The Land of Dead Flowers

by Natasha A. Salnikova

Morris Bishop killed his first girl when he was nineteen. He loved his neighbor and he didn’t see any other way to make her belong to him, so he captured her in his house. He couldn’t stop since then. He didn’t think anything or anyone would ever stop him.


A popular mystery writer. Max Stevenson is a realist. He doesn’t believe in little, green men, ghosts, or messages from the world of the dead. That is until he reads an article in a newspaper and starts having dreams of the house. The same house night after night. Now he suddenly wants to write a supernatural thriller, but not until he finds the house. The house from his dreams … Then not only the genre of his book will change, but his whole life.

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Mystery

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 8, 2014

About the author

Writing was Natasha A. Salnikova's passion since she was fourteen. She worked as a writer and a host on various TV shows and published two books in Russia. Her early obsession with psychology naturally lead her to write psychological thrillers. Natasha enjoys researching different psychological disorders for her books. She's also an author of supernatural thrillers and science fiction novels. She's a huge pet lover, yoga practitioner, vegetarian, and immature photographer. She currently lives in sunny Florida with her family.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book... I had a hard time putting it down. There were a couple of slow points, but I knew that it would pick back up again and not let me down!

[Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent book; it held my attention, and it was written in a style that was eerily reminiscent of early Dean Koontz books. The plot was consistent and intriguing. The characters were believable, perhaps annoyingly so, especially for the main character, who I did not really attach to—he came across quite selfish and absorbed. There were several editing errors. Most of them involved poor use of commas and other punctuation (e.g. incorrectly applied—or more accurately, not applied—hyphens, semicolons, and dashes). There were a few extra quotation marks and a few missing quotation marks. However, the sentence structure was mostly correct, so the grammar errors were easier to overlook. I didn’t quite understand the correlation between the title of the book and the content; perhaps if I read the story again I would catch the relationship.

I didn’t like the ending. It wasn’t the plot that bothered me; it was the overall explanation for what was happening to the lead character. I understand this explanation was supposed to be a major plot twist; however, it felt as if the author had spent most of the story describing a situation, and then changed it at the very end in order to say “gotcha!” In addition, the final description of the bad guy’s ultimate fate seemed as if it was added at the last minute—it was an almost comical sentence; following it, the author finished it off with a comment about choice that made absolutely no sense given the preceding sentence—or the rest of the book, for that matter.

I don’t regret reading this book, but I probably wouldn’t read it again—that’s more the nature of suspense books than a response to the quality of the book.

[Penni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, I couldn't put it down, it is a brilliant concept and plot and a real insight into the mind of a psychopathic killer and why he did what he did.
However, it reads as though it is either very badly translated from the writers original language or has been written by someone for whom english is not their first language and written in a sort of pigeon english. You know how people who have lived in england for a long time but still their turn of phrase is not english.
Don't get me wrong I am not saying in any way that this book is badly written, far from it!! I loved it and will recommend it to others, but throughout I found the turns of phrase somewhat irritating. I found myself saying, 'thats not how you would say it!'.
However this did not stop me enjoying the book at all, but merely wishing someone had copy checked it and written it more flowingly for the english reader before publishing it.
This is the only reason I haven't given it a 5 out of 5!

[Matthew O'Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really enjoyed this novel. I know that I read some negative reviews online - mostly criticizing some grammatical errors and typos. If you're able to get over those - they were very minor and didn't bother me, then I found it to be a good story. It's very similar to Koontz's Intensity (another criticism was that it was sort of a poor man's Koontz). I disagree. Personally, I enjoyed this more than Intensity. It wasn't as "intense" but I'm not actually a huge follower of hang by the edge of your seat throughout the entire novel fan. I thought the characters were more interesting and well developed. I really enjoyed the supernatural twist (I won't give it away - an interesting approach).

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really well written book, and captured my imagination from the first couple of pages. There are two main characters, and they have both been very well thought out, and the supporting cast act naturally with them. The plot line was good, and I was reluctant to put the book down as I wanted to know what happened next. So if you enjoy thrillers, or have a taste for the supernatural, then I can highly recommend this book to you

[kozettekaysmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Great Read

Natasha you've done it again. I really enjoyed this one. It started out with a bang, then I wasn't sure once I got going it would keep my interest but it started getting better and better soon I didn't want to stop reading. I really liked the characters and felt like I was there with them. If you are a reader who likes the mystery and supernatural this is a great read. I do recommend this one.
kozetteksmith

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story and couldn't put it down when I should've been working! I was actually breathless waiting to see what would happen next, and felt like I was right there with the characters. Definitely worth reading!

[Ishanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read! will definitely look into other works by this author.

[Janice · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's a reason this book was offered as a freebie on Kindle.

It had a great idea for a story, but not so great execution. The writing was very amateurish. I noticed several mentions of other authors (King & Koontz) and other books.

The protagonist is a famous author and during a discussion with his wife, he mentions The Help, to which his wife replied, "I didn't like it. The Help, I mean. Not my cup of tea."

"It's a bestselling book, babe and critics loved it."

"I'm weird. But you, of course, will write something better."

By the way, the grammatical errors are exact quotes from the book. A good editor would have capitalized "babe" and put a comma after it. Sorry, Ms. Salnikova, but Kathryn Stockett is miles ahead of you.

[Divya · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for 2/3rd of the book (very gripping, very well written)

1 star for the remaining third(ending). A lot of contradictory statements (eg. the highly reticent murderer gets horse tranquilizers from a "friend" for a horse he has/had ) the end seemed hurried, not very well thought out. After the brilliant beginning, this was a big let-down.


PS: If language glitches offend you, do not read this book. eg use of "widow" in place of "widower" etc.

[Becky]

Couldnt make it past 7%. I just did not like the writing.