⋙ PDF Darkhouse Karina Halle 9781461079859 Books

Darkhouse Karina Halle 9781461079859 Books

Download As PDF : Darkhouse Karina Halle 9781461079859 Books

Darkhouse Karina Halle 9781461079859 Books

It's hard to describe this book other than its a new favorite of mine. It packed action, suspense, and humor. I couldn't seem to put it down.


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Darkhouse Karina Halle 9781461079859 Books Reviews

I've read a lot of Karina Halle's books, mostly her contemporary romances and she is one of my favorite authors. Everybody is always telling me I needed to read her Experiment in Terror series, so I thought I'd give it a go.

It was defintely different than the books I'm used to reading from her and I realize this book is a lot of setting up of the rest of the series. The book was a little slow moving, but good enough to where I needed to keep reading to know what happens. I just about cried when it was mentioned Dex had a girlfriend (and she sounds completely annoying), but I kept reading. There is a moment near the end of this book that makes me want more, more, more! More Perry, more Dex, and more ghosts! I have a feeling now that the groundwork had been set, this series will only get better and I can't wait!
We're doing a Halloween Reading Challenge in the Unapologetic Romance Readers group. I picked DARKHOUSE to fulfill the "romance set in/near a haunted house" category. Halle actually turned out to be a perfect author for this challenge, because I'm going to use the sequel to this book, RED FOX, for the "romance novel with a skull on the cover" category (it was toss-up between this book and PASSION & VENOM).

DARKHOUSE sounds great as a concept (GHOST HUNTERS!!!!), but isn't so great in execution. This really disappointed me, because I thought the cover was gorgeous, and the idea of ghost hunters (GHOST HUNTERS!!!!!) making a living through Youtube was really great. Ghosts in a creepy old lighthouse? Nightmares that might actually be real? Yaaaaaa to the ssssss.

Unfortunately, I really had to push myself to finish this one. I was so hyped up for it, too. All of my friends loved this one, including some whose opinions I really trust. I think only two people on my friends list actually gave it a one star. I wanted to like it, too, so I, too, could be one of the cool kids.

But I didn't.

Part of the problem was the narrator, Perry Palomino. I didn't like her "voice" much at all. Sometimes I can read about an unlikable character and still enjoy their narrative even if I don't like the person, but that wasn't the case here. She was selfish and rude and went on all these random asides about irrelevant things - and the "voice" itself was inconsistent. There were some genuinely spooky passages in here, which would be immediately followed my some random flashback or thought that detracted from the doom & gloom. I didn't care for all the woman hate in this book, either, or how she chases after Dex, even when she finds out that he has a girlfriend (she just demonizes the girlfriend instead). I didn't like that she goes after someone with mental illness, either, using her knowledge of it to insult them as soon as they have a fight, and referring to them as a "madman." Not cool, Perry.

Dex wasn't so great, either. He's a little overly fond of the r-word for my liking, which I think some people will find off-putting or offensive. He's described as looking like "Errol Flynn", which is an odd comparison for a twenty-year-old to make. I know who Errol Flynn is, but I like older books and movies. I'm not sure most millennials would know who that is. I did like that we actually got to see Dex at work, though. Wine Babes actually sounds like an awesome show, despite what Perry seems to think about the aforementioned babes and the fact that Dex is dating one. I love wine, and think the idea of traveling around and judging and tasting wines sounds like a blast. And knowing what I learned about him towards the end, I was able to sympathize with him a little more, too.

There's also some editing mistakes in here. At one point, "enviously" is used where "enviably" should have been used, and "conscience" is used in lieu of "conscious." I think there were one or two instances where a word was used incorrectly or in an awkward way. It's really not that bad for an independent work, and this actually did not factor into my rating because it was minor enough that it really didn't impact my reading, but I thought it'd be worth pointing out because in the future the author might want to consider running this by an editor, trimming down Perry's rambling and fixing the mistakes. I honestly think it would be a much tighter work with a second person on board.

