The Book Club

by Alan Baxter

Jason Wilkes’s life takes a turn for the worse when his wife fails to come home from her book club. Jason calls Kate’s ‘book buddy’, Dave, who assures him she left hours ago. Contacting the police, Jason finds them equal parts sympathetic and suspicious. He tells them almost everything, except that he’s been hearing Kate’s voice, calling as if from far away. He certainly doesn’t mention that he’s seeing shadows that reach for him.

With the police getting nowhere fast, Jason takes matters into his own hands, even as nightmare images and Kate’s distant cries continue to haunt his waking moments and his dreams, and the strange, grasping shadows persist. Jason begins to unravel the mystery, but he’s at odds with the police, he’s being lied to by Kate’s book club friends, and his chances of finding Kate slip ever further away.

It seems that everything is going to go as wrong as it possibly can.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Novella

107 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2017

About the author

My book rating system:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Brilliant, I bloody loved it!
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Really good, highly recommended.
⭐⭐⭐ - Enjoyable, well worth a read.

I don't talk about ⭐⭐ and ⭐ reads because I only talking up the good stuff. That's why my Goodreads rarely has anything under a ⭐⭐⭐.

Bio: Alan Baxter is a British-Australian multi-award-winning author of horror, supernatural thrillers, dark fantasy, and crime. He’s also a martial arts expert, a whisky-soaked swear monkey, and dog lover. He creates dark, weird stories among the valleys of southern Tasmania.

Fond him online at www.alanbaxter.com.au

Reviews

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've said it before, but I'll mention here now--Alan Baxter absolutely owns the call-shot on the Urban Horror pocket. He nails it every time.
In THE BOOK CLUB, Alan combines the fast-paced energy of a domestic thriller with another familiar trope (that I won't disclose due to potential spoilers).
Jason, is waiting for his wife to come home from her weekly Book Club gathering but it's getting later and later and he's worried. He soon realizes that he doesn't know much about the place or the people having to do with his wife's Book Club. He has a vague location of the meeting and has one phone number for a fellow attendee.
Eventually, Jason has to call the authorities and file a missing person report but he has very little information to give them.

This story feels so authentic. How much do we really know about our loved ones? I mean, do we pay attention to what they're wearing when they leave the house? The name of their co-workers? The addresses of their friends? What time did they leave work? What's the license plate of their car?
All of these details that seem so trivial unless something happens and then they become the most important details in the situation.

I loved the way the author let this story unravel organically and realistically--it makes what ultimately happens, feel so much more...well...you'll see.
My only real complaint was that one of the major characters felt a little underdeveloped to me--I wanted to read more about a certain relationship and I longed for some backstory flshabacks or some other literary device to give me a fuller picture. But it's a very minor *want*. The story is fine without it.

This is a quick, unputdownable, thrilling read.
Highly recommend.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love cosmic horror. I love the mind numbing terror and pervasive weirdness of it, and I adore reading about inter-dimensional powers and creatures that lurk in the great depths of the universe. I've been a fan of the genre for many years now, with icons such as Lovecraft and Barron all keeping me up late at night with stories of dark horror and depth. So when I started to read The Book Club I was hopeful that it would live up to the rich legacy that has come before it. After finishing it I was stunned. It lived up to my expectations... and then some.

The Book Club is one of the best novellas that I've read in all of my years as a reader. I can't remember the last time I was so enthralled by a story, or so emotionally wrecked by the plot twists and conclusion to the story. On the surface the story is relatively simple. The wife of protagonist Jason Wilkes goes missing after attending her book club meeting one night, and Wilkes spends the aftermath of her disappearance desperately trying to get information out of the other shadowy members of the club. Relatively straightforward, right? Well Baxter then takes the story and drops it off a cliff into the darkest places of your imagination and bombards you with cosmic twist after cosmic twist. And don't get me started on that finale. Gut wrenching, yet also fucking awesome.

The Book Club basically combines everything that I love about cosmic horror with the thrills and spills of a police procedural and mystery story. As a story it also has incredible heart and soul, with an emotional tone that I could relate to immediately (as a husband and father of a young child). The cosmic horror itself is original and subtle at first, and abrupt and jarringly awesome towards the end. There are things we shouldn't mess with in the dark depths of reality, and Baxter gleefully plays around with this notion in this novella.

To put it simply, this book is nightmare fuel (in a good way). Baxter continues to grow and impress as a storyteller, and I can't wait to see what he releases next. The Book Club is a must read for fans of cosmic horror, horror, and mystery stories.

