It’s winter where I live, and cold winter nights call for spine-chilling novels and maybe a cup of delicious hot chocolate to calm the chills down. This article is a review of a psychological horror book titled ‘Naomi’s Room’ written by Jonathan Aycliffe.
Charles, Laura and their four-year-old daughter Naomi lead a delightful and comfortable life in Cambridge. Their lives turn upside-down when Charles takes Naomi to a toy store in London on Christmas Eve where she is lost in the crowd, and to the horror of the parents, is found dead in an alley days later. She isn’t really dead,
however….nor is she alone…
“I saw her plainly, my daughter, just as she had looked on the day she died. Her eyes were fixed on me. Tears were streaming down her face. I made to move in her direction but I was rooted to the spot.
‘Daddy,’ I heard her say. ‘Help me, Daddy. Please help me.’”
As a lover of the horror genre, I found Naomi’s Room a perfect ghost story to curl up to. The story is an unadulterated concoction of mystery, horror and gore that will keep readers reluctantly hooked. It is well-paced and doesn’t keep readers wondering for too long. The book alternates between the past and the present and could be a little difficult to keep up but at the same time, terror clouds time like a blanket, and the reader feels the dread that the narrator, Charles, is going through.
The book starts out really scary and the element of fear only increases thereafter as the story unravels itself; the unknown becoming known does not reduce fear but transforms it into terror. Jonathan Aycliffe takes things up a notch after the midpoint of the book in the way he brings the story to its end—disgust accompanies fear here as things start to get gory. The ending will leave readers pitiful yet repulsed, relieved yet disheartened.
The atmosphere of fear, tension and mystery is very well maintained throughout the book. There are moments in the book that can give the reader real scares to the point where the tiniest of sounds around them can leave them feeling unnerved. I can attest to that as I had become acutely aware of all kinds of disturbances in my house; I was constantly looking up from my book to keep an eye out for the slightest movement anywhere around me. It is the kind of book that will make you want to look over your shoulder….or better yet, not.
I would recommend this to everyone who enjoys reading horror stories and those who’d like to test the waters in this genre— what better book than this to give you a taste and get your heart pumping?
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