The Horror of a Wedding Night

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Linda Dean is a 34-year-old schoolteacher trying to escape her mother. When she finds a small house in a slightly rundown part of town for rent, she thinks her dreams are about to come true. Some of the restrictions on the lease are strange, like she can’t ever remove or change the furniture or go in the garage—but the rent is super cheap, so how bad could it be? And so The Horror of a Wedding Night begins. Linda moves in and finds a mysterious journal of some woman named Mabel and she sets out to discover more about her. She seeks help from her new neighbors, who seem to have some secrets of their own.

There were definitely some creepy moments in this book, I made the mistake of reading it at night. I think the title is a bit misleading. That phrase only occurs once in the story and has almost nothing to do with the plot. I thought the story was great with plenty of disturbing events; however, I was not a big fan of the ending. That was one of the weirdest explanations I have ever read and then all of a sudden things take an even stranger turn and the book just ends. The book is very short and even with a three-page explanation of what is going on, it left a lot more questions to be answered.

I want to give the author some credit since this is his first novel. There was suspense and it got me thinking about what could possibly be going on. However, the explanation that he chose was very disturbing and not in a good way. The end made no sense at all and there was no clarification given for why that happened. There should also be a different title, one that’s a little more relevant. Otherwise, the book was entertaining and gave me some good frights.


Reviewed By:

Author
Star Count 2/5
Format Trade
Page Count 204 pages
Publisher
Publish Date 2015-Dec-30
ISBN 9781519179401
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue June 2016
Category Mystery, Crime, Thriller
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Reviews

  1. Amie Westphal

    I loved this book! I disagree with the reviewer, who I’m certain is a very lovely young woman?

  2. Diana Brda

    I think the reviewer’s excerpt on this book sounds very elementary. I didn’t really understand her criticisms like when she said the book was too short and certain parts needed further explanation. I couldn’t disagree with her more. I thought the author provided vivid detail and made it extremely easy to visualize each scene in the novel. She said the same about the ending too. The author explained what was going on very well, but it sounds like just because the ending was not to her liking, she stated that it lacked in depth and disturbed her. I thought the ending was brilliant. It shocked me and left me on the edge of my seat. The perfect way to go out at the end of the story. Hats off to this author. Well done on your first novel!

  3. Chad Kozloski

    I enjoyed the book. I received it as a gift and was pleasantly surprised since it’s a first novel. I agree with one of the commenters about the book being not short: it seems to be standard length to me. And the title is perfect. The book moved along smoothly, always keeping me interested—and the last chapter was totally bizarre, with an ending that’s like an abstract painting: you have to decide for yourself what it all means. I liked that. I don’t want to read a romance novel. Plus, being a guy, something about the book’s climactic perversion was exciting. Actually, a terrific read.

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