5 out of 5 stars.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never have I ever read a book that was so full of “WTH!?” moments that gripped me from page one right to the very end – even as I am reading the final 5 pages of the book, the story was so unpredictable that even then I was expecting the story to take another turn. I felt this was a very clever plot, one I certainly didn’t expect. If I had to pitch this to someone in a sentence, I would say this would be a gripping thriller that is like “Gone Girl” meets “White Noise” with an unexpected twist that would blow your mind. What’s a guy to do when his wife doesn’t come home after her book club meeting and vanishes without a trace? What does he do when he suddenly becomes a suspect by default in his own wife’s disappearance and in his desperate search to find her, he suddenly hears her voice out of nowhere – calling his name as if in a plea for help. I loved this book, very fast paced, gripping – some scenes will give you goose bumps. This can be easily read in one sitting and the ending was not what I predicted. With themes and language in this book, this is for an adult audience.

[lee_readsbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't lie, I wanted this book for it's cover but I'm also a huge Alan Baxter fan. Devouring Dark, Manifest Recall, & Crow Shine are some of the best reads I've read over the last twelve months.

Jason Wilkes is spending his Wednesday night at home with his son while his wife goes to her book club but when she isn't home by midnight he starts to panic. He calls the only number he has for the book club and is told she left at her usual time. Time ticks by and Jason has no other option but to call the police. The hunt for Kate begins.

Jason knows Kate is trying to reach him, he can hear her calling his name, she is in his dreams, and there are strange shadows all which make him determined to find his wife himself.

He is finally hot on the trail of the book club and is invited to meet with some members. This is the WTF moment! I totally did not see that coming!!!
So not only did I get a beautiful book but a 5 ⭐ shock of an ending to go with it!
Highly recommend to everyone!

[Andreas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jason's wife Kate doesn't come home from her book club. Alone and together with the police he tries everything to find her. What really startles him is that he can still hear Kate's voice. Is she still alive?

I only picked up the novella because of PS Publishing's Black Friday sale and only after verifying that it's indeed genre fiction. The title actually makes sense but I have never heard of the author before and was skeptical. I didn't need to worry, it's a fast-paced and emotional ride with a surprising Grand Finale.

[Maisie Dickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 4.75

There is an entire reason that I created a shelf called unsurely satisfied. and that reason is Alan Baxter's writing,

Even within the short length of the book, i felt the emotional connection between Jason and his wife and family. and while at times the cops felt like those depicted on SVU I admired the clear emotional frustration and turmoil.

All in all, I found the Book Club as a perfect quick read that engaged my suspenseful side.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give this book 4.5 stars - only because I was slightly mortified by the ending! Very compelling read though!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es ist jedesmal irritierend, wenn man ein Buch gelesen hat, das überdurchschnittlich bewertet wird, während man selbst eher enttäuscht ist. So ergeht es mir auch mit THE BOOK CLUB.

Die Ehefrau des Ich-Erzählers kommt eines Abends nach dem titelgebenden Buchclub-Treffen nicht nach Hause. Der Erzähler schaltet die frühzeitig die Polizei ein und findet sich selbst bald in der Rolle des Hauptverdächtigen, da statistisch gesehen in vielen Fällen der Ehemann mit dem Verschwinden seiner Frau zu tun hat.
Hoffen und Bangen ziehen sich dann bis über die Mitte der kurzen Novelle, bevor es eine erste Spur gibt. Bis hierher liest sich das Buch flott weg, bietet aber keine großen Überraschungen.
Im letzten Viertel überschlagen sich dann die Ereignisse und aus dem Thriller wird kosmischer Horror. Auch hier findet sich wenig Originelles und in der Darstellungsintensität der gewaltigen kosmischen Dimensionen bleibt Baxter hinter Klassikern wie Clark Ashton Smith und H.P. Lovecraft deutlich zurück.

Ich fand, dass die beiden Teile (erst Thriller, dann Horror) nicht wirklich überzeugend ineinander greifen und die erste Hälfte des Buches sich interessanter las als die zweite, auf die es eigentlich drauf ankommen sollte.
Ein wenig leid tat mir der Ich-Erzähler, der - gerade gegenüber den Ermittlern - ständig fluchen muss, ein hoffentlich unnötiges Zugeständnis Baxters an seine Leser.
Leider nur 2,5 Sterne..

[TJ Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keeping in tradition with Baxter’s other urban fantasy/horror novels, The Book Club starts off not unlike many a best selling crime novel. True to form for Baxter, nothing is as it seems when everything begins to spiral out of control until an ending that both fits the narrative and shocks all in the same breath. With a pace fitting of a thriller and engaging action sequences, this would not only make a great film but definitely makes it worth a read!

[DA · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts as a missing person turns into a situation you just can't believe. I enjoyed this journey into cosmic horror.
The author pulled me in and didn't let go.

[Graham Dauncey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguingly creepy novella. The book club follows the story of someone searching for his wife, who failed to return from their book club meeting. As we learn more we realise the book club may not be all that it seems and we are thrown into a world of occult and parallel dimensions.