DARKHOUSE may have been a disappointment...but I've been assured that the later books are much better. I peeked at the summaries of RED FOX and DEAD SKY MORNING, and they do look interesting. Navajo folklore and leper colonies? That does sound like something straight out of Stevie King's horror playbook, and I love me some Stephen King-style creeps. I bought books 1-6 in this series in ebook (they're on sale right now!), so I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

1 to 1.5 out of 5 stars.
4 1/2 stars

I liked Darkhouse. It was a little quirky, a little different, kind of fun. The ghost hunting adventures of Perry and Dex reminded me very much of all those paranormal reality TV shows. Nothing much supernatural really happens, and yet they manage to turn it into entertainment anyway. Except that in Darkhouse things really DO happen – but mostly things only Perry and Dex can see – because both of them have some sort of psychic sensitivity.

The story is told in the first person from Perry Palomino’s point of view and I’m conflicted on how I feel about Perry. She’s had some weird psychic experiences since she was a kid and she’s a bit of an eccentric, loner. She was picked on as a kid because she was overweight and probably also a little weird – which may or may not have been amplified by all the drugs she was doing to cope with her other worldly experiences and lack of fitting in. Now at 22, she’s on the cusp of adulthood, but still a little immature. She’s not dying to get out of her parents’ home and establish herself independently – which I find a little off putting…. but that just may fall under “kids today….”. She has a penchant for docs and I cannot help but feel a degree of camaraderie with someone who appreciates the joys of superbly crafted, practical footwear. However, Perry is also still a little overweight. Or at least she says she is. It’s not her weight that bothers me, it’s that she mentions it a lot. What bothers me is a chronic complainer of things that can be remedied. If Perry likes her weight and feels confident and sexy – I don’t care if she’s a stick or a BBW. The Perry I am subjected to in Darkhouse however does not like her weight, and feels self-conscious about it – so…….Shut up or let me hear you pissing and moaning about your efforts and struggles to change it.

Dex, or Declan, Foray I am less on the fence about but not 100%. Dex is also weird and quirky and psychically sensitive which adds to his aura of eccentricity – and also possibly Bipolar. I’m aware other reviewers feel he’s a bit of an jerk, but he seems more a little Asperger-y to me. Not everything he says (or does for that matter) is technically socially appropriate and he has 10 years on Perry, so he should definitely “know better”; and yet - – he doesn’t. He doesn’t seem to have a malicious bone in his body – he’s just weird and quirky, a bit self absorbed and sometimes a little clueless.

I like the chemistry between Perry and Dex and clearly a romance will develop there. I don’t really care for the Wine Babe complication but it’s already being set up that Dex doesn’t feel a substantive connection to his girlfriend Jenn – he apparently thinks she’s self-absorbed(pot meet kettle), vain, vapid, eye candy; and she doesn’t seem to mind doing her own thing with her friends and isn’t all the concerned with his whereabouts – despite this voicing of the contrary. What doesn’t make sense is how he came to be so involved he’s living with her. I’m not sure how I feel about his flirtations with Perry because on the one hand – he doesn’t cross any lines and he is upfront about his having a girlfriend – on the other he’s also leading her on and throwing around some mixed messages.

Perry literally runs into Dex the youtube vlogger/Producer for Shownet – when she’s checking out the abandoned creepy lighthouse on her Uncle’s property; and Dex is trespassing in the hopes of getting some good vlog footage. Apparently the lighthouse in question (or Darkhouse now since it's defunct) has a reputation and ghost hunters have been trying unsuccessfully to gain access through Perry’s Uncle for some time. The ghost part of the story – isn’t creepy or scary. At least it isn’t if you’ve any sort of penchant for horror fiction. But it is interesting. After Perry and Dex collide the idea gets floated that they should team up to create a new ghost hunting webcast – which becomes the premise of this Experiment in Terror episode (i.e. Back to the Lighthouse) and for the rest of the series.
It's hard to describe this book other than its a new favorite of mine. It packed action, suspense, and humor. I couldn't seem to put it down.