Genre ~Ā historical, mystery, horror
Featuring ~Ā 3 part story, historical, 1889 timeline, mystery, slow burn, supernatural elements, just under 200 pages, cliffhanger
Series ~ Doyle and Braham ~ book 1
POV ~Ā multiple 1st person
Release date ~ October 1, 2022
Page count ~ 210
My rating ~ 3.5ā
My review:
Our main characters are John Doyle and Thomas Braham. Opposites in personality and housekeeping skills, but both share an interest in investigations. They seem to have a great rapport. Scarlett, Thomas’s 18 year old niece, excitedly assists in the background.
It was interestingly told in diary form with some letters, police reports and newspaper clippings sprinkled in. We, also, have an anonymous character that keeps us wondering who they are throughout.
I bet a lot of research must go into writing a book set in previous centuries since things were obviously very different back in the 1800’s, so I applaud the author’s job in doing that skillfully. In one instance a character had to rewrite a letter he received in order to share it with a friend ~ bet he wished he had access to a copy machine.
Overall, this was a fine novel, but based on the cover I was expecting much more horror throughout the entire book. Horror aspects were discussed, but it was really only in the last 3rd that there was some action and it was not overly scary in my opinion.
Everything is not wrapped up and book 2 is not due out until winter 2023.
*Thanks to Chad Miller and Novel Content for sending me a paperback copy to read. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*
ā¬Purchase linksā¬
Save on The Prisoner of Fear at Booksamillion.com.Book blurb:
It is 1889 in Philadelphia, and detective John Doyle is restless. Along with his miserable partner, Thomas Braham, Doyle pursues mysteries, strange sightings, and other obscurities tossed aside and disregarded by the police. For years, Doyle has taken on these cases in the hopes of discovering something supernatural – something that could upend and dispute his long-standing, debilitating fear that immortal souls do not exist.
Doyle’s search for the supernatural remains unsuccessful until he receives a strange letter from an old doctor friend regarding a young woman with a mysterious and rather disturbing illness. When the doctor goes missing in the same town that this young woman resides in, Doyle and Braham decide to take on the case and search for clues regarding their missing friend. In doing so, they discover that there is no longer any suffering young woman, but a dangerous abomination whose origin cannot be explained by science nor modern medicine.
Meanwhile, an unnamed victim has been kidnapped. Trapped in a cell with nothing but a journal to document their experiences, this mysterious Prisoner must undergo terrifying scientific experiments while trying not to lose all hope and sanity.
Inspired by the works of renowned horror and mystery writers like Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle, The Prisoner of Fear brilliantly weaves questions of mortality and the human propensity for evil into a truly intriguing, unique, and frightening narrative.
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Wow! That is certainly an eye-catching cover. Based on it I’m surprised that it sounds like the book might have been somewhat lacking on the horror front. Still, good news for me and those like me who have a low horror threshold,
I was surprised too. Maybe the next book in the series will be much more creepy and this was just an ease in.