Alan Baxter does an impressive build up, starting with the normalcy of a day, the gradual increasing panic that sets in when someone does not come home as expect. This story increasingly dissolves into the weird as the paranormal elements are introduced. A good slow burn with a fascinating reward.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

With The Book Club, Alan Baxter takes us on an unexpectedly strange, dark journey, into a haunting urban underbelly where the horror of the eternal lies just below the surface. A short read, and worth devouring in a single sitting.

[Steven Paulsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Book Club is a gripping, unpredictable, page turning cosmic horror novella. It’s totally enthralling and I read it in one sitting. The writing is tight and well paced, the characters believable and well drawn, and the story is thoroughly engaging.

[Victoria Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intense, emotional sci-fi mystery. Bittersweet and dark. So good!

[Austrian Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up “The book club” by Alan Baxter on the back of Sadie Hartmann’s recommendation, after reading (and loving) his recently released “The Gulp” (one to get, check out my review in my blog). Not knowing anything about the book, I went in blind, and I think that’s probably the best way to experience the book. The irony of writing a review about that experience is not lost on me, so stop reading now if you want to have the same experience. spoilers are coming.



Still with me? Then I have no guilt about the following – what starts off as a missing person thriller turns into a comic horror novel.

It’s really at about 50% of the way through the book, that it changes, morphs in your hands into something completely different than the thriller you thought you were reading. And that’s a great example of Baxter’s flexibility and writing capability. I was enjoying the thriller, but in the end, I wanted the cosmic horror. And I wanted the main character to die.

And that’s a weird thing to say, but it’s true. The main character is actually a decent enough person, his love for his wife drives the book, his relentlessness for the search for answers builds the reader’s empathy so that when we arrive at the turning point and start the journey toward cosmic horror, we realize that we need something to go wrong. That there can never be a happy ending to the story. There’s almost a correlation (at least with this reader) in the book club itself and ourselves, I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, some plan was born in my mind to “let the main character go”. And whilst the ending didn’t go exactly the way I anticipated, things went south pretty quickly.

Cosmic horror is very hard to do convincingly. I think Hailey Piper did a fair job in “The worm and his kings”, but apart from her and Lovecraft, I honestly don’t have much experience in the genre. The fundamental trouble of it is describing sensations and perceptions of something unknowable, untouchable, and imperceptible. Defining the indefinable. Baxter gives it his best shot, and I think he succeeds, he managed to convince me of the validity of the reality he created, and the monster it harbored, and the destruction said monster wrought.

But yeah. I needed him to die. Lol

It’s good, it something I wasn’t expecting, it was easy to read, short, fulfilling, and engaging. I believed in the MC, I believed in the detective. I think it’s too early for me to be able to draw conclusions about the progress of Alan’s work, but you can see how some of The gulp and “the fall” within it have their origins in this and perhaps other stories he wrote that I will read.

I think this is a solid 4 stars.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Often when I’m stressed or tired I just want a fun horror book (preferably a novella I can read as a break) to take my mind off of everything. So far Alan Baxter’s books have really hit that niche for me, much like William Meikle’s. The Book Club is the fifth of Baxter’s works that I’ve read, and every single one has rated a 5/5.

Jason Wilkes is waiting for his wife Kate to come home from her monthly book club. When she doesn’t show up, he calls the only member of the group he has a phone number for, but her friend Dave says she left the club as normal. He calls the police and Sergeant Cooke and Office Dale show up. Obviously the spouse is always going to be the first suspect, and Cooke and Dale seem to enjoy playing bad cop/good cop. Jason refuses to sit at home waiting for his wife to call, so he starts poking into things on his own. It turns out Dave’s phone was a burner phone that no longer is in service, and there’s CCTV footage of someone who isn’t Kate driving her car. As Jason goes further and further out on a limb to find out what happened to Kate, he starts to come face-to-face with some unbelievable–and terrifying–truths.

I enjoyed the characters in here. Jason feels very real in his grief and anger, as do the members of his and Kate’s families that we meet. In particular I like the members of the “book club,” because they’re almost certainly guaranteed to not be what you’re expecting! Cooke and Dale take some standard cop traits and twist them a bit, which I also like.

I can’t get into much without giving certain things away, so that’s why this is a short take. This is a grim combination of horror and a bizarre kind of personal optimism.


Originally posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2020/10/s...

