Will Haunt You by Brian Kirk

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Flame Tree Press in exchange for an honest review.

This book honestly has me so confused. This is one of the hardest books for me to rate because I just don't know what to make of it. Will Haunt You is a horror book about an aging rockstar who has read a book and now weird things are happening to him. The book he has read is the one you are reading right now by picking this up and so there are a lot of meta comments strewn throughout it. I actually felt this part of it was a little underused and there could have been greater potential for creating horror through this. However, that's not the book's biggest problem.

This plot...what plot? I had no idea what was going on half the time. It was like a series of events strewn together that made no cohesive sense and didn't build up to a proper plot. This is definitely not a small problem and I would have rated this book lower if not for the fact I enjoyed reading it so much. Brian Kirk is actually an extremely talented writer to make this absolute mess even remotely work and he definitely deserves props for that. I was never bored and I never switched off, despite not knowing what on earth was actually happening most of the time.

The characters themselves are also pretty decent. Our protagonist remains likeable despite doing a lot of terrible or questionable things. His wife is a strong character once she makes an appearance. I would have liked to learn more about Solomon, the person responsible for giving the main character the book in the first place, but that's an extension of my criticism towards the meta aspects. The female groupie character also could have benefited from a little more expansion, especially as her part is essentially over once the wife appears.

Overall, this is a baffling but enjoyable book. I would love to read more by Brian Kirk as with a more solid plot, he could easily produce a 5 star read for me. As far as horror books go, this has some major flaws but is personally saved for me by strong writing and enough intrigue to keep me reading. It's just such a shame I couldn't rate it higher.

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