This book was very unique. I usually shy away from sci-fi type books but this one blended thriller/mystery and sci-fi beautifully with just a tiny splash of horror for good measure.

To be completely transparent I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this book. It is definitely a book that will remain with me for quite some time.

As always thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review

I'm not really a fan of the spy genre, and even less of supernatural elements, but I did enjoy this one, and might even read another one of those genres because of that! Book was well written and worth the effort.

Hector was a highly trained US operative who now mostly drinks. Natalie is a 12 year old immigrant who was forced into a secret scientific experiment called the Project, until she was helped to escape by the ghostly Tim, one of Hector’s former colleagues. Tim has somehow entered Natalie’s consciousness. She hears him in her head, but she has to speak out loud to him. I’m a little hazy on how that worked out. In fact, the whole science experiment part of this book is basically nonsense. However, there was a lot of action as Hector and Natalie went on the run to evade the Project’s agents who were on their trail. Then their objective changed and Hector and Natalie headed back to the Project to rescue the other children who are still being experimented upon.

The book was generally pretty entertaining and fast paced, except that there was a gigantic, extremely boring black hole in the book where Natalie related her story in excruciating detail. There had to have been a better (and briefer) way to convey her backstory. In addition to there being a lot of action, there is also a lot of vomiting and coughing up slime and bugs. If you are squeamish about such things, avoid the book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

I am a big fan of Peter Clines work particularly his Ex Heroes series and 14 but the last few books including this one have been disappointing and not really worth reading

The Broken Room by Peter Clines, I struggled getting into this book, and it just didnt live up to its appeal for me. I do think others will enjoy. Thank you for giving me a chance with this book.

Honestly, I absolutely love Peter Cline’s novels. I truly believe the publisher had their hands in this book. I mean, it’s clearly political motivated. Border portal bad, immigrates good. Look I don’t care two cents what group you belong to, I just want a book that doesn’t have a clear political agenda. Seriously, it’s getting old. I thought Peter wouldn’t stoop to this type of Stephen king BS but I digress. Anyway, the book isn’t bad if you look past the crap.

I am normally a HUGE Peter Clines fan, but unfortunately for me this title fell a bit short. I didn’t find myself caring for the characters, and I found the plot a bit flat. It followed a girl who had been held in a program that was using children as test subjects, and while there was potential here, it wasn’t realized for me. I’m sure there are people that will really like it, it just wasn’t my style. I loved 14 and Paradox Bound, to give you an idea of the types of books I like. The writing was still great as Peter Clines is a great writer. I look forward to what he comes up with for his next book.

Huge thanks to #Netgalley and Blackstone for the advanced copy of this book.

Peter Clines has made a name for himself by twisting a sci-fi reality with lovecraftian spookiness through his Threshold series. Experiments gone wrong, mysterious apartment buildings, and catastrophic consequences. Though while the cover may say ‘domestic thriller’ this book is much more than that. Get ready for a fast-paced, high-stakes, grotesque sicknesses, and the threat of a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

The origins of the story start with ‘Little girl talks to a ghost’ Natalie, which evolves into a ‘little girl taken into a underground government laboratory and experimented on’ which immediately brings in the Stranger Things vibes. The second protagonist, Hector, is a former military black-ops role who can fight and shoot his way out of just about anything. Together they must right the wrongs of a government branch they know little about.

I really enjoyed the pace of this story and the little bits of reveal we get with the characters throughout. I felt engaged and eager to see what obstacles the characters will be up against and what craziness will ensue when they start the fighting. The story alternates between Natalie’s and Hectors POV as their paths unite initially and then eventually split off again. We see the world through Hector’s keen military-trained eye as well as through Natalie’s course as she’s taken back by the group she’s escaped from, all the while hearing the voice of a dead soldier in her head that helps her along he way. We follow Natalie’s ‘evolution’ and the story progresses, and I was continuously wondering; has these experiments turned her into something more sinister? IS SHE A KRAKEN? There were points that made my stomach turn a bit (which is always a plus) and the gratification of some of the fight scenes were awesome as well.

This certainly wasn’t the typical fare of the ‘Threshold’ series, but as the story progresses and the stakes get higher, I felt like this was an equal contender to The Fold and Paradox Bound, and I’m happy to see this new black-ops action-thriller-with-unhuman-creatures direction that Clines has taken with The Broken Room.

Packed with action, mysteries, gross horror, ‘evil scientists’, weaponized children, and black-ops assassins, The Broken Room was definitely an enjoyable fast read for those who want some fresh Stranger Things-esque action-scifi-horror.

The Broken Room starts off with a man in a bar, a child rushes in, clearly in danger and asks for help. I thoroughly enjoyed mix of backstory and action as they move away from danger and bad people. I will say no more, spoilers. An excellent fast read, with some very cool characters.

TW: Child abuse

This was a chilling, twisty novel that kept me engaged so much I read it in one night! Peter Clines is always a creepy treat, and The Broken Room is no exception. There's a little reminicent of some old school Stephen King (Firestarter, The Institute) but with Cline's special sauce. You'll not regret this read.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a eGalley of this from NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: This was an odd read that was engrossing, hard to put down, and very fast-paced. I ended up enjoying it a lot. I am not sure if this ties in with Clines' larger Threshold Universe, but it could...it has many similar elements about breaching other planes of reality.

The premise is that a young girl named Natalie finds an ex-special ops man named Hector and calls in a favor from one of Hector's dead friends. Suddenly Hector is back in action trying to protect Natalie from a group known only as The Project.

Initially the story alternates between Hector trying to help Natalie and Natalie recounting her early life at The Project. What is unveiled is an odd story of a broken space in reality and children being tested in that space to see what happens to them. There are underlying themes about immigration and child rights throughout the story as well.

I enjoyed the characters and the fast pace of the story. This was an easy read, it almost read itself and was very hard to put down. Some of the premise is a bit implausible but it was still intriguing, plain weird, and kind of fun. There are a lot of gross parts in here especially if you don't like bugs or centipedes...I skimmed some of these descriptions because they gave me the heebie jeebies.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this; it is fast-paced, engrossing and easy to read. I liked the odd premise and the action. If you enjoy Clines’ Threshold Universe books I would recommend this book as well. I look forward to whatever weird reality breaking books Clines writes in the future.

Thank you NetGalley for sending an ARC for an unbias review.

The Broken Room was not what I expected, in a good way, from Peter Clines. I'm a huge fan of his "Ex-Heroes" series, so this was the first standalone of his I've been exposed to. All in all, if you are looking for a mash-up of Jason Bourne, Black Mirror and the Twilight zone, this is your pick. Some of the horror elements got a little graphic for my taste, maybe a little too gratuitous in some cases, but all in all this was an exciting read that you keep reading to find out "how" and "why".

Loved it. Once again Peter Clines creates a fast-paced action movie of a book, full of vomit and ancient bugs? I really did love it, even if I was completely grossed out a few times.

Thank you Blackstone & NetGalley for gifting me an ecopy of this book.
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I know the author is very popular but this is my first book of his and I definitely recommend it to action thriller fans!
The broken room is an ultra-secret government facility that conducts extreme inhuman experiments on illegal immigrant children. One of the victims, 12-year old Natalie, escapes the facility with the help of a “voice” who directs her to meet Hector, a former Special Ops agent, who still 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 - 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳 - 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝚜 𝘏𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 he is about to confront (I couldn’t help using Liam Neeson’s 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯 line here which is apt for this book😂).

Hector is obviously reluctant at first but quickly realizes that dangerous men are after Natalie if he doesn’t accept to help her. Because Natalie has been conditioned for years, she has a very specific way of explaining things and initially, Hector is not sure how exactly he’s supposed to help her. However Hector has to act fast because very powerful men are constantly chasing Hector and Natalie, and will not stop till they get her back, and kill Hector in the process. If you’re looking for an unputdownable, cat-and-mouse chase, this book is it. Hector is every woman’s dream as the virtuous good guy with guns, and his incredible care towards Natalie was a treat to read.

The book is a mixture of action thriller, sci-fi and supernatural elements. It does come with a huge trigger of child abuse and gore.

