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Finding Emma
No one likes Jack. His wife is gone and his neighbors avoid him. He's a recluse and a creep and that's just the way he wants it.
But when ten-year old Emma goes missing in the nearby woods, the eyes of his neighbors turn on him in fear and accusation, escalating as the days pass. The answers they--and the reader--get, however, are the last that anyone would suspect...
Finding Emma is a disturbing novella of literary horror totalling 17,500 words or about 70 paperback pages.
But when ten-year old Emma goes missing in the nearby woods, the eyes of his neighbors turn on him in fear and accusation, escalating as the days pass. The answers they--and the reader--get, however, are the last that anyone would suspect...
Finding Emma is a disturbing novella of literary horror totalling 17,500 words or about 70 paperback pages.
70 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2012
4 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Iden
32 books345 followersI write fantasy, science fiction, horror, thrillers, crime fiction, and contemporary literary fiction with a psychological twist.
I’ve held jobs with the US Postal Service, international non-profit groups, a short stint with the Forest Service in Sitka, Alaska, and time with the globe-spanning Semester at Sea program. Trips to Iceland, Patagonia, and Antarctica added to the creative pot, as well, and I started to put all those experiences to good use about eight years ago--thinking, dreaming, and writing.
Please email me at matt.iden AT matthew-iden.com, Tweet @CrimeRighter, or find me on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/matthew.iden.
The Marty Singer detective series is:
A Reason to Live (Marty Singer #1)
Blueblood (Marty Singer #2)
One Right Thing (Marty Singer #3)
The Spike (Marty Singer #4)
The Wicked Flee (Marty Singer #5)
I’ve held jobs with the US Postal Service, international non-profit groups, a short stint with the Forest Service in Sitka, Alaska, and time with the globe-spanning Semester at Sea program. Trips to Iceland, Patagonia, and Antarctica added to the creative pot, as well, and I started to put all those experiences to good use about eight years ago--thinking, dreaming, and writing.
Please email me at matt.iden AT matthew-iden.com, Tweet @CrimeRighter, or find me on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/matthew.iden.
The Marty Singer detective series is:
A Reason to Live (Marty Singer #1)
Blueblood (Marty Singer #2)
One Right Thing (Marty Singer #3)
The Spike (Marty Singer #4)
The Wicked Flee (Marty Singer #5)
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 12, 2020
WELL HELLO SPOOKTOBER!
fulfilling my shortie Spooktober challenge to read one spooky short story a day.
Day one: The Magic Shop by H.G. Wells
Day two: Everything's Fine by Matthew Pridham
Day three: It Came From Hell and Smashed the Angels by Gregor Xane
Day four: Sometimes They Come Back by Stephen King
Day five: The Curse of Yig by H.P. Lovecraft
Day six: The Spook House by Ambrose Bierce
Day seven: An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Day eight: The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
Day nine: Graveyard Shift by Stephen King
Day ten: Bitter Grounds by Neil Gaiman
Ok, so first things first, I got this novelette on amazon for free several years ago and never read it. It was right after I joined Goodreads and the author friended me soon after my purchase. So I am technically friends with this author on here but I have never interacted with him nor have I read a book of his before. And I am always honest, GR friends or not
.
I expected way more out of this one than I got. That cover is super spooky and it also claims to be a “disturbing novella.” Pfffffffft. Disturbing my ass. This story is tame. It is also quite boring. It should have been half as many pages as it was.
I will say, for a self-pub this is surprisingly well written in a technical sense. I found two very minor typos in the whole thing and the story flows in a way I usually do not find with self-pubs. However, the use of description about EVERY. SINGLE. THING was too much. This book is probably 50% story and 50% description (AKA do not care stuff). Our narrator is a reclusive man named Jack who lives in an uppity suburban neighborhood outside of DC. His wife has just left him and he is a bit curmudgeonly, doesn’t make friends, his neighbors think he’s weird, and he’s well, a bit of a douchecanoe. And he really is. I had a hard time relating to him or even liking him enough to care about what happens. He is a freelance illustrator who is working one day when he notices his neighbors getting all riled up. A neighborhood girl named Emma, ten years old, has disappeared for several hours and her parents are beginning to get very worried. Search parties set out into the surrounding woods but to no avail, the girl is not found. What is found is her bike which looks like it had been dragged through the woods and stashed in the neighboring playground. Also beside her bike is a chalk painting on the sidewalk of a young girl with blonde hair with blood spurting out of her neck. Everyone is disturbed, and all the eyes look toward everyone’s least favorite neighbor who draws for a living and who likes to walk in the woods.
