Within These Walls by Ania Ahlborn 
From indie horror author and bestselling sensation Ania Ahlborn, this brand-new supernatural thriller questions: how far would you go for success, and what would you be capable of if the promise of forever was real?Published by Gallery Books on April 21st 2015
With his marriage on the rocks and his life in shambles, washed up crime writer Lucas Graham is desperate for a comeback. So when he’s promised exclusive access to notorious cult leader and death row inmate Jeffrey Halcomb, the opportunity is too good to pass up. Lucas leaves New York for the scene of the crime—a split-level farmhouse on the gray-sanded beach of Washington State—a house whose foundation is steeped in the blood of Halcomb’s diviners; runaways who, thirty years prior, were drawn to his message of family, unity, and unconditional love. Lucas wants to tell the real story of Halcomb’s faithful departed, but when Halcomb goes back on his promise of granting Lucas exclusive information on the case, he’s left to put the story together on his own. Except he is not alone. For Jeffrey Halcomb promised his devout eternal life…and within these walls, they’re far from dead.
Genres: Horror, Speculative Fiction
Pages: 464
Format: ARC
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I received this book for free from The Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
If you’re a fan of being thoroughly creeped out, you really can’t go wrong by picking up this book. The story of a struggling true-crime writer, his disintegrating marriage, and his contentious relationship with his young teenage daughter, Within These Walls is an effective, artfully written horror novel.
Lucas Graham was once a highly successful writer, selling millions of books about mass murderers, but his career has gone off the rails, along with his marriage. When he receives a letter from notorious mass murderer and rumored cultist Jeffrey Halcomb, promising an exclusive interview so long as he moves into the house where Halcomb’s murders occurred, Lucas jumps at the opportunity to get his life back to where he thinks it should be. So he drags his sullen pre-teen daughter, Jeanie/Vee (her name is Virginia; Jeanie is her parents’ nickname for her, and Vee is how she thinks of herself, and the idea of renaming someone and changing their identiy plays a significant role in the novel as a whole) from New York to a tiny town on the Washington coast, setting up camp in the same house where ten people died at Halcomb’s influence.
The narrative structure of the novel is very effective. Ahlborn jumps between the present day story with Lucas and Vee/Jeanie and the past story with Audra/Avis, a young woman caught up in Halcomb’s net, interspersed with primary sources like newspaper articles, police reports, and investigation reports from paranormal agencies. This dual narrative drives the story forward; you start out the story knowing that something horrible happened to Audra, and so seeing her story unfold alongside Lucas and Vee’s builds up a strong sense of dread that the past wants to repeat itself.
There’s not much of an explanation of the supernatural elements (not that it particularly needs it), and some of the coincidences that happened for Halcomb’s plan to come to fruition were a little too convenient (the assumption that Lucas would bring his daughter with him in particular), but that didn’t really interfere with my reading enjoyment.
I found Lucas and Vee both easy to identify with; Lucas because of his past (the 90s Goth kid sometimes overwhelmed by nostalgia for how things used to be) and Vee because of her blustery emotionality (as is so typical of girls hovering on the edge of thirteen) and her obsessive imagination. Audra, too, was sympathetic because of her desperate need for acceptance, thanks to a neglectful family life. The characters drive this story more than the plot itself does. Holcomb, who appears through others’ perceptions of him, is terrifyingly charismatic in a way that I as the reader could immediately see as dangerous. But the people who fall under his spell talk themselves out of their own sense of fear and self preservation, and that’s part of why this story is so effective. The horror stems from not trusting yourself, from believing an outside influence instead of the voice in your own head.
This is the first Ahlborn novel I’ve read, and I’m thinking I should check out her previous works. I found it a quick, enjoyably creepy read.
Content/trigger warnings: View Spoiler »
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