[Read3r’z Re-Vu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never have I ever read a book that was so full of “WTH!?” moments that gripped me from page one right to the very end – even as I am reading the final 5 pages of the book, the story was so unpredictable that even then I was expecting the story to take another turn. I felt this was a very clever plot, one I certainly didn’t expect. If I had to pitch this to someone in a sentence, I would say this would be a gripping thriller that is like “Gone Girl” meets “White Noise” with an unexpected twist that would blow your mind. What’s a guy to do when his wife doesn’t come home after her book club meeting and vanishes without a trace? What does he do when he suddenly becomes a suspect by default in his own wife’s disappearance and in his desperate search to find her, he suddenly hears her voice out of nowhere – calling his name as if in a plea for help. I loved this book, very fast paced, gripping – some scenes will give you goose bumps. This can be easily read in one sitting and the ending was not what I predicted. With themes and language in this book, this is for an adult audience.
-Annie

[Piper Mejia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book Club, by Alan Baxter, draws the reader into a search for ultimate understanding; but the days are ticking down. Protagonist, Jason, is a devoted son, husband and father, who is forced to confront what he knows about his missing wife, her hidden life and the secrets of the mind. As he pulls the pieces of their lives apart to hunt for answers, Jason, discovers that love and hate can bind a person for eternity.
For lovers of dark worlds this novella will take you by surprise. The initial missing person’s storyline takes a sharp turn into the obscurity of zeitgeist. Masquerading as a book club, Jason discovers his wife has fallen into a group harnessing the power of time and space, and has gotten lost in her attempt to find herself.
Haunted by the his wife’s cries for help, ones only he can hear, Jason finds the strength to follow her.
Unfortunately, the ending comes to quick and without resolution, leaving the reader wondering if the journey was worth taking.
The Book Club is a great follow-up to Alan’s collection of short stories, Crow Shine, and well worth the read.

[Mark Smith-briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Australian author Alan Baxter has written a stunning tale of mystery and cosmic horror with his latest novella, The Book Club.
What begins simply enough as a straightforward missing persons case when Jason Wilkes’ wife fails to come home from her book club, soon unravels into a much larger — and darker — mystery.
Baxter shows he isn’t afraid to play with reader’s expectations, toying with a police procedural before setting off on a genre-bending story that twists and turns until its horrific but satisfying ending.
It’s an enjoyable and well executed story that’s short enough to digest in a single sitting but with plenty of meat on its bones to keep you gnawing over it for a long time afterwards. Fantastic stuff.

[Sarah McGrath · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book club is very well written with a lot of suspense throughout the story trying to guess what had happened to Kate. The ending was so unexpected and didn't work out the way I would of liked. Which is why I was tossing up between a 4 or 5 star review. Despite this, I thought it was awesome that I couldn't guess the answer to this mystery which made it even harder to put the book down. I read it in one evening. I recommend this book to mystery book lovers but be warned that you will need to have an "open" mind to understand the twists!

[Cat Sheely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before reading "Served Cold", Alan Baxter's new publication, I thought I would re-read the last few offerings. Being affected by the nasty flu-like virus I thought this would cheer me up. It did.

This time I got much more of the sinister feel of the storyline. It's a lovely cross between a who-done-it and a horror story and easily keeps you wondering what is really going on. Character based, you are sympathetic to Jason Wilkes' trials and with him all the way as he works out what really happened to his wife. He hear's her calling in the quiet moments. Can he save her?

[Drakeryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Paranormal thriller about a woman who goes to her weekly book club and never returns, and her husband who is frantically searching for her.

Solid premise, but:
- Nobody really had any personality, so I didn't care about what happened to either the husband or the wife
- Everyone was harboring issues/secrets, but the truth about them was sorta boring

And if I can't get into the characters or the reveals, there's not really anything to recommend tbh

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cosmic horror novella! This is weird SciFi, and I loved it. It starts with a missing wife and the husband searching for her or is he responsible? In any case, it turns into something way more than that. Baxter describes the SciFi so well. The characters are well written, and the end is fast, furious, and so good.

[Jason Franks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Baxter at his best. Tense, atmospheric, and emotionally raw without ever wallowing or sacrificing pace. This book has non of Baxter's trademark (and excellent) fisticuffs but it still left me feeling bruised.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cool

I flew this book. I had to know what was going to happen next. His wife is missing. He trusted her enough not to know about her Wednesday night adventures. Amazing

[Angela Maher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing tale that never goes quite where you think it will.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tears along. A gripping read,made me wonder how I would react in a similar situation. Loved it.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark, mysterious, a must read

This is a story that draws you in immediately and leaves you aching for more. A dark love story that reaches across Millenia, I just wanted it to keep going.

[Wayne W · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ride

What a ride. This man goes through so much to try and figure out what happen to his wife. The ending is spectacular.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I knew what was happening but nope. I was so surprised by what occurred and that ending!! 😲😱I really enjoyed how quickly everything escalated. It’s fast paced & thrilling; I was completely immersed in this novella. I’m looking forward to reading more from this author. Highly recommend!