ABOUT THE BOOK
Highland Cove Sanatorium sits abandoned on a desolate island one mile off the Scottish mainland. It’s a dark, foreboding place, filled with nightmares. Even darker are the asylum’s secrets: a history of disease and mental illness, macabre experiments and murder.
The tales of ghostly appearances are said to be more fact than fiction, but no one has ever documented the phenomenon. Codie Jackson aims to change all that. Arriving from London with his small independent film crew, they plan to make a documentary that will forever change their lives.
But when one of the crew disappears, things begin to spiral out of control. A storm closes in to ravage the island, and in the darkness Highland Cove’s true horrors are revealed. Now lost within the institution’s labyrinthine corridors, Codie and his team realize that their nightmare is only just beginning.
MY REVIEW
It’s been a while since I have read a good horror story and this one is extremely dark. When five college kids decide to film paranormal activity at an old abandoned asylum known as a torture house, their fates are sealed in a deadly twist.
The story begins 60 years earlier when Professor Bukoski is running from his life from the “horror of a life he created” at Highland Cove Sanitorium.
Enter present day, when five ghosthunters decide to visit a haunted asylum on a Scottish island. The characters are varied and well-developed. Liam has a passion for the paranormal. Liam’s childhood friend, Codie is there for support. Kristen, Codie’s girlfriend, had nowhere else to go due to problems at home, Julian just wanted to be home with his pregnant girlfriend, and Alex, the rich kid and bully, is funding the whole thing. After one of them disappears, the others search for their friend and what happens next is bone-chilling and disturbing.
It’s hard to go into too much detail with this book without giving anything away, but let’s just say this is not your happy ghost story, it is extremely gruesome and will send you reeling with the surprise ending. If you enjoy cringe-worthy horror stories with shocking twists, give this one a try.
Thank you to Mr. Morgan for giving me the opportunity to read this book with no expectation of a positive review.
EXCERPT
She hesitated, and then stepped to the partially opened door. Raising her hand, she brushed fingers over dried paint peeling from the timber. Leaning further forward she stared through the opening at a floor coated with dirt and the remains of a building crumbling on its foundations.
A door slammed shut in the building’s depths.
Wind whistled through the gap with the murmur of a whispered voice.
With a gasp Kristen stepped away, gaze fixed on the door, expecting it to widen at any moment.
A hand pressed into the small of her back and she flinched again, spinning from the touch. Liam stepped onto the porch, pushing his phone into his pants pocket. He looked at her, his smile settling her nerves somewhat.
“Are you okay?”
Clearing her throat and shrugging her rucksack higher on her shoulders, she nodded, gave a nervous chuckle. “I’m fine. I guess this place is kind of spooky.”
“It’s the final resting place of thousands of tortured souls. It’s spooky as hell.”
Liam gave her a subtle wink, but if he was teasing her she didn’t need it right now. The rhythm of her heart had yet to settle, hairs rigid on the back of her neck. Liam stepped to the entryway, his hand almost at the door.
“Be careful, Liam.”
“What is it?”
She hesitated, swallowed hard. “I thought I heard something from inside, that’s all. A bang, like a door closing.”
“Really?” Liam said, and raised his eyebrows. “They know we’re here, then.”
His smile widened, and he pushed through the door into the asylum.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Now living and working in Norway, Dylan J. Morgan was born in New Zealand and raised in the United Kingdom. He writes during those rare quiet moments amid a hectic family life: after dark, with limited sustenance, and when his creative essence is plagued the most by tormented visions.
He is the multi-genre author of ten books, all available exclussively to Amazon. Focusing on Horror, Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia, and sometimes a hint of Science-Fiction, his books cater for those readers who enjoy a dark, terrifying journey into worlds where a happy ending is seldom seen.
When not writing, and when not reading, he can be found roaming the realm of the Witcher 3, or witnessing satisfying deaths on Game of Thrones, or even listening to some of the loudest heavy metal in his iTunes’ library.
Follow Dylan on his website, Twitter, Goodreads, and Amazon.
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