The Forever House by Tim Waggoner

The Forever House by Tim Waggoner.
Published 26th March 2020 by Flame Tree Press.
Read March 2020.

Welcome to Rockridge, a quiet little town in Ohio, with nothing to mark it out from a myriad of other small suburban towns....or so you would think.

But Rockridge has some new residents who think it is very special indeed - in fact, it might be just the town they have been looking for.

Who are these new Rockridge residents?
They are members of an ancient, and not very neighbourly, race called the Eldred, who feed on the darkest of human emotions - fear being one of their favourites - and you most definitely do not want them moving into a house near you.

The Eldred have chosen this small cul-de-sac in Rockridge, because it is one which is tainted with tragedy. Their new house is steeped in the blood of a horrific murder-suicide, which makes it irresistible to them as their new hunting ground.

Although the other residents of the cul-de-sac find their new neighbours a bit odd, they have no idea how much danger they are in. For the Eldreds are about to prey on their most private insecurities, secrets and lies in order to avail themselves of a mighty feast.

If they are to stand any chance of survival, our unsuspecting Rockridge residents are going to have to overcome their dislike and petty jealousies of each other and work together like never before.
Can they hold out against the power of the Eldred?

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The Forever House was so much fun! Imagine a weird and wonderful mash-up of Stephen King's Shining/Dr Sleep, The Adams Family, Saw and a small-town soap opera - freaky, I know - and you might just come close to how this story plays out. 

I really enjoyed the way Tim Waggoner plopped the full-on horror nightmare family into the kitchen sink melodrama of a suburban cul-de-sac, which gives us a heady mix of secrets and lies to be preyed upon by our supernatural newcomers. Plenty of curtain twitching, disapproval and snarky attitudes already colour the goings-on in the cul-de-sac before the Eldreds even arrive, and some of the secrets our neighbours keep are certainly pretty unpalatable. We know from the start that something very bad is going to happen here, and the suspense builds nicely, as the Eldreds make their preparations.

It is interesting to speculate a bit about how much some to the secrets of our human residents mark them our from the "monsters" who have moved into their midst. Although our author does take great pains to make us aware of the histories of our human characters, and how this has shaped them into the people they have become - in contrast to the animal compulsions of the Eldred, who simply exist to feed and have no feelings of guilt to moderate their actions.

But, enough of that...let's get onto the grisly action! There is plenty here to satisfy even the most hardened lover of horror fiction - sinister intentions, terrifying scenarios, gory violence, and buckets of blood abound - and once the action gets going, it is unrelenting and nightmarish, as the Eldred play with their victims' innermost demons for their own gastronomic delight.

I think is is fair to say that there is not a lot of comedy in these pages, although the Eldred certainly have a twisted sense of humour, and there is a certain amount of dark amusement to be derived from their interactions with each other. However, the ending of the book is wonderfully ironic and it made me chuckle out loud. Well played, Mr Waggoner. well played! There may even be scope for a sequel here, that I would most certainly be up for reading.

If you like your horror well-rounded, highly entertaining, and full of suspense that builds up to a good old-fashioned gore-fest, then you will love The Forever House - I did!

The Forever House is available buy from your favourite book retailer now.

Thank you to Tim Waggoner and Flame Tree Press for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Anne Cater for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

From the cover of the book:

In the quiet, suburban town of Rockridge, a new family has just moved into a cul-de-sac.

The family is odd, but their neighbours don't know just how strange the newcomers really are.

They belong to a race called the Eldred, beings that feed on the darkest human emotions - like fear. They always seek a tainted place to live, a place where a tragedy has occurred, and their latest home is perfect, the site of a recent terrible murder-suicide.

The inhuman captors will lure their new neighbours into the nightmare house, to drain their prey in order to feed.

If the unsuspecting victims hope to survive, they'll have to learn to work together.

But which will prove deadlier in the end, the Eldred..or each other?

About the author:

Tim Waggoner’s first novel came out in 2001, and since then he’s published over forty novels and five collections of short stories. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins.

His novels include Like Death, considered a modern classic in the genre, and the popular Nekropolis series of urban fantasy novels. He’s written tie-in fiction for Supernatural, Grimm, the X-Files, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, and Transformers, among others, and he’s written novelizations for films such as Kingsman: the Golden Circle and Resident Evil: the Final Chapter. 

His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Journal, Writer’s Workshop of Horror, and Where Nightmares Come From.

In 2017 he received the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction, and he’s been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award. His fiction has received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year, and in 2016, the Horror Writers Association honored him with the Mentor of the Year Award. 

In addition to writing, he’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College.