I really didn't know much more about this book except that it is a juvenile ghost story. It is, but with so much more. I had no idea that this was going to be a series based on Haunted America but geared to a younger audience.

I really enjoyed this and could see this series holding a young persons' interest. I didn't think it was scary but may be too much for some younger children. I would say the writing would be okay for young middle schoolers but the content may be better for preteens. Heck I am 42 and I liked it!

This is a children's Horror story, targeted at age 8 - 12. I'd say it's appropriate for that level, yet the writing is very good! It's part of a series of real life ghost stories, set in places where ghost sightings have actually been reported.

Jayla and Dion have to accompany their father, a landscaper, for a job in Colorado. It turns out that the hotel they stay in has a reputation for being haunted. Jayla is in seventh grade, her brother is a little younger.

As it turns out, the room they stay in has a resident ghost. When the children experience a sighting of the ghost, they set out to investigate.

I'm no expert on children's literature, but I think this was extremely good for the age group. The writing doesn't 'talk down' to the children's level so I was able to appreciate Jayla and Dion's adventure and concerns about getting into trouble for various things.

While the fear factor would be considered tame for the adult Horror reader, I think it pushed the scary parameters just enough to keep a child interested while not giving them nightmares, unless they're overly sensitive. It's still a ghost story and the dark can be frightening!

This would be an excellent choice for the sort of kid who enjoys Goosebumps or children's adventure stories.

I'm a Colorado resident and have visited the Stanley Hotel, so I just had to read this book. It's a nice spotlight on a spooky location, fun and entertaining. Perfect for your kid interested in ghosts, and great for more reluctant readers since it's fairly short.

Recommended, especially for my Colorado friends.

Jayla and Dion go with their father to Colorado as their father has been hired for a job. They will be staying at the best hotel in town. It is the Stanley Hotel. Unknown to them the hotel is haunted. Their room is haunted by a ghost who was a maid for the hotel. When Jayla wakes up, she is scared when she sees the ghost. The ghost comes right up to Jayla’s bedside where the maid bends down and does something under the bed. What? Strange events happen such as straightening the bathroom after she and her brother have used the bathroom. The bathroom is straightened up with towels neatly folded on the towel racks.

While I read this novella, I found myself being in the room with the kids. It seemed so real! There are discussions between Kayla and her father about ghosts. Do they exist? This is a nice gentle story of a ghost. I didn’t give you all the experiences that Jayla and Dion had. You will not have nightmares from reading it. I highly recommend reading it!

Book Review
Title: Trapped in Room 217
Author: Thomas Kingsley Troupe
Genre: Paranormal/Family
Rating: *****
Review: The opening to Trapped in Room 217 was great, we meet Jayla and her brother, Dion, who move to Estes Park, Colorado for their father’s job in landscaping. However, it means pulling the kids out a little early for school, but they shouldn’t be there more than a week. I liked how this is a broken family dynamic as the mother left them a long time ago, so it is just Jayla, Dion and their dad.
Once they arrive in Estes Park they learn they are going to be staying in the Stanley Hotel which seems more like a mansion and instantly gives Jayla the creeps. However, she tries to settle in for her father’s sake and work is work but strange things start happening and she seems to be the only one who is noticing them. One night both sibling see the ghost of a maid from long ago and while both are scared they seem to sense that she doesn’t want to harm them. But as they are kids, their curiosity gets the better of them and they begin investigating the history of the hotel.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Jayla and Dion head down into the tunnels under the hotel to investigate when their hear voices and the batteries in their phones mysteriously die. However, Reuben the caretaker finds them before they can become too scared and takes them back into the hotel. They tell him about their room being haunted and he lets slip that the ghost of the maid is called Elizabeth and that the hotel draws in both the living and the dead.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, the siblings find some help from hotel staff and learn that there are more and more ghosts residing in the hotel including Lucy a runaway who uses to live in the hotel until she was found and thrown out causing her to freeze to death and that she hasn’t left since. Jayla realises that Elizabeth is looking for something which is why she keeps returning to their room. The pair find the item they think Elizabeth is looking for and now all they can do is wait for her to return.
In the end, everything works out fine for the family. While the book does have a few scary moments they are quite on the tame side and would make ok reading for younger kids but not too young. I found I really enjoyed Trapped in Room 217 and I will be reading more from this author soon.

