Scott Thomas

A psychological horror with a literary twist, Kill Creek delivers elevated prose, while evoking the unnerving, atmospheric terror essential to greats like Peter Straub and Stephen King—a haunting that lingers long after turning the last page.

Kill Creek

Date read:  November 25 - December 4, 2019 

 Actual Rating : 2.50 STARS 

I always have a very high standard when it comes to horror books because I just don't get scared easily. I actually read this kind of genre very rarely because I don't want to prevent myself from reading horror just because I get disappointed from what I got to pick. I can't exactly pinpoint what I was looking for in a horror story, but I just know it would be my-standard-good right then and there when I happen to read one. Unfortunately, Kill Creek is not what I was looking for.

It was really hard for me to get through this book. Like, VERY HARD!! I keep on reading with the hopes of it getting better as the story goes on. I got a really mysterious vibes from it at the beginning because of what it seems to be a 'breathing' house. A classic horror house would NEVER lose its charm. But damn, it didn't get better. I was looking for something significant in the story but what I proved is that THERE IS NO POINT! I lost interest halfway of the story and just decided that hey, I already wasted my time, why wouldn't I waste some more? My expectation wears a little thinner the more I spend my time with this book. And before I know it, I already finished it with a great disappointment. It was actually very generous of me to give a 2.50 ratings when I should have rated it lower, all thanks to the actual concept that got me into reading this in the first place. It makes me sad because this book has a really great potential. I just hoped I liked it like most people did. And I just hoped this didn't get me to read horror books rarely than it already has.

Krystyna 

First of all, I will start by saying that this book is Scott Thomas’ debut novel. Oh man, was it intense! This story had me captivated immediately while reading the prologue. While reading this book, it is almost as if a horror film is playing in your head. The descriptions and imagery the author uses makes it so atmospheric you feel that you are right there with the characters. I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this book as much as I did. I was also surprised that it was so well-done since it is a debut. The author has a great voice and writing style. This book is a haunted house story that would be a perfect read for the fall season, especially around Halloween. 

There are four horror authors that all write different subgenres of horror. They agree to an interview at a notorious haunted house. It was all supposed to be a big publicity stunt but dun dun dun it was so much more than what they bargained for. It eases the reader into the story and then boom, things start to get crazy. This book was definitely a roller coaster of a ride. I don’t want to spoil anything so I am not going to mention anything about the plot in detail but if you like haunted house stories whatsoever, please go read this. 

The characters were great in this story, especially Sebastian. I also liked how T. C. Moore held her own and didn’t take lip from anyone. The pacing of the story was steady; it kept me engaged throughout the novel. However, one of my biggest issues with the book was the author holding the reader’s hand and letting you know what was going to happen beforehand. I know that novels have foreshadowing, especially in thrillers and horror novels, but it is still frustrating at times. I just want to figure it out on my own and be completely surprised. 

Other than that, it was a great book. It was definitely a creepy read and it would be absolutely perfect to read around Halloween. If you like horror and you love haunted houses please pick this one up and try it. Also, while reading this book I found out that Showtime is picking it up and adapting it into an hour long drama. So, I am excited to watch that when it is released. I am excited to see what other books Scott Thomas is going to write. This one was an excellent debut. I highly recommend this one.

Jacqueline Englund

One reason I love fall is because it’s the perfect time to read horror stories and I absolutely love haunted houses, so this was a must read. I really enjoyed this story and immediately got attached to some of the main characters. Unfortunately it was not as scary as I would have hoped, I still really enjoyed it and it was a great way to start the spooky season!

Jordan Peet

A mix of American Psycho and IT Chapter 2 with a haunted house twist. Pretty amazing, just slow in the middle.

This is a book that both made me feel like complete dogshit (good) and like complete dogshit (bad).

Let’s start with the good: The themes and motifs running through the novel are very interesting and I enjoyed the way the character relationships bloomed.

