Prince of Nightmares by John McNee
Blood Bound Books (January 2016)
189 pages; $11.99 paperback/$3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington
Prince of Nightmares begins with a Traditional German charm against nightmares…
I lay me here to sleep;
No night-mare shall plague me,
Until they swim all the waters
That flow upon the earth,
And count all the stars
That appear in the firmament.
Thus help me God Father, Son, and Holy host. Amen.
Victor Teversham is worth nearly a billion dollars, but it’s not enough to protect him from tragedy as his wife, Josephine, takes her life shortly after booking a stay at the Ballador House Hotel. Her suicide note, scrawled in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, read: God forgive me. I married an evil man.
Despite being in mourning, Victor keeps the reservation for the Ballador House, a hotel with an unusual reputation for generating nightmares. Previous guests have described their experiences as “beyond anything the conscious mind could conceive,” “vivid as life,” and “better than any horror film ever made or that ever could be made.”
On the surface Prince of Nightmares reads like a modern day Gothic horror story. Ballador House is a haunted hotel with a number of resident spirits, but before long the reader will realize this is much more than a run-of-the-mill ghost story. Much like Victor, the reader is often left wondering exactly where the line is between nightmare and reality.
It wasn’t until I finished reading Prince of Nightmares that I realized this is John McNee’s first novel. This makes John someone to keep an eye on. Aside from a hugely entertaining story, John also is a skilled craftsman with writing conversation. Many novelists, even the most successful, seem to struggle with this aspect of their writing, but I found the dialogue in John’s writing to be so real and comfortable, it was worth mentioning.
At times brutally visceral, Prince of Nightmares is not for the faint of heart, but it is for any horror lover looking for something original and entertaining. This one is well worth your time and reading dollars.
My first highly recommended read of 2016.