What ensues is a very weak excuse for a mystery followed by a lot of people doing some things that I just didn’t believe would happen in real life. This “horror” of this story we come to realize is less about the missing girl and more about the incessant busybodying of neighbors, of HOAs trying to control everything, of gossipy young moms who know everyone’s business, the typical suburban life. With that being said, I still find a lot of the things these people did to get back at Jack to be too farfetched for my taste. I live in a neighborhood like that one, My HOA is the bane of my existence. I live among a lot of retired people who have nothing else to do but to tell their neighbors how their lawn should be immaculately landscaped, or to piss and moan about a commercial work van in their neighbor’s driveway. I live this dreary suburban existence, and I still found this story to be exaggerated. The ending contains a bit of a twist that I cannot say I didn’t see coming. But all in all? This is definitely the weakest Spooktober selection by a mile.
2 stars.
fulfilling my shortie Spooktober challenge to read one spooky short story a day.
Day one: The Magic Shop by H.G. Wells
Day two: Everything's Fine by Matthew Pridham
Day three: It Came From Hell and Smashed the Angels by Gregor Xane
Day four: Sometimes They Come Back by Stephen King
Day five: The Curse of Yig by H.P. Lovecraft
Day six: The Spook House by Ambrose Bierce
Day seven: An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Day eight: The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
Day nine: Graveyard Shift by Stephen King
Day ten: Bitter Grounds by Neil Gaiman
Ok, so first things first, I got this novelette on amazon for free several years ago and never read it. It was right after I joined Goodreads and the author friended me soon after my purchase. So I am technically friends with this author on here but I have never interacted with him nor have I read a book of his before. And I am always honest, GR friends or not
.
I expected way more out of this one than I got. That cover is super spooky and it also claims to be a “disturbing novella.” Pfffffffft. Disturbing my ass. This story is tame. It is also quite boring. It should have been half as many pages as it was.
I will say, for a self-pub this is surprisingly well written in a technical sense. I found two very minor typos in the whole thing and the story flows in a way I usually do not find with self-pubs. However, the use of description about EVERY. SINGLE. THING was too much. This book is probably 50% story and 50% description (AKA do not care stuff). Our narrator is a reclusive man named Jack who lives in an uppity suburban neighborhood outside of DC. His wife has just left him and he is a bit curmudgeonly, doesn’t make friends, his neighbors think he’s weird, and he’s well, a bit of a douchecanoe. And he really is. I had a hard time relating to him or even liking him enough to care about what happens. He is a freelance illustrator who is working one day when he notices his neighbors getting all riled up. A neighborhood girl named Emma, ten years old, has disappeared for several hours and her parents are beginning to get very worried. Search parties set out into the surrounding woods but to no avail, the girl is not found. What is found is her bike which looks like it had been dragged through the woods and stashed in the neighboring playground. Also beside her bike is a chalk painting on the sidewalk of a young girl with blonde hair with blood spurting out of her neck. Everyone is disturbed, and all the eyes look toward everyone’s least favorite neighbor who draws for a living and who likes to walk in the woods.
What ensues is a very weak excuse for a mystery followed by a lot of people doing some things that I just didn’t believe would happen in real life. This “horror” of this story we come to realize is less about the missing girl and more about the incessant busybodying of neighbors, of HOAs trying to control everything, of gossipy young moms who know everyone’s business, the typical suburban life. With that being said, I still find a lot of the things these people did to get back at Jack to be too farfetched for my taste. I live in a neighborhood like that one, My HOA is the bane of my existence. I live among a lot of retired people who have nothing else to do but to tell their neighbors how their lawn should be immaculately landscaped, or to piss and moan about a commercial work van in their neighbor’s driveway. I live this dreary suburban existence, and I still found this story to be exaggerated. The ending contains a bit of a twist that I cannot say I didn’t see coming. But all in all? This is definitely the weakest Spooktober selection by a mile.
2 stars.
December 26, 2012
I'm not usually a reader of short stories, but when I was sent to event to be able to download these free I thought "why not?"