The characters themselves are also very interesting: I started off wanting to hate how one dimensional they were but as they grew they brought their caricature molds to a whole new level.

I’m also a major fan of the writing in general—The book is in many ways for me personally beautifully constructed on a sentence level. It’s the kind of book I really want to look at the structure of, especially with how I flew through it.

There is one scene in specific I can think of and it just entirely messed me up, along with a lot of long-term pay-off and encouragement of puzzling out pieces.

I also just really love the kind of central horror this ended up being. I liked the book for the most part, even if and maybe even because it ended up being wildly different from what I thought I was getting into.

I can already tell the ending of this book is going to be one I think about a lot.

Starting small, I enjoyed the first three parts of the book vastly more than the fourth and fifth, mainly because what I ended up getting was not what I expected and it messed with the impact of the ending for me.

There are also quite a few moments throughout the book where something is said or written that jolted me out of an otherwise compelling read, mostly focused around the characters Slaughter and Moore. There is a lot to be said for the way Slaughter’s weight is handled and the overall writing surrounding Moore, but while I can kind of see at the end why Slaughter’s weight being written like that might have seemed like a good idea and Moore is definitely a character I like, there are pieces of the way Moore is written that are questionable.

If you can go into it however knowing that Slaughter’s handled poorly and Moore very much comes across as a male fantasy of a woman and you’ve read the book description, you’ll probably enjoy it quite a bit. It’s definitely got some interesting things to say that are worth parsing out.

Jules

This is a book that both made me feel like complete dogshit (good) and like complete dogshit (bad).

Let’s start with the good: The themes and motifs running through the novel are very interesting and I enjoyed the way the character relationships bloomed.

The characters themselves are also very interesting: I started off wanting to hate how one dimensional they were but as they grew they brought their caricature molds to a whole new level.

I’m also a major fan of the writing in general—The book is in many ways for me personally beautifully constructed on a sentence level. It’s the kind of book I really want to look at the structure of, especially with how I flew through it.

There is one scene in specific I can think of and it just entirely messed me up, along with a lot of long-term pay-off and encouragement of puzzling out pieces.

I also just really love the kind of central horror this ended up being. I liked the book for the most part, even if and maybe even because it ended up being wildly different from what I thought I was getting into.

I can already tell the ending of this book is going to be one I think about a lot.

Onto the less good.

Starting small, I enjoyed the first three parts of the book vastly more than the fourth and fifth, mainly because what I ended up getting was not what I expected and it messed with the impact of the ending for me.

There are also quite a few moments throughout the book where something is said or written that jolted me out of an otherwise compelling read, mostly focused around the characters Slaughter and Moore. There is a lot to be said for the way Slaughter’s weight is handled and the overall writing surrounding Moore, but while I can kind of see at the end why Slaughter’s weight being written like that might have seemed like a good idea and Moore is definitely a character I like, there are pieces of the way Moore is written that are questionable.

If you can go into it however knowing that Slaughter’s handled poorly and Moore very much comes across as a male fantasy of a woman and you’ve read the book description, you’ll probably enjoy it quite a bit. It’s definitely got some interesting things to say that are worth parsing out.

sophia n

* 4.5 stars

SO MUCH FUN OH MY GOD WHAT A RIDE

Sonja H

Da ich jedes Jahr an einer Bloghalloweenaktion teilnehme, bin ich immer auf der Suche nach gruseligen Büchern, am liebsten solche, die ein Spukhaus beinhalten.

Dieses Spukhaus bekommen wir in diesem Buch. Es ist ein wirklich gruseliger Ort, der für die Figuren so einige unschöne Überraschungen bietet.
Hier wird auch die Stärke des Autors deutlich: Er versteht es, ein atmosphärisches und überzeugendes Setting zu erschaffen.

Das war’s dann aber auch schon mit den guten Seiten der Geschichte…

Die Handlung selbst braucht recht lang, bis sie in Gang kommt, ist zwar stark überzogen, aber das gehört wohl zu einer Horrorstory dazu.

Was wirklich, wirklich extrem schlecht und noch zudem extrem sexistisch ist, ist die Darstellung der Charaktere. Wow, was haben wir hier für männerphantasiegetriebene Frauenfiguren! Eine ist eine Gespielin eines wichtigen Mannes, eine ist ein „Sex-Vamp-Proll“ mit derber Sprache.
Scott Thomas reduziert Frauen komplett auf ihre Optik und Fähigkeit als Sexpartnerinnen.
Seine Männer kommen etwas besser weg und haben wesentlich mehr Anteil am Geschehen, sind aber recht eindimensional und Machos.

Ich habe schon bessere Groschenromane gelesen als das hier.

„Kill Creek“ ist ein Roman von einem Chauvinisten für Chauvinisten, anders lässt sich das nicht beschreiben.

I wanted to love this book, but I did not.

The first half went on for way too long, I didn't really care about the intricacies of their daily lives down to the minute details. I oscillated between dropping and picking this book up several times; this isn't the kind of book that will capture your attention from the very beginning, you need to get to the 30% mark. It got a bit too gory for my taste in the end, a terrible concoction of The Shining and Haunting of Hill House (half-assedly) brewed with a subpar twist.

My problem rests mainly with the author (Scott Thomas)'s description of women and fat people. It was disturbing to read how he painted Moore to be "sexual" and "curvy", and no, I don't care where  or how her breasts rest on her chest. At one point, one of the authors sexualizes his own daughter's "curves" which was unsettling.

Scott's portrayal of fat people was another issue in itself. Daniel Slaughter is described to be kind, a devout Christian and a family man. But above all, a fat man. He is constantly described with regard to his weight and physique. In the second half of the book, Slaughter is getting thinner. But not really, cuz apparently he is still fat. It is revolting how the author illustrates Slaughter's character.

The only character I really found worth anything at all was Sebastian, the sweet old man who should be protected at all costs.

2.5 stars for keeping me engaged, a mid twist and having a character called Sebastian Cole.
I wished there was more to the haunted house story than what was happening to the authors. I wished there was more about the hauntings rather than the gore and madness in the end.

Laura Aurora

Patti Reinheimer

Atmospheric horror with a fun premise and interesting characters. Truly creepy and thoroughly enjoyable.

Viry

“I love horror. There’s something about letting another person lead you into darkness that is both unbearably terrifying and exquisitely thrilling. And I have trusted each of you to lead me into that darkness . . .”
 THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD. What an interesting premise to lock a bunch of horror authors together in a "haunted" house. I was so captivated and intrigued I didn't want to put the book down!

Ruth Parker 

This book was scary as. I loved every minute of it and had no idea where it was going to go. I especially loved the ending, I didn’t see it coming even though I was annoyed at what I thought was a plot hole that was quickly resolved on the very last page! 
As if this is a debut novel.

Tanya Sutton

This is the haunted house story you've always wanted. Four writers enter a house at the request of an online horror website creator, to participate in an interview sure to reinvigorate their waning careers. While there they have some strange experiences but nothing *too* worrisome. It's what happens after they leave that starts the story spiraling out of control.

Once I picked up this book I did not want to put it down. It took two days to read ONLY because I started it too late to make it all the way through and couldn't stay up all night to finish it. The characters came to life on the page (I cast the movie in my head as I read) and their interactions felt seamless. I could easily follow which character was which and, while they were definitely cast as different "types" of writers (you had your Stephen King, your Frank Peretti/R.L. Stein, etc.) the characters never felt cliche. The pacing was brilliant - once the scares started, the calm between the scares lasted just long enough to let you catch your breath but not enough to fully relax. No spoilers of course but...the ending...I honestly gasped out loud in the middle of a crowded Starbucks. Chills, you guys. Amazingly, this is Thomas' first novel. It is not an exaggeration to say that I am *very* eagerly anticipating his next book. 

* Trigger warning for domestic violence.* 

If you like a good haunted house story, pick up this book!

Tayler Park

It dragged half way through out the book so I was originally planning to rate it 3 because it got really slow but the ending boosted it up to a 4.

Insiya Ghadiali

This book is about four authors who agree to stay a night at a famously haunted house called Kill Creek.
I am not someone that scares easily but kill creek did leave me really unsettled. The atmosphere of this book was so good.
Still it took a little while for me to get into the book. But it hit all the right spots for me.
I'll definitely be reading more from Scott Thomas.

Anastaciya

Eh... 2.5? I don't know. There's some sort of imbalance in the story. We get the tiny bit of info on why the house might be the way it is, but it's buried beneath the stories of the authors... so what's the focus? Nah, it's a bit too messy for me

Witch

4.5 stars
Is this book perfect? Not in the slightest. There are some glaring issues with it, especially with how the women characters are handled. But it is a quick-paced and fun haunted house tale. I couldn't put it down.

Kelsey Holtaway

** spoiler alert **
           I think the last time a book made me this…mad? Disappointed? Was Midnight Sun by Stephanie Meyer and like. Whew. Buckle up. 

I wanted so badly to enjoy this book. I was fully on board with the first few scenes in this book. Excited, even. The history of the house and the lectures on gothic horror were captivating. The first few chapters were a fantastic set up for a dismal 400+ page book. 

First up and most distracting: Your standard “dude writes women characters.” 

The women in this book were props for the men. Most of the women in this book (I think there’s like…three we actually meet but there are more women in this book and yes they all still die for the dudes) die solely to propel the men further in their own portions of the plot. One woman, after she dies, is described by a man by what she did for him, not who she was. She saved him, was kind to him, etc etc, he doesn’t say anything about her that doesn’t relate directly back to him. This treatment of the women characters so common it was distracting. I genuinely don’t think this author knows how to write women in any other way. 

The main woman in this book, Moore, is so over the top, talking and thinking in ways that clearly the author wishes women would talk and think. The over-the-topness transforms Moore into a grotesque caricature of a woman, what the author clearly believes to be a representation of a woman who is a feminist. In the one scene where she is dealing with a more direct sexist situation, she is at her worst, and as a woman it didn’t even feel like a good/fun vindictive moment. There’s nuance that the author didn’t care to dig into it, and it made for a sloppy character. 

It might be okay if all the other characters were also over the top, but they’re not. It’s just her. Which then makes it very odd when she’s interacting with anyone else because she’s so out of place. In one scene there seems to be a tender moment between all the authors (all men except Moore) who visited the haunted house together and she grabs the hand of one of them and he says to her “your nails are a mess” (lmao wtf) and she responds “You should see my bush.” WHAT. whAT!?!? WHAT?! This is the entire book. And it is exhausting.

Then we get to generally how the women are described. Body first (lotta barely contained breasts), how they interact with men second, and then MAYBE we learn about who they are as people as a little treat. Lmao at one point a man is describing his own daughter’s ‘budding curves” like wtf. And YES, in case you were wondering, his daughter *does* die to move his part in the story along. 

I think I would have preferred zero women tbh. 

Then we have the pacing and how this story is laid out and good lord. We take SO long to finally get to the house. Once we got to this haunted house I kinda expected to have the rest of the story take place there? Reader: it does not. We get a chapter or two in the house (a lot of which is taken up with paragraphs describing Moore’s breasts, how she writes naked lmaooooo, and a maybe/maybe-not-sex-scene between her and our standard “nice guy” lead protagonist) where maybe a creepy thing or two happens and then we are BACK TO LIFE. And everyone realizes that the evil of the house has followed them all home. And I get it. It’s a play on the gothic theme described in the beginning where the evil from the house can indeed follow you home, but their experience at the house the first time around doesn’t match up with how it affects them afterwards. There wasn’t enough of a catalyst at the beginning that matched up with what happened to them when they went home. It seemed like they all had a kind of weird night, that’s it. 

