Thursday 30 October 2014

Halloween Reads: The House of Lost Souls by F.G. Cottam


Book: The House of Lost Souls

Author: F.G. Cottam

Pages: 343

I Read: The paperback copy pictured above

I Read It In: 7 hours (across two days)

Plot Summary: Just weeks after four students cross the threshold of the derelict Fischer House, one of them has committed suicide and three are descending into madness.

To save his sister, one of the three, ex-soldier Nick Mason must join ranks with Paul Seaton- who visited the house a decade earlier and survived. But Paul is a troubled man, haunted by visions of an ordeal that even now threaten his own sanity.

Desperate, Nick forces Paul to go back into the past, to the secret journal of beautiful photographer Pandora Gibson-Hoare, to a decadent gathering in the 1920s and to Klaus Fischer- master of the debauched proceedings and an unspeakable crime.

What I Liked: Quick bullet points:

  • The premise of the story was very interesting. Paul's mysterious encounter at the Fischer House, why his life was the way it was now, unravelling the mystery behind Pandora's life and death.. lots of things going on. 
  • Paul was an interesting character to read about.. how he was as a earnest cub reporter in the 1980s to the man he had become in 1995 (which is present day in the book) was an interesting journey. 
  • Pandora's life in the 1920s, her experiences at the Fischer House and the events that occur a decade later are all very interesting. In fact, the book starts to get interesting and starts making sense when Paul is showing reading Pandora's journal. 


What I Didn't Like: Quick list, again:

  • The book take a while to build up. The first 100 odd pages were slow and the main plot of the book was totally unclear. I was almost about to give up and put the book away when it got interesting. 
  • It was not very clear about the exact nature of the 'evil' that lurked in the Fischer House.. it seemed like a cross between the Devil and some form of dark magic.. it could have been explained better. 
  • Nick Mason was an interesting character but not enough time was devoted to his back story or even how he managed to vanquish the demon... the latter, especially, was very lame! 
  • There were some investigative bits in the book, which were quite nice. I wish that was more of the tone the author had taken in the book rather than the 'nameless' horror pursuing all characters! 


Rating: 3.5/5
This is a good book, but it needs patience! It is not 'scary' as much as 'thrilling'. 

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