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The Nightmare Room (The Messy Man Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Chris Sorensen (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 1,678 ratings
See all formats and editions

Winner Best Debut Novel, Indie Horror Book Awards
Inquisitr's Best Horror Books of 2018
12 of the Best Scary Audiobooks of 2018, Insider

New York audiobook narrator Peter Larson and his wife Hannah head to his hometown of Maple City to help Peter's ailing father and to put a recent tragedy behind them. Though the small, Midwestern town seems the idyllic place to start afresh, Peter and Hannah will soon learn that evil currents flow beneath its surface.

They move into an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town—a house purchased by Peter's father at auction and kept secret until now—and start to settle into their new life.

But as Peter sets up his recording studio in a small basement room, disturbing things begin to occur—mysterious voices haunt audio tracks, malevolent shadows creep about the house. And when an insidious presence emerges from the woodwork, Peter must face old demons in order to save his family and himself.

“The Nightmare Room is one creepy little gem! I highly recommend this fantastic 5 star read!”
HORROR MAIDEN’S BOOK REVIEWS

"Holy hell it's been awhile since I whipped through a book so fast. And not because I was eager to be done with it but because it was just so good."
SCI-FI & SCARY

"The author has a knack for cliffhangers that make you want to start reading the next chapter immediately."
CEMETERY DANCE ONLINE

Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 3
    The Messy Man
  2. Print length
    276 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    January 25, 2018
  6. File size
    4568 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Nightmare Room is the best haunted house book I've read in a while." Dangerous Dan's Book Blog

"Chilling one moment, terrifying the next, The Nightmare Room will have you shopping for a nightlight." Nick Sullivan, author of Zombie Bigfoot

"This fast paced ghost story will have you hanging on every word as you try to solve the mystery surrounding the eerie old house...This novel had me looking up to make sure that nothing was lurking in the shadows and dying for more when I turned the final page. I highly recommend this fantastic 5 star read!" Horror Maiden's Book Reviews

"Simply put, The Nightmare Room is a surprisingly strong haunted house story and a heck of a horror debut for Sorensen. This is an author with some serious chops..." Michael Patrick Hicks, author of Broken Shells and Mass Hysteria

"The Nightmare Room lives up to its title. It is a slowly building creepfest fueled by nightmares..." (4.5 Stars) Horror After Dark

About the Author

Chris Sorensen spends many days and nights locked away inside his own nightmare room, having narrated over 200 audiobooks (including the award-winning Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix). He is the recipient of three AudioFile Earphone Awards, and AudioFile singled out his performance of Sent as one of the 'Best Audiobooks of 2010.' The Butte Theater and Thin Air Theatre Company of Cripple Creek, Colorado have produced dozens of his plays including Dr. Jekyll's Medicine Show, Werewolves of Poverty Gulch and The Vampire of Cripple Creek. He is the author of the middle grade book The Mad Scientists of New Jersey and has written numerous screenplays including Suckerville, Bee Tornado and The Roswell Project.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07943P5S8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harmful Monkey Press; 1st edition (January 25, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 25, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4568 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 276 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 1,678 ratings

About the author

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Chris Sorensen

Chris Sorensen

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Chris Sorensen is the author of The Nightmare Room, The Hungry Ones, The Messy Man, The Mad Scientists of New Jersey and has written numerous screenplays including Suckerville, Bee Tornado and The Roswell Project.

The Butte Theater and Thin Air Theatre Company of Cripple Creek, Colorado have produced dozens of his plays including Dr. Jekyll’s Medicine Show, Werewolves of Poverty Gulch, and The Vampire of Cripple Creek.

Chris has narrated over 200 audiobooks (including the award-winning Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix). He is the recipient of three AudioFile Earphone Awards, and AudioFile singled out his performance of Sent as one of the ‘Best Audiobooks of 2010’.

Visit him on the web at: https://www.casorensenwrite.com

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
1,678 global ratings
Only going to read the 1st book
3 Stars
Only going to read the 1st book
The concept of this book was really good, but It didn’t keep my interest enough to read the other books in the series. Wasn’t a fan of the wife being sexualized- pretty pointless. A quick read
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Top reviews from the United States

Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Strongly Recommend!
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
A boy in a basement, a man in a booth and a darkness that threatens to swallow them both...

Pete and Hannah Larson move back to his hometown of Maple City to help his ill father and mother. They move into an old farmhouse that Peter's father bought at auction. Pete and Hannah are getting over the tragic death of their son. Hannah finds work at the local bar, while Pete (an audiobook narrator) sets up his studio in the basement of the old farmhouse. Just when things are starting to look up, strange things begin to occur. There is a baleful spirit in the farmhouse. Pete comes to know the malicious entity as The Grey Man. The past comes creeping into the present. There is so much suffering in THE NIGHTMARE ROOM. I dig it!

THE NIGHTMARE ROOM is one of the best debuts I've ever read. It's one of the best haunted house stories I've ever experienced. Chris Sorenson creates quite a few scares, which are timed perfectly. THE NIGHTMARE ROOM is a captivating read. The book starts off a little slow but picks up steam along the way. The plot is smooth. Chris Sorenson's writing style makes for a quick read. It is meticulously edited. The attention to detail is unbelievable–from the cover to the editing.

Chris Sorenson brings something new to the table. He doesn't rely on the old haunted house tropes. I loved the characters. I can't wait to read the next installment in the trilogy. That ending will send you reeling. If you haven't read THE NIGHTMARE ROOM, then you should move it to the top of your TBR pile. I can't wait to revisit THE MESSY MAN SERIES.

Strongly Recommend!
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced , scary
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2023
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I really enjoyed this fast paced scary read. It reminded me of Stephen King in all good ways. I'm very glad there are more to come . it was like a haunted house ride at the carnival lurching in all directions, you had no idea where it would end up. Very fun .
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Karen R Baum
3.0 out of 5 stars The characters are mostly nonchalant about haunting experiences and easily go back for more
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2018
Verified Purchase
There are both positives and negatives to this book.

The Goods: The opening prologue is horrifying. In fact, all of the scenes with the little boy are terrifying and heartbreaking. This is exactly what you want a horror story to be. If you're a decent parent or have any compassion for children whatsoever, these scenes will rip your heart out. The twists are also fairly unpredictable.

The Bads: The adult characters aren't fearful enough to invoke fear in the reader. Sorensen needs to take the emotions of the little boy and apply them to his adult characters. The characters are mostly nonchalant about haunting experiences and easily go back for more. Peter quickly investigates strange noises and broken objects with no fear whatsoever. If he's not afraid, why should I be?

The second negative almost put this into two-star category for me. Hannah is supposedly a main character to this story, and she is used as sexual trope. The only thing you know about her is how her rear and legs look in a pair of jeans. It's mentioned several times. Almost all of her scenes are about how hot she is in various articles of clothing and how the men around her can't keep their eyes off of her. Peter's appearance is rarely mentioned unless it forwards the plot. He sends her away with a "pat on her ass" at one point. In another, she's sexually harassed by her boss and anger briefly registers before an "oh, it's ok just don't do it again, you silly" type of reaction. At one point she's reminded of an extremely traumatic event which leaves her sobbing, and in the very next paragraph they are having sex because she just needs to after such grief. Her sexuality is forced and unnecessary. There is an intense conversation on social media right now surrounding the inauthentic way male authors write female characters. I advise Mr. Sorensen to take note of the conversation, talk to some women, and edit Hannah a personality instead of just a pair of breasts with legs in book 2.
81 people found this helpful
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John E. Brady
5.0 out of 5 stars A scary, heart pounding, fun house ride. I loved it.
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2019
Verified Purchase
I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down, but at times I had to. (I’ll come back to that.) This is a creepy, dark, and rickety stair that descends into an ominous and hallucinogenic nightmare of heart pounding fun. I had heard about the author, and the book, from a friend. I was looking for something in the vein of Stephen King but, to be honest, I’m over him. So, she turned me onto Chris Sorensen. I bought the second book right before I wrote this review and I can’t wait to read it. Specifically, I enjoyed his writing. Its clean, evocative and keeps the story moving. The characters are familiar to be sure: the husband and wife trying to put their lives together after the loss of a child, the high school friend who never left town and, well, never really left high school, the mysterious past, the annoying over-ambitious real-estate agent, the creepy college goth who’s into the occult… but I guess that’s another thing I liked, not so much because they are so “tropish” (is that a word?) but in the way he takes the trope and turns it on its head. Of course he uses tropes that’s what makes genre books genre books, but it’s how well they are used and how interestingly they are manipulated is what makes this book so good. And do you know what this book has that King’s books never have? I really good ending. All of the pieces he sets up come to a really exiting climax that he writes with power and excitement. As for having to put the book down – I was visiting my son out of town and was reading in a hotel room. I was just about halfway through the book reading in an almost completely dark room by my kindle’s booklight. I don’t suggest you read this book in a pitch-black unfamiliar room. After about to chapters I put the book down and stayed up for two hours playing Sudoku on my phone until the heebie-jeebies calmed down enough from me to comfortably fall asleep – with the light on.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Regalcanary
5.0 out of 5 stars No perfect, but pretty close
Reviewed in Canada on July 4, 2022
Verified Purchase
Richly-drawn main characters with complex and tragic backgrounds. I can’t imagine staying in the home past the first scary incident. There are still questions to be answered, so I’m glad to see that this is only book one.
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rixxroxx
4.0 out of 5 stars Read it in 2 days flat
Reviewed in the Netherlands on April 18, 2018
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The pace was good and the story seemed to flow effortlessly. The ending was also good...could have been a bit more elaborate with Peter' struggle with the whisper or Mr Tell...