It all builds up to a drawn-out messy climax, where we’re mainly interacting with the character’s pasts inside their minds instead of whatever is supposed to be happening in the house. I get that the house is doing this to people, but unfortunately it’s not very interesting. 

I don’t want to be so distracted by the actual mechanics of a book. I want to sink into a book and experience it. 

The best part about this book is that it’s over.

Ariel Himboi

"This is where it gets good," she said, ignoring him. "Open on the floor is an ancient, unholy tome: a self-hurt guide to astral projection through self-mutilation. Soon the teenagers are engaging in increasingly violent rituals as they leave their bleeding bodies to sort the outer edges of reality on orgasmic joyrides."
"Is this really necessary?" Tanner asked.
"Yes. Yes, it is," she said clearly and plainly. And then she continued reading. "But something wants to keep them from returning. Something far more perverse, far more powerful than anything they've dreamed in their wildest fantasies or darkest nightmares."
"What is your point, Ms. Moore?"

3.9 stars, rounded.

TW/CW: Descriptive child and domestic abuse, murder, alcoholism, suicide, gore, rape, death, etc. Most of the bad stuff. 

I recently went on a binge on horror booktok and Books in the Freezer. I've been craving horror. Unfortunately, horror movies disappoint, and I thought maybe that books would fill the void. It's near September, I want my spooky vibes people!

Anyway. I saw Kill Creek, heard the synopsis, and knew it would be my first read. And that's why I started it at night, and finished it well up until 6am when I passed out while eating grapes, famished, and irritated.

Kill Creek gripped me from the first page. A beautiful, eerie, interesting writing style that tells the story of four horror authors who are presented with a two day, two night interview to boost their name and ratings, when all of them are struggling at their most to write. And they take it, not knowing that they'd all be spending their two days and more in a house that's infamously haunted in Kill Creek, Kansas. A house that has a tragic history and rumbling present. 

My favorite characters were Sebastian, an older gay horror classic author whose lost his husband to cancer and is currently fighting dementia. God, I felt for this man right up into the very end. He was the most famous out of the four, and the staple when things stared to fall apart. And then there was Moore, a strong willed, heavy fisted feminist who rocked the entire book and brought it energy that it needed. She fought tooth and nail to prove herself, show herself, and kick people in the teeth when she needed to. I thought her POVs were electrifying, brilliant, strong, and I adored reading her the most, well, right up until Thomas did her dirty. Even to the end her character story made sense, but it wasn't pleasing. And then, well, everything else happened.

Our main character and cliché leader is Sam. He's just separated and can't write a damn book when he needs to. But he also has a dark, mysterious, burning past that we find out about later, and seeps into the story like the smoke that haunts him well up until the end. 

The book was incredibly until the 200th page mark. Like, crazy incredible, right before it wasn't. The characters stopped feeling and sounding different, as the author focused on the creep factor and plot point of the story. It was very creepy, and I enjoyed how the author told the story and brought it into this century. However, at some point, something had to give.

Near the end I was frustrated with how easily I started guessing plot twists. I was irritated that the book had become slow, things became so obvious and clear such as twists, and I just felt tired from the realization this would be one of those things: samie. That's what I call horror movies that all end up the same, that all end the same, that all feel the same, like unoriginal rolls of tape. It bores me, to feel like something couldn't be original for once. God, it's kind of maddening. So when I finished this, although there were many parts that dazzled me, made me shiver and made me fear the dark on the way to the kitchen, and made my heart pound, the ending was the same.

Thomas did everyone dirty, especially Moore, and that ending??? f*ck I'm still so mad. What the hell was that?

Anyway, feel free to read the first 200 pages and come bother me in my DMs for the ending. Save yourself

Kill Creek

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