CW: kidnapping, child abuse, gun violence, human experimentation/torture

I think I’ve now read everything that Peter Clines has written. I think? This was quite different from his others, as there was A LOT of gun violence and non-gun violence. It was basically an action movie in book form. And I really enjoyed it. I’m not usually one for this type of book, the Jason Bourne, highly trained operative type thing, with lots of police and private security, and guns, but this worked for me. It probably worked for me because it still has Clines’ signature <i>weirdness</i> and WTFness.
This is a stand alone, and as with his other stand alones, it still has a few threads that connect it to the others. I honestly couldn’t wait to get to the point that those threads were revealed, and it was really well done. I love that even though his stand alones are just that, that they still have those connections for those of us who have read all of his books. I actually think I would have been fairly upset if this one didn’t have those connections. 😅
I also liked the characters, Hector and Natalie. I wasn’t sure how that would work, with Hector being an adult and Natalie being 12, but it did. I liked how their friendship developed and I liked how things were resolved at the end of the book. I kind of thought one thing was going to happen, but then it didn’t, which I’m happy about.
One thing I didn’t love was that with all the gun violence, there was A LOT of different guns throughout the book, and I am 100% not a gun person. Most of the time the guns were called by their proper names/types, but I have zero idea what that means, so it was a bit difficult to know what was being talked about. I would have much preferred if it was just ‘a hand gun’, ‘a rifle’, etc, instead of ‘an MK16’, ‘a Mossberg’, etc, because I don’t know what those are. I can appreciate Clines wanting to be accurate, but I suspect that for the majority of folks reading this, they aren’t going to know the specific types of guns.
Overall, a good read, despite it not being my typical type of book.

As I was reading The Broken Room, I saw somewhere an elevator pitch describing this book as Stranger Things meets Jack Reacher, and it's certainly an apt comparison. I'd add, too, that it has a vintage, pre-dog worshipping Dean Koontz feel to it, a dash of Blake Crouch, and, in some ways, just a dab of Brian Keene's The Rising for good measure.

Hector is a familiar archetype - a former soldier who's lost those closest to him to tragedy and has spent the last two years slowly drinking himself to oblivion. He's sucking down booze when a girl, Natalie, finds him in a bar and tells him he's going to help her. She reminds him that he owes his friend Tim big-time, but Tim is dead and she's calling in that marker because his ghost told her to. She's also an escaped lab rat from a shady organization known only as The Project, and hot on her heels are a pair of suits with phony badges looking to bring her back.

Peter Clines doesn't waste any time throwing us into the thick of it all, and readers would do well to buckle up prior to cracking this one open, and maybe even cracking open a cold one for added enjoyment! This fast-paced narrative is routinely peppered with frenetic action scenes, and The Broken Room is basically one long, extended chase scene with Hector and Natalie on the run and pursued by mercenaries, hitmen, and cops. The most potent danger just might be Natalie herself, though, especially once the sci-fi horror elements rear their gross, ugly heads and the nature of The Project, and what they've done to her, is slowly and carefully revealed.

While The Broken Room is a crackling cross-genre thriller, what I found even more intriguing was the subtext surrounding these characters and their circumstances. Following the election of Donald Trump, the US-Mexico border crisis, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hope that the children will save us has become a rather common refrain in response to the actions and behaviors of the stupid and ignorant who gave rise to the Trump presidency, antivaxxers, and mask scofflaws. The roots of The Broken Room are inescapably twisted around Trump's cruel border policies, and the shadow cast by that repugnant creature looms large over this narrative like the dark stain it is, with the demand that migrant children be torn apart from their families, and the repugnant, disgusting treatment the imprisoned were subjected to.

Natalie is one such hostage, taken from her family and lost within the system, given to The Project to be tortured and experimented upon, along with a number of other migrant children. Her only hope for survival is Hector, a hardened Mexican-American, allowing Clines to spare us from the tired white savior trope that's unfortunately still prevalent in so many other works. Along the way, we're also given an exploration of found family as Hector and Natalie's bond deepens and they're forced to fight their way through corrupt cops, a gas station Karen, and Blackwater-esque contract killers. Ahhh, good, old America! All in all, it's pretty compelling stuff and gives a welcome bit of depth to what would otherwise be little more than a standard run-and-gun story in less capable hands.

As for the titular broken room? It's creepy, man. Creepy AF.

It’s been a LONG time since I started and finished a book in one day! It’s been a LONG time since a book had me so invested in it that I had to finish it in one day. The Broken Room was that book for me!

Actually now that I think about it, Clines’ 14 was probably another one day book. So with said, I’m obviously a big fan of Peter Clines!

Word of warning, you may not want to be eating while reading this book. Especially in the last half of the book. As always, Clines is once again delightfully creepy as heck.

In The Broken Room, the story starts off with Hector minding his own business getting blissfully drunk, again, when a little girl approaches with a message that he can’t ignore.

Hector and Natalie then proceed to have mind boggling adventures and death defying escapes as Hector does everything in his power to protect this precious kid.

I seriously can’t wait to see what Clines does next! I’m all in!

*Thanks so much to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy!*

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Peter Clines, and Blackstone for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

There is a great deal of excitement and mystery when I am handled a novel by an author with whom I have no history. Will I enjoy it, or will the style not meet all the expectations I develop when reading the dust jacket blurb? Such was the case when someone asked me to read this early copy of Peter Clines’ novel, which sounded right up my alley. Hector is minding his own business, when a young girl enters the bar he frequents and says that she was sent to find him. Baffled by this, Hector begins speaking with Natalie, only to realise that things are much more complicated than they appear at first. Now, Hector and Natalie are on the run from those who have been keeping the pre-teen girl and it does not seem as though they are much pleased with current circumstances. As Hector learns more, he discovers that Natalie could hold the key to something special, though he is not sure it’s being used effectively and wants to protect her from further harm. Clines does well to hook the reader at the outset in this sci-fi type thriller that mixes in just enough grit to be suspenseful.

Hector went by many names during his time working for the US Government. He could make a difference at the drop of a hat, though he was betrayed and this left a sour taste in his mouth. Now, to compensate, he medicates himself through the bottle, turning in one sour feeling for another and his no plans to stop.

When a young Natalie enters the bar he calls home base, Hector is leery. He wonders if this is some sort of set-up and can only hope that the prankster has no plans to do him in. However, as Natalie shares more, Hector realises that this is something even more troubling. Natalie has escaped from a facility, after being used for some odd scientific experiments. It reminds him of things he oversaw in the past and none of these were pleasant. Now, there are men out to get Natalie, which means Hector is a target as well.

As Hector and Natalie flee for safety, the young girl tells more of her story about experimentation and being subjected to ‘the broken room’, a place where radioactivity helps push test subjects to new heights. Hector soon discovers that Natalie has some powers that could prove deadly in the wrong hands and hopes to stay one step ahead of those who would recapture her and subject the pre-teen to more testing. However, it is not as easy as hiding out, as the others have guns and are determined to get their test subject back. Hector will have to use all his training and gumption to protect this girl he barely knows. Clines spins quite a tale here and leaves readers wondering throughout.

As I mentioned above, new authors tend to be a gamble for me, though Peter Clines makes a good case to add him to my list of those I follow. He develops a strong story and uses flashback sequences to tell of a past that is anything but pleasant, without overdoing things. While the plot is somewhat reminiscent of many novels I have read, the ideas are new and intriguing, with characters who bring life to the story throughout. Clines knows how to tell a story and uses that ability to get the reader eager to learn more with every page turn.

The dual protagonist roles surely go to Hector and Natalie throughout this piece. Both have their own stories to share, mired with angst and trouble, though this does not subsume the narrative. The connection between them is obvious from the get-go and any attentive reader will see that they bond as the story advances. While Hector has a lot to prove, he is also keenly aware that he is Natalie’s only hope for protection and must do what he can, which adds a parental level to this already busy story.

Peter Clines sets the scene for an intriguing piece and left me wanting more. Not that he lacked in development, but I remained curious about Natalie and Hector when I finished reading this piece, almost wondering if Clines had something else in the works to shed more light on their lives. His ability to create a strong narrative without skipping a beat of the action is present throughout, leaving the reader to delve deeper to learn even more. While the story is primarily about these two, there are some other characters that flavour the narrative effectively. Plots advance in a well-paced manner, even if some of the ideas are well-used within the genre. The reader is keenly aware of how things will likely progress, but cannot be entirely certain, which makes them all the more exciting. I would read more by Peter Clines, given the chance, if only to see what other ideas he has ruminating in his mind and wishes to put to paper.

Kudos, Mr. Clines, for a great piece of fiction. I will see if I can get my hands on more of your work to see what I think whenever the chance arises.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is great for folks who are getting into mystery/sci-fi’s that involve secret government operations. There’s a ton of action, paranormal-type occurrences, and two great MCs that have a lovely dynamic.

As someone with Big Time Daddy Issues, Hector and Natalie’s bond was especially touching. Their personalities worked well and it was great to see their unexpected journey play out. I think overall, the beginning/middle of the story was pretty good, but the end lost me a bit.

I could have done with less vomit descriptions too, but understand it was central to the plot. Still though….. ew.

I give this a solid 3.5 stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed this however, I’ve enjoyed all of Peter’s books. I can imagine fans of his will devour this in a couple days like I did. Reader who are not fans will become compelled to read his other works. I set out this year to read for entertainment almost exclusively, which this fit perfectly into that model. The action scenes were skillfully executed, he nailed the spy mentality, all the while giving his paranormal settings roots to grow. Fans of stranger things and Jason Bourne will eat this up.