Eagerly waiting for the next in the Messy man series
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Morgan K Tanner
5.0 out of 5 stars Unsettling and creepy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 30, 2018
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The best thing I got from reading this book was finding out that there's a follow up arriving soon!  This is part one of The Messy Man series, so with other books on the horizon, I'm excited. So as you can probably guess, I liked this one. A lot.

Stories about creepy haunted houses can get a little repetitive and cliché, but this was not the case with The Nightmare Room.

The novel starts with a boy of seven wetting the bed and then punished for this by being locked in the basement by his less than caring father. Only in the basement there's a strange, evil entity that sends more fear into the little guy than his evil father ever could.

And then we meet Peter and Hannah. This young couple are still coming to terms with the tragic death of their son, Michael. When Peter's mother and father are moved into a nursing home due to their failing health, the family move back to Peter's old town to try and start afresh. It's just what they need, apparently.

Because of details and red tape they are unable to move into Peter's family home but are instead offered the opportunity to do so in an old farmhouse that Peter's dad owned, for some reason.

Hannah seems pleased with the new place and immediately gets herself sorted in the town by getting a job in the local bar for the college kids, working alongside one of Peter's old school friends. Her husband, however, is rather less excited by the prospect of living there. There's something definitely 'off' with the house, as though his presence there has awoken something terrifying.

Well, it has, and that's not a spoiler by the way. The house begins to dredge up Peter's past, throwing his mind into insanity. An audiobook narrator by trade (the first novel I've read with a character having this job), Peter sets up his studio in the basement. The reader will be shouting that this is definitely not the best place to be doing this, but Peter can't hear them (duh!).

The first half or so is a slow burn, only showing glimpses of the terrors to come. You just know it's building to something very unnerving. Big props for the author for this. And even when the story is not out to completely blow your mind with horrors, the interactions and realistic characters don't allow you to dwell on this. I really liked Peter, and especially Hannah, who's doing her best to keep things happy after their terrible ordeal.

But come the second half, the scares are notched up, oh and then some! Peter begins to see and hear a strange man walking around, a creepy bird attacks him in the house and then in his dreams. It's all going downhill fast for our Pete, but he can't tell Hannah, not after everything she's been through, she'd never understand. Or would she?

This book was a really great intro to what I hope will be an ongoing series. The situations Peter finds himself in are genuinely scary, and very reminiscent of the logic in Twin Peaks. And that, is all I'm going to say on that matter.

I was really impressed with this novel and encourage fans of horror (even if you think the haunted house setting is tired) to check this one out.
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L.P.
4.0 out of 5 stars Solid
Reviewed in Australia on July 10, 2021
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There are some effective set pieces and there is an intriguing spin on the typical protagonist. I found it a little too focused on the kitchen sink drama in places but it's a quick read even if a tad forgettable.
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King
4.0 out of 5 stars Great haunted house/possession story
Reviewed in Canada on June 15, 2023
Verified Purchase
The Good:
Well written characters that you care about. Most of the supporting characters also feel real and important. A haunted location that is written very creepy and off putting.

The Great:
The visceral nature of the entity itself. It leaves me wanting to see the further adventures of the Messy Man.

The Not So Great:
The protagonist, Peter, spends a lot of the story going in circles. While understandable (you'd likely react the same), it does drag his arc a bit and make him boring. But the tragedy of his life, and the interesting avenue of his normal world, keep you rooting for him until the real problems hone in, and his struggle to overcome them become very interesting indeed.
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