Jayla and Dion were on break from school. When their dad had to work in Colorado they thought it would be one great adventure. Little did they know that they were staying at the Stanley Hotel, one of the most haunted hotels in the area.
Jayla and Dion were typical children they were curious and looking for adventure, so when a ghost made an appearance in room 217, they were up for investigating. Plus, if it got Jayla out of maths homework than that was even better.
This story is perfect for children and adults who want a gentle ghost story, with its atmospheric feel to it, you got instantly drawn into the story. As I was reading this, Jayla and Dion reminded me of my own children and I did wonder what they would have done in that same situation.
A special touch was this hotel and room exists and if I lived in the Colorado I would definitely pay a visit. This was a quick read and I read it in one sitting. I am curious where this author will take us on his next haunted visit.

4 stars

This was such a fun story! It is about a young girl Jayla who ends up staying in the most hunted place in Colorado after her fathers job requires him to spend a week in Colorado. On the first night she and her little brother Dion see a ghost dressed as a maid in their room. They discover her name is Elizabeth, she was a maid who worked in the hotel up until her death. They discover that she is trapped looking for a necklace in their room. In the end they reunite her with the necklace.

The setting in this short novel was amazing – it helped create the eerie atmosphere that I really loved. Another thing I loved about this was the sibling relationship between Jayla and her little brother Dion , as someone who has a little brother this was a really honest account of what having a younger sibling is like. Also this gave me haunted mansion vibes and I used to love that movie. So the hotel in this novel is a real haunted hotel that the author actually visited which I thought was really cool.

The only issue I has with this was that the ending felt a little abrupt and I felt like it was quite rushed at the end trying to resolve everything.

Trapped in Room 217 (Haunted States of America series) by Thomas Kingsley Troupe is a quick, fun, and spooky MG horror story. I love the idea for this series as each story features ghost stories and creepy mysteries from each state. This installment tackles The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado which was the inspiration for The Shining by Stephen King. I liked it well enough as we learn about the background of the hotel and get to know the kids at the heart of the story. After all the build up, though, I was just a bit underwhelmed by the ending which didn't quite seem to be on the same level as the rest of it. The story is meant to have illustrations sprinkled throughout, but the ARC just includes a gap for the place they're supposed to be. I wish I could have had the opportunity to see them while reading if they'll be as great as the cover. Finally, I'm think going to have to keep an eye on this series to see where Ohio's installment will be set - my guesses are for the Ohio State Reformatory, the Buxton Inn, the Athens Lunatic Asylum, and the Ceely Rose House at Malabar Farm.

This was a cute (can a ghost story be cute?) fast paced story based on a true haunted hotel. Loved the characters and the author's personal experience at the end of the story.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book, which I voluntarily chose to review.

The right amount of spooky and funny. I found myself laughing out loud and also creeped the heck out. Its gonna be hard to sleep tonight xD. 

It surprised me to find out that this place, and thos ghost are real. I do wish the story had been a touch longer (it only took 45 minutes to read) and that some of the spookier elements of the story hadn't been left hanging. But overall, really good ghost story. 

An ecopy of this book was given to me by netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Note: I received a copy of Trapped in Room 217 by Thomas Kingsley Troupe via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Yasssss, Spring break is here! And what better way to spend it than sleeping in Colorado’s most haunted place: room 217 of the Stanley Hotel. Jayla Walters’ father’s job brings both her and her brother, Dion, to the spooky hotel, and right away, Jayla gets this inkling that something in this hotel just isn’t right. Heck, in the very first night, Jayla witnesses a transparent woman, donned in an old maid’s uniform, walk towards the bed. This routine occurs throughout the week, but what happens when Jayla and Dion break the maid’s nightly tradition?

Trapped in Room 217 is part of Thomas Kingsley Troupe's series, The Haunted States of America. This ghostly series uses real-life lore to create an entirely new and terrifying tale.

Trapped in Room 217 was such a quick read. If I wouldn’t have started so close to bedtime, I would have definitely finished it in one-sitting. This book literally takes just about one hour to complete. It also helps that Trapped in Room 217 is quick-paced, and begs for you to keep turning the pages.

I’ve never read a The Haunted States of America novel, so I was genuinely surprised to read a middle grade novel that centers around a very famous haunting. I absolutely love learning about real-life haunts. So, it really did please me to see that Thomas Kingsley Troupe’s book, >i?Trapped in Room 217, actually talked about Elizabeth Wilson, the maid who haunts room 217.

Also, bonus points to Troupe, because he actually stayed overnight at the Stanley Hotel, and had his own experience with another ghost named Lucy. I’m definitely adding ‘stay at the Stanley Hotel’ to my bucket list. It’s clear that Thomas Kingsley Troupe has a lot of knowledge on the paranormal, and, to be honest, he is #goals.

I found Jayla and her family to be absolutely adorable; especially as one of the goals for the kids in Trapped in Room 217 is to help free Elizabeth Wilson’s soul. Instead of running & hiding from the spirit, these two lil’ nuggets wanted to help. I’m sorry, but I’m gonna need a minute — that’s too precious.

It’s also worth noting that Trapped in Room 217 does have illustrations. Due to the fact that my copy was an e-ARC, the illustrations weren’t included yet, but I’m so excited to see a copy of the final book when it becomes available for purchase on September 1st.

I truly enjoyed my time reading Trapped in Room 217. It would make the perfect quick Halloween-read this season, and I definitely recommend if you’re looking for an eerie good time. I know that I definitely plan on searching for more of the books from the series.

I love finding middle-grade books that I knew I would have loved as a reader at that age, and Trapped in Room 217 is another to add to that list!

Trapped follows a sister and brother duo along with their father, as they visit the Stanley Hotel in Colorado. This is the hotel that The Shining was filmed in, so you know it's bound to have some scary stuff going on!

Despite being for younger readers, parts of this were actually creepy even for me!

This was a pretty intense book for a children's series. I appreciate the way the haunted areas were handled. It would have been really cheesy if there were ghosts floating around everywhere, but the voices and noises made it a more mature read. This book is perfect for kids that like scary stories.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Author: Thomas Kingsley Troupe
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Publication Date: 01 Sep 2018

I didn't realise when I requested this book that it was written for middle grade aged kids. However, that didn't stop me from enjoying every second of it! It's a short story of only 136 pages, I read it in one sitting, it was an extremely fun story.

Jayla, twelve, and Dion, seven, get woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from their Dad's boss. Their dad has scored a job in Colorado for the week, and they have to leave the next morning. Once in Colorado, they arrive at their hotel, The Stanley Hotel, which will be their home for the next week. Jayla and Dion are a little worried as their dad will be out working all week, and they will be stuck at the hotel while he's not there, having to entertain themselves. The worry of boredom soon abates however, as on the first night they both witness a ghost in their hotel room. This sparks the need to know more about this spirit woman, and why she retraces the same steps every night. It leads them on a fun adventure where they learn more about the history of the hotel, and the fact that it is truly haunted.

I loved that this was a ghost story for kids. I used to LOVE reading and watching scary things as a kid (I still do now), and it was always so hard to find something like this when I was young. It's just a good, old fashioned ghost story. Another awesome factor about it, The Stanley Hotel is actually real, and is said to be extremely haunted. The author based some of the events in the book on his experiences at the hotel when he stayed there, unfortunately, not in room 217.

All in all, I'm really glad that I requested this, it was a quick, fun, and light read. Bravo!

