. I had to put on something upbeat and funny on the television after I had finished in an attempt to stave off nightmares. It did not work, and that I think is more than enough reason for anyone to read it. Not to mention the fact I found myself attached to the characters very early on, especially Bruce’s four-year-old son Cody, and found myself hoping the story did not have the dark ending that I feared it might.

Elderwood Manor is set to be released July 15, 2014 by DarkFuse.

I received a free copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.