I quite enjoyed this. Most books are hugely descriptive and give lots of details about what characters look like, what kind of person they are etc. But this book almost allows the characters actions to speak for themselves, you get a sense of who they are through their actions, and as for what they look like, you get to use your imagination. So essentially each person could get a different feel from this book, but I don't think that's a bad thing.
I also liked the twist at the end!
I quite enjoyed this. Most books are hugely descriptive and give lots of details about what characters look like, what kind of person they are etc. But this book almost allows the characters actions to speak for themselves, you get a sense of who they are through their actions, and as for what they look like, you get to use your imagination. So essentially each person could get a different feel from this book, but I don't think that's a bad thing.
I also liked the twist at the end!
September 3, 2012
Sorry, took me a few days to process what exactly I would like to relate about this story.
Finding Emma had the effect of causing me to stop and take notice of my own neighbors, relationships with them, how others are treated, and mental judgments. I came away from the story asking myself: What if Emma had been lost in MY neighborhood? And what if My neighbor was Jack Tate?
I recommend Finding Emma as an engaging, quick read. I do like a story that leaves me thinking about it for awhile after I have finished.
Finding Emma had the effect of causing me to stop and take notice of my own neighbors, relationships with them, how others are treated, and mental judgments. I came away from the story asking myself: What if Emma had been lost in MY neighborhood? And what if My neighbor was Jack Tate?
I recommend Finding Emma as an engaging, quick read. I do like a story that leaves me thinking about it for awhile after I have finished.
November 2, 2012
Loved it, hoped it was going where I thought and it did so in a great way.
March 31, 2013
Finding Emma ist Stephen Dobyns gewidmet und dieses kurze Kriminalstück hat große Ähnlichkeit mit The Church of dead Girls (Die Kirche der toten Mädchen). Jack Tate ist ein Illustrator, dessen Frau ihn vor kurzem verlassen hat. Ein Außenseiter in der kleinen Gemeinschaft. Als die elfjährige Emma verschwindet, richtet sich der Verdacht gegen ihn. Der Ich-Erzähler ist nicht sehr sympathisch und unberechenbar. Durch diese Perspektive wird eine intensive Spannung und Ungewißheit erzeugt. Ganz sicher nicht das letzte Buch, das ich von Matthew Iden gelesen habe.
February 22, 2013
Another great short one from Matthew Iden! I never thought I'd appreciate short stories, but I'm starting to. It must be extremely hard to try to condense a story, making sure you aren't leaving important details out.
Anyways, back to the novel. This was a great read. This story actually happens in reality a lot more then people would like to think. The twist at the ending had my mouth hanging open. Matthew, STOP doing that!! It's making me want more!
Onto another Matthew adventure!
Anyways, back to the novel. This was a great read. This story actually happens in reality a lot more then people would like to think. The twist at the ending had my mouth hanging open. Matthew, STOP doing that!! It's making me want more!
Onto another Matthew adventure!
October 23, 2013
I love Iden’s crisp writing style. His characters come to life on the page, and his writing is painfully beautiful. When Emma can't be found, her parents start a neighborhood search, and soon, suspicion turns Jack's way. This story took me for surprise at the end, but it was a thoroughly fun and horrific adventure getting lost in Jack's world.
January 3, 2013
I got this book as a free download and I loved it. I bet a lot of neighborhoods have the odd neighbor that everybody talks about or is ready to blame if things go wrong. This book definitely makes you think about your neighbors and it stayed with me long after I had finished reading it. A great short story that should not be missed.
November 28, 2013
Kudos Matt -- great short story. Had me guessing until the end, and I didn't see the ending coming! You have a fan for life and I can't wait to read the next Marty Singer book (a review AND a plug!!). Keep them coming!
October 28, 2014
This book was disturbing to read
Am not sure why I purchased this book. Using the title Emma, I was hoping for a great story. This didn't happen and I was glad to know the young girl was fine.
Am not sure why I purchased this book. Using the title Emma, I was hoping for a great story. This didn't happen and I was glad to know the young girl was fine.
February 20, 2013
So well done....soooooo well. At the end I was just gaping.
Wonderfully developed character and story line. Bravo again Mr. Iden!
Wonderfully developed character and story line. Bravo again Mr. Iden!
April 3, 2013
Perfect length for this story. I confess I did not see that ending coming. Well done.
December 2, 2016
This was a good short story. I felt like I could relate to one of the main characters in this book. If you like mystery than I would recommend this book.
Currently reading
August 8, 2012Just started to read.. be back in a bit!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews