In Tim Waggoners new novel, The Forever House, we have the Eldreds rolling into town, and trust me, you don't want them as your new neighbors.

The Eldreds move into a cul-de-sac house, which was previously the site for a gruesome murder/suicide. No one has had the guts to buy the house, which makes the residents of Brookside Court extremely fascinated by the new tenants. What they don't know yet is that the Eldreds aren't humans, but a species who feast on humans' dark emotions.

The nine residents of Brookside Court surely all have their imperfections, some worse than others. For the Eldreds this isn't a problem though, quite the contrary: it's the all you can eat buffet they all been waiting for.

This novel blew me away. The concept of this story is amazing, and I loved learning more about this weird species of beings. The lore Tim Waggoner created, is something totally new to me, and I loved every single minute of it. Unlike other books, this felt completely original to me, and I can't wait to dive into more of the author's books.

I have to tell you, that this book might not be for everyone though. It is gory, graphic and there is a lot of topics some people might not be comfortable with. Some of them are; racism, pedophilia, and extremely loose morals. To me personally, this didn't make the novel any less brilliant, but added to it. As an honest review, I just wanted to warn readers, as this might trigger certain people.

5 out of 5 stars!

Thank you Netgalley and Flame Tree Press for the ARC.

The Eldreds are in town for the Feast. Not actually a surname .. but, more of a definable species. They have lived and dined amongst us for millennia. This grouping of the Eldred is composed of Father Hunger ... the elder statesman, father and husband ... known to humans as Arnoldo Eldred. He is accompanied by his wife? the Werewife .... aka Lacresha; the Grandother, Cleora and the teenagers? ( age indeterminate) , Demarcus (aka The Low Prince) and Vanita ( aka the Nonsister). They've slithered into town ... Rockridge, Ohio ... having identified it as a perfect location to set up shop. Specifically, a cult-de-sac called Brookside Court ... the site of a horrific massacre, and affectionately known as "The House of Blood" ... where inexplicably Cherry Raines slaughtered her husband , children and self. Lots of negative juju pervade this house ... even after many years of being abandoned. The nine neighbors inhabiting the cut-de-sac provide a veritable smorgasbord of dark energy for the Eldred. The Eldred feast and are sustained by harvesting the dark, negative emotions of mankind. Shortly after arriving they explore and mindtouch the occupants .... learning of the multiple frailties available for their pleasure: gambling addiction, pedophilia, racism, marital discord, fear of bisexuality, loose morals, and even political divisiveness. The Eldred are veritable psychic Vampires.
Arnoldo pontificates at his backyard cookout that his "family" enjoys anything related to darkness, whether its physical, psychological , or metaphysical. The neighbors note that when he talks, in sort of a rumbling fashion , that his lips pull away to reveal crooked yellow teeth set into cracked, bleeding gums ... and if you look closely there is something small and multi legged skittering around in a gap between an incisor and bicuspid.
Tim Waggoner, the award winning writer, weaves a twisted "Lovecraftian" yarn worthy of the pages of "Weird Tales" in its heyday. His ability to paint his horrific protagonists in a cinematic fashion is spellbinding and results in a graving for more and more delicious details . Perhaps one day we'll be treated to a cinematic adaptation. of this tale . Thanks to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing an electronic Proof of this gem in exchange for an honest review.
( at readersremains.com)

Thanks for the chance to review this book. This was one of my favorite Horror books that I have read as of late. Very interesting premise and characters. Tim always writes books that leave me in awe. Looking forward to the next one.

This book starts with gorgeous, cinematic descriptions. This book, especially the initial descriptions, are amazing nightmare fodder.

“‘Maybe this isn’t a suitable town,’ the Non-Sister says, her voice a drowning child’s last wet breath.
Her brother shoots her a glare. ‘Don’t be stupid.’ His voice is a finely honed blade sliding slowly into tender flesh.”

At the start, this book was very reminiscent of Stephen King’s Needful Things as the reader learns the dark secrets (and ultimate undoing) of each of the neighbors on the cul-de-sac.

The middle of the book follows each neighbor’s nightmare journey through the Eldred’s house of horrors. I felt like there were a few holes in this part of the story, especially with the character of Alex and her encounter with her imaginary friend. Overall though, this part of the story had a lot of unexpected twists and turns and kept me wondering what was going to happen next.

And then the end! I am still thinking about the implications of that ending and what would have happened if the story continued. Overall a solid King-esque read. Thank you to Net Galley and Flame Tree Press for allowing me to read an ARC of The Forever House in exchange for my honest review.

Spoilers ahead! I was hoping to like this book more than I actually did, I just felt that the writing was a little clunky with uniformly childish men alongside two dimensional female characters. Action meant to shock fell flat for me personally- for example I found it jarringly unbelievable that even a dedicated paedophile could only constantly focus on abusing a child when faced with fantastical paranormal situations and parallel realms. Inner dialogues for each character are all so similar in tone that they blur together into one homogenous blob of victims.

I was very interested in a new take on horror and I do think there were some good potential ideas in this book that will appeal to other fans of the genre.