Due out just in time to hit the shelves heading into the Halloween season, this book starts out strong, with the makings of a really good, age-appropriate, ghost story, but then it seems to rush to a rather anti-climatic ending way too quickly. There just really isn't a "middle" to this story and it desperately needs one. I would like to see the author go back and flesh out the story and all of the characters just a little better and add a bit more excitment to the ending.

I would still suggest this to young readers looking for a scary, but not too scary, story, but it did fall a little flat for me.

Thankyou to NetGalley, North Star Editions, Jolly Fish Press and Thomas Kingsley Troupe for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of Trapped In Room 217.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I was hooked right from the start. It was spine-tingling short story. I can't wait to read more in this series.
If you enjoy a good ghost story, you will enjoy this book.

This book is part of a new series called The Haunted States of America series that will focus on "haunted locals" in the different states. I loved that this story centered on the infamous Stanley Hotel in Colorado. Stephen King wrote The Shining after staying there in 1974. So, right there the atmosphere gets a thumbs up. It's labeled MG horror, but between you and me it's more like MG creepy. Unless you've got a sensitive reader, this one won't inspire nightmares.

The main characters in the story are staying at the hotel with their Dad while he works nearby for the week. That leaves two kids wandering around a "haunted" hotel on their own. They see a ghost and then investigate who it might be.

I'm looking forward to reading more of the books in this series.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from North Star Editions and Jolly Fish Press through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Trapped in Room 217 is a fun, easy read with little spine-chilling and mystery elements that is based in an actual haunted hotel in real life.

The story is about a family who happened to stay at the famous Stanley Hotel’s room 217 for a week. Then the two children, Jayla and Dion, started to investigate the “ghost sighting” when they had an uninvented visitor in their room on the first night of their stay.

The plot is really short and faced paced. In fact, I only read this in one sitting while I was on my way home from work. I didn’t expect to be spooked so much since this book’s primary audience is younger readers. However, there is one scene towards the end of the story that creeped me out. How I wish the book were a little longer because I want to know more about the other paranormal things that are mentioned in the book. These things left me hanging in midair. Lastly, I think the finished copies have illustrations, but the arc that I got didn’t have it, so I am not in the position to comment how the illustrations look like and add a more entertaining factor to the story.

The two main characters, Jayla and Dion, are very likable characters. They bond really well even when they have different personalities. Jayla seems like the extroverted one, while Dion is kind of introverted. I like the scenes where Jayla becomes protective of Dion whenever they have their “little” adventures inside the hotel.

Overall, Trapped in Room 217 is a short, delightful read youngers readers will like as well as adults who have young hearts.

I gave this book 4/5 stars!

This is a GREAT book! Yes, it's for younger children, but it's a great adventure story & I would have loved to have had books like this when my kids were in middle school. This would be a fun, adventurous book to read with younger kids.
Other reviewers commented that they didn't know or was for young children. I don't know if the description was changed before u found the book, but I felt that it was very clearly a younger children's book. Others complained about the dad leaving his kifs on their own - but I think that is the norm for books for kids - it's exciting to explore on their own, independent. Even Nancy Drew was very unsupervised for her time. As for lack of character development - it's a kids book. They aren't well known for back story!

Read this book for what it is - a middle school age adventure ghost story set in a historic place. It's amazing! Except with this age level, how can an author introduce such a well known area? These kifs are learning all about the Stanley for the first time. I really feel that the story is well done & will recommend it to everyone I know with younger children!

When you find out that this is a real hotel and a real haunted room and was so spooky that even Stephen King was inspired to write his classic The Shining, you just know this is going to be spooky.

I am fascinated with things like this but tend not to read them as I have such an active imagination that I can dream about things for weeks. But it’s for middle grade I thought so isn’t going to be that bad is it?

Well, it is spooky and chilling and I can only say that middle grade kids today are less nervous that I was or my friends were! It’s a fascinating story and nicely told through fictional characters who come to stay.

It’s the actual hotel in the Shining though so if you’ve seen that and then read this....