2.5/5 stars

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the advanced listening copy!

There’s just a reason that I don’t normally read horror, and this reminded me of that.

NOTE — I don’t think this book was bad and I do think that for horror fans, it might be great! Just not my type of book.

I had no clue what was going on for much of it. There were lots of characters from lots of places and it was hard to keep track. The ghost/spirit thing just doesn’t do it for me. What I will say, is that I was intrigued the entire time. Kept listening out of curiosity, even if I wasn’t super impressed by the story itself.

Would be curious to know what horror fans think!

I really enjoyed parts of this book—some chapters were incredible, capturing the best of paranormal horror. However, at times, the details felt overwhelming, and I found my mind wandering. That said, the premise was strong, and I loved experiencing this story from an Indigenous perspective. The themes of grief and mystery were compelling, and while this wasn’t my favorite, I see so much potential in Erika T. Wurth’s writing. I’d definitely read more from her!

A huge thank you to macmillan.audio for this ARC! The Haunting of Room 904 is set to be published on March 18th—if you love paranormal thrillers with rich themes, you might want to check this one out!

Cursed objects sold on eBay are not just for entertainment purposes. It is a good thing Olivia can see beyond these objects, ghosts, and curses and help those who enjoy the paranormal and get caught by these curses.
Olivia has to help with a haunted house, but at the same time, she's called to the hotel where her sister (Naiche) died because paranormal activity related to room 904 is happening, cannot be stopped, tragedies, memories, and many apparitions connected to her sister. Olivia discovers there's more to her sister's death.
My favorite parts are the well-described paranormal activity and séance sessions. The tension, haunting, and the undercover all related to her sister, who is communicating with Olivia now. The fact that it's not trying to say any curse, object, or reference to the paranormal belongs to just one lore but comes from more than one single culture, more like a global mysticism including different religions and cultures.

Native Nations vs. colonialism, patriarchal, social media and media abuse and distortion of truth, hate for immigrants, racism, suicide, horror.

I recommend the audiobook version.

Olivia Becente is a paranormal investigator. She pivoted from psychologist to paranormal when Olivia’s gift to speak with the dead began to develop. And she’s really good at it. Five years ago, after her father died, her sister Naiche was in a rough place mentally. She fell victim to a cult who somehow convinced her to investigate a haunted room in the Brown Palace, room 904. That was the end of her sister. Three weeks later Naiche had killed herself. When Olivia’s cases all seem to connect to the awful night her sister died, she finds herself back at the Brown Palace, unlocking secrets to her sisters past life and working to find a stop to the curse that surrounds the room, before anyone else can die.

This book is brimming with culture along with spooky scenes. The characters use Native American, Jewish, and Mexican beliefs to combat these experiences of Olivia’s clientele. I really enjoyed the story line and how the cases and plot all weaved together.

That being said there is A LOT going on in this story. So much so that timelines blur and the details can muddy up the main story. However, I wouldn’t let that stop you. I thoroughly enjoyed this read. I think this would be a great series and would love to see more of these characters. In my opinion if things dragged out into multiples I think this would’ve been perfect.

Thank you to NetGalley, Erika T. Wurth, and MacMillan Audio for the audio ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

White Horse was one of my top books of 2022. That was a book I recommended to just about anyone who would listen. The Haunting of Room 904 has such an interesting premise, and I was so excited to start this book.

At first, I struggled to get into this book. It had a slow start for me compared to White Horse. Once I finally did get into it, I was hooked and had to race to the conclusion.

This is a thriller mostly dealing with the supernatural, but there is so much going on. Olivia has the ability to talk to the dead. She uses this ability to try to find out what happened to her sister. Her sister died unexpectedly under mysterious circumstances. Once Olivia starts investigating, it really gets wild. Even though this deals with ghosts, this still feels like a grounded investigation.

With Olivia, you dive into some creepy settings and the world of a deadly mysterious cult. This was a wild ride that I definitely recommended.

I was so excited to listen to this one as White Horse was one of my favorite new horror books when I got it through BOTM. I even liked The Haunting of Room 904 better than White Horse. Wurth's book uses Native American, Jewish and American mysticism to solve the murder of her sister, in a hotel that takes women every several years after they check into the hotel. I really liked how this was tied back to a historical event and how the aftermath affects us in the present. I liked the narration as well.

Great story, plots of twists and turns that kept me interested and captivated.

Narration was good and brought story to life passionately.

I throughly enjoyed this audiobook by Erika Wurth. Her characters were engaging, complex, believable & diverse. What enjoyed most was while the book was definitely horror it also told the story of a family dealing with complex problems. The narrator was fantastic as well.

This was clearly a very personal book for Erika T Wirth. Another interesting horror mystery with a prickly protagonist (in the best way) from her.

Thanks to Flatiron and NetGalley for the advance audiobook.

3/5 Stars. Thank you to Erika Wurth, the publisher, and Netgalley for the audio arc!

Olivia Becente, an indigenous person, has gone from PhD psychologist to paranormal investigator due to a series of life events (and choices) that lead her down that path. Because of that, she's become one of the top paranormal investigators in Denver, where she works and lives. Her roommate and assistant, Alejandro, take on all manner of cases but lately, they all seem to be connecting to one thing: the death of Olivia's sister, Naiche, in room 904 at the Browne Palace. And when the Browne Palace calls her to investigate the haunting, she can't say no.

I found this one a little hard to wrap my head around, maybe because it was audio. From the opening of the book until the Browne Palace was introduced, I was wondering how everything was going to be tied together. Parts seemed disjointed, and near the end, when everything was being tied up in a bow, it seemed out of place. Especially with the events happening with Olivia's mother. Having a long expository section between Olivia and another character made me question the urgency of the situation.

There were a lot of characters involved that I felt we only scraped the surface of really understanding. Olivia and Alejandro had the most time, which makes sense, but then there are friends involved, ex-husbands, ex-boyfriends, and reporters out for blood that were a little harder to keep track of during the middle. Again, there's a good attempt to tie it all up in the end, but it made the middle a little harder to follow.

What I really did enjoy was how the indigenous history was brought in, weaving through the novel. There's so much about it I don't know, but it did pique my interest to look further into some of the things referenced. And it did play a major part in the book in a way that felt natural, not forced.

There are a lot of things going on in this book! What a wild ride! The narrator is absolutely wonderful for the audiobook.

Olivia finds herself with a gift, the same gift that her sister that passed away had, the ability to communicate with the dead. Olivia's sister Naiche died under some odd circumstances, and Olivia has made it a mission to find out what really happened to her. Brown Palace, a hotel in the Denver area reaches out to Olivia with a mystery that she is bound to solve. And things start to come together related to her sister tied into the Brown Palace hotel.

Pros:
A lot going on helps to stay engaged
Tense and scary atmosphere
Unique Premise

Cons:
More of a slow burn
Some areas could have additional detail

This may be a paranormal thriller but it's not horror and that's what it's marketed as. I think readers wouldn't be so disappointed if the genres were properly labeled. It was too detailed and that took way from the characters and hurt the narrative flow.

A female paranormal investigator with a unique gift is asked to investigate deaths that occur every few years in room 904 at the Brown Palace hotel. Why is this happening and how does this connect to her sister’s mysterious death? I thought I would love this paranormal mystery thriller. Despite its feeling of dread, twists and revelations, this book just didn't work for me.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a very good job. The premise and the mystery were very intriguing, but I struggled with getting into this book. Readers are given a lot of details and yet, I didn't feel for any of the characters and what was happening to them or around them.

While this book did not work for me, it did work for many readers, and I encourage those curious about this book to read their reviews as well. Sometimes a book just doesn't work for all readers. This is the case here. We can't love them all.

I’m so disappointed in this book and nothing like White Horse! Thank you NetGalley for the audiobook but this just wasn’t for me. From the beginning the story starts out strong and has lots of actions, but the characters are over the top and a lot of it felt repetitive.

Olivia, an indigenous paranormal investigator, is called to the Browne Palace to investigate a string of murders and mysterious happenings that keep occurring specifically in the room 904. She is already grappling with her sister's unsolved and untimely death in that very same room, but she feels a responsibility to solve what is taking place. As she is haunted by her sister, a dark entity, as well as a medicine woman, Olivia uses the visions she gets from each to put the puzzles pieces together. Is it the cult her sister was involved in? Her ex-boyfriend? Her best friend? The sins of the past? Olivia must leave no stone unturned until she gets justice for Naiche.

This book started out so good. I absolutely loved the first scene with some incredibly described haunting imagery, the use of Indigenous history intertwined within, and the backstory of Olivia and her inner circle. I started to slowly fall off though as each new character was introduced. It got a bit muddy for me and hard to follow who was who after a while, and I feel like what started off as something so great got lost as the story went on. I wish there would have been more of the exciting, haunting energy that the beginning of the story brought throughout to keep it more exciting. After a while, it just felt that Olivia was going from place to place to place with not much of anything that kept my interest unfortunately. I loved the flashbacks to the past to when the medicine woman and other entities that Olivia was haunted by were alive and thought that really added an interesting element to the story. Overall, this was just okay for me, but I do think some readers would really enjoy this one.

The audiobook was performed by Ina Barron, who I would absolutely listen to again! She did a wonderful job with this story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Erika T. Wurth, and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to listen to this advanced audiobook.

Excellent narration that matched the plot and tone of the book. I will definitely be recommending this title as well as the audiobook.

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for this ALC! From chapter one, this story was action-packed! Starting out strong with a paranormal awakening and opening of a Pandora’s box. The characters were a little over the top and the details felt overly done, but generally a decent read/listen.

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ARC audiobook for review. I enjoyed this author’s first book, White Horse, so I wanted to see what they had written for their second book. This book throws you right into the story. Olivia Becente is a paranormal investigator in Denver and her current case is at a landmark hotel called the Brown Palace. Every few years a women is found dead in room 904 and the owner has no idea why, no matter what room they checked into the night before. This book is creepy and fun.

I love that this novel starts in the middle of the action. Immediately, you are drawn into this ghost story while the protagonist, a paranormal investigator, works a case. Although I was immediately intrigued, the next several chapters failed to draw me in. Wurth builds the story slowly, piece by piece, offering details that don't come together until the end. As she was building the story, I found it extremely boring. By the end, I could see what she was doing and appreciated it, but the ride was mostly boring. I very much enjoyed Wurth's first novel, White Horse, and had high expectations for this novel, but it failed to meet expectations.

4.5 stars rounded up. I was excited to get my hands on something new from the author of White Horse and I liked this book even more. It was like an indigenous and queer combination of Medium and 1408 which really suits my interests. I listened to the audiobook and liked the narrator's voicing and pacing. I really enjoyed the combination of horror, thriller, and mystery throughout the story. Almost every chapter ended on a cliffhanger in a way that had me wanting to keep going to find out what would happen next, see what the next twist would be, and find the answers to the mysteries. While I didn't enjoy the ending as much as the rest of the book, I still think it's worth reading or listening to.