I struggled with The Forever House" and almost gave up on it. I don't mind wild horror, and I've read this author before, so I knew what to expect, but even though it was crazy it struggled to get me going. A supernatural family that fed on negative emotions and then trapping individuals in their house and digging up their fears was nothing new. It was very fast faced and if you're prepared to go along for the ride you might enjoy it. For me personally, it lacked any sense of fear factor.

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

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I picked up this book. What I got was an inventive, intriguing and all-round solid horror book. The Forever House tells the story of the 'Eldreds', a group of aptly-named eldritch beings who like to disguise themselves as humans and feed off the pain of others. They are just moving into a neighbourhood where a horrific massacre took place and they're getting ready to mess with their latest victims.

The pacing of this book is pretty solid. You get chapters written in third person but focusing on each of the different people living in the neighbourhood, and this is done extremely well as there are many characters but it didn't become exhausting. The people themselves are a fairly mixed bunch. You have Neal and Kandice, a married couple who are struggling due to Kandice revealing she is bi. There is Cora, Martin and their daughter Vivienne, a family dealing with the pressure of Martin's gambling addiction. Perhaps the hardest character to read about is Spencer, a man struggling with his pedophilic urges and attraction to Vivienne. There are more characters than this but I considered these the main ones.

So yes, one of the main characters of this book is a pedophile and honestly, his sections get very graphic. I want to commend Waggoner for tackling this topic and actually pulling it off pretty well. Spencer is sympathetic in a way that might make some readers uncomfortable but his desires are never condoned. Having said that, the child character is described in an extremely graphic and sexual way throughout his chapters and this was very tough to stomach. I suspect a lot of people won't enjoy the book because of this and I think that is a valid reason to avoid picking it up.

Even without the sexualisation of children, the rest of this book has a large focus on sex. It felt a bit gratuitous a lot of the time and I honestly feel it didn't need to be there. Horror suffers a lot from unnecessary sex scenes and sexual assault (looking at you Stephen King) so it was a shame to see that at play here. At one point, a sex scene should have a fairly large emotional fallout but this is simply never discussed or dealt with by the narrative, a choice which is odd given the fantastic characterisation the rest of the time.

Sexual content aside, everything else about this book was spot on. I've already mentioned the characters but the way the horror was manifested into the story was done very creatively and I honestly had no idea how it would turn out. I would definitely recommend this to fans of eldritch-type horror who can stomach the graphic content and like a slightly light-hearted tone to their narration.

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

So, where to begin for this novel - for me, it was a haunted house with a side of 'Lovecraftian' horror. The pacing is great, a quick read and, for the most part, enjoyable. The only issue I have is the authors use of sex as a plot - whilst I normally don't have a problem the use in the novel seemed almost decadent and, almost, uncomfortable. Lots of gore, some interesting characters, enjoyed the ending but, for me, the outdated ideas around sex and the objectification of characters really lowered this novel a point for me.

This was so unlike anything I ever read before and I almost quit in the beginning when it seemed to take a sci-fi turn with other realms. BUT, I’m so glad I stuck with it because this was creepy, eerie, and beautifully written!
Thank you Netgalley, the author and the publisher for my free arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first book from Tim Waggoner I have read. I didn’t have any expectations, save for the description provided.

Thus, I was very surprised at how the book opened : We see the Addams Family rolling into the town of Rockridge, Ohio. However, it quickly appears they’ve gotten meaner with age. Also, they’ve changed their name to the Eldreds.

They take residence in a house at Brookside Court, a cul-de-sac in which most of their new neighbors all moved rather recently for reasons I’ll keep to myself. As good neighbors, the Eldreds invite the whole of Brookside Court to a cookout. I didn’t invoke the Addams Family for nothing. The mix of absurdity and grotesque was often evocative of Barry Sonnenfeld’s movies.

Those events form the first part of the book, in which we especially learn to know each one of Brookside Court’s denizens, their qualities, their faults, their struggles.

Then, the Eldreds’ trap close onto them all, and the second part of the book starts. A game of survival begins for the humans against those otherworldly beings, in which each character (humans and not) will reveal their true selves. The brave ones and the despicable ones not always being those we would have thought at first.

Don’t be mistaken. It is an horror book, with very graphic content even if never gratuitous. It’s not for the faint of heart, as the grotesque keeps peaking, culminating with a final satisfying twist.

The Forever House is not like anything I’ve read before, proving that there are still original stories to tell. I might find more of them in Tim Waggoner’s previous works. I’m certainly going to look into it.

Thanks to Flame Tree Press and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for this unbiased review.

If you’ve read Tim Waggoner in the past, you won’t be surprised by how crazy this gets. If you haven’t read him, hold onto your hats (and anything else you don’t want to lose) – you’re in for a wild ride.

In The Forever House, Waggoner brings ancient evils smashing into the present with a dark, gore-filled feast! This is an anything goes kind of book. (Seriously, if you’re a ‘content warning’ kind of reader, consider yourself warned.)

I loved what he did with his characters here. There’s no doubt that some of them are beyond objectionable, but even the worst of them (well, the human ones) show some heart, bravery, and redemption. And there’s a non-human character who stole the show.

Expect blood and gore for days – this isn’t for the faint of heart – but also expect a rollercoaster ride of a read and characters you really root for.

An excellent read!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley