House of Pain

Sephera Giron

Before you read the book, just open to the back cover and stare at Ms. Giron's photo. Erm, wow.

Now that that's out of the way, on to the book itself. (But you can allow yourself to go back between chapters and stare some more.) I'm not exactly sure how to describe House of Pain. It certainly starts off with a bang, but then it kind of deflates (as if having its brain sucked out by one of the villains). The haunted-house premise is always a great one, and it's got some twists on it here that are, while not wholly original, at least not horribly overutilized enough to have appeared in, say, a Barbara Michaels novel. But by the last fifty pages or so, I was saying to myself "didn't I see this in an old Louis Gossett, Jr., movie?" way too many times. (And it wasn't a horror movie.)

Worth it for the first two-thirds of the book, but be prepared for something of a letdown.