Welcome to My Monday Minis.
This is where I review very short stories and flash fiction.
For today I’ll be telling you about The Haunted House On Wheels
by Dennis E. Yates
Brothers Jerry and Mark have taken a long summer trip to visit their cousin Cindy. When Cindy insists that they go see a haunted house at a traveling carnival, the boys are skeptical at first. It’s not until they actually see it for themselves that they begin to change their minds.
Even after hearing the chilling stories Cindy has told them about the man who built the house, they only have an inkling of what awaits them inside.
Little do they know how those stories barely scratch the surface, that there are angry ghosts within who have other plans for them!
And it’s way too late to back out now, never mind a refund.
Because it’s beginning to look like there’s no way out!
My Review
I was first drawn to this book by the title. When I saw the fun cover art, that sealed the deal.
I breezed through this in about an hour, without taking a break.
It’s a fun, fast read with lots to keep you entertained. The characters are lively and genuine and written with individual voices making them easy to tell apart.
You have Cindy and Jerry, kind of pushing each other to be the bravest and go inside the haunted house.
Then you have Mark, younger but maybe wiser in his fear that something bad will happen.
Regardless, they all go inside the creepy house on wheels and sure enough, things go very wrong.
They are trapped in the house, and they aren’t alone in there.
It’s nice to have a story that you can relax with, breeze through, and just have fun with. While it may be written for a young audience, I found it took me back to my younger years and brought back memories of how things looked and felt then.
The characters came forth as speaking and acting as kids their age would, making them real and making you connect. The situations were exciting and scary and there are some twists to keep you engrossed.
Especially the ending. It wasn’t what I expected. A few of the characters surprised me, probably just what the author was going for.
I would recommend this book to all ages. The young will connect to the characters easily and us older readers will step back in time and remember the apprehension and excitement of going on a scary adventure.
4 STARS
~~~
Dennis E. Yates
Dennis Yates (born 1963) is an American writer of novels and short stories. He is a native of Portland Oregon, and a fan of long road trips, animals, engaging literature and independent films. He often dreams of escaping the Oregon rain clouds to the scorching sun and red canyons of the American Southwest.
Dennis enjoys writing psychological thrillers and dark comedy. On the lighter side, his quintessential, quirky road-trip novel The Teriyaki Samurai was a quarter-finalist in the 2013 Amazon Breakout Novel Award contest. Dennis draws deeply from his love of nature and the American landscape, which he firmly believes must play an important character in all of his writing.
He is a huge fan of such authors as Daniel Woodrell, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, William Gay, Frank Bill, John Rector, Blake Crouch and many others.
Dennis can be reached at yates.author@gmail.com and on Twitter at @YatesScribe.
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