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Demonic Games #1
Nesting
An unspeakable horror nesting within castle walls…After years of being away, Mihail Vaduva has long forgotten about his grandmother and his ancestral home. That is, until he comes across an exciting opportunity to reconnect with his family’s history. Enticed by his newfound escape from boarding school, Mihail decides to spend his last year of high school in Castle Vaduva. But he never could have expected the horror hidden within the ancient walls.When Mihail roams the maze-like hallways, he quickly realizes that the castle is not the peaceful respite he thought it was. Instead, he finds himself herded by unseen forces and pushed into hidden rooms, full of long forgotten secrets. But secrets aren’t the only inhabitants in the archaic structure … there are ghosts. Ones that don’t rest and certainly don’t forgive.Dragged deeper into the twisted madness of Castle Vaduva, Mihail desperately races to find a way to appease the dead. His search leads him to Abe Claymont, a powerful medium who Mihail hopes can bring peace to the restless spirits.But the evil that lives in the castle yearns for neither peace nor forgiveness. It hungers to add new souls to its collection of the damned. With its sights set on Mihail and Abe, together they discover an evil that’s darker than anything they’ve ever imagined…
- GenresHorror
145 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 16, 2017
47 people are currently reading
60 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 1, 2021
I didn't know what to expect with this book, especially after reading some of the reviews. I really enjoyed the story, characters and overall atmosphere of the book. This was innocence meets evil from beginning to end. I can't wait to read the next in the series to see the story develop even further. I liked the character Abe and Mihail. Boy was Mihail ever innocent when it comes to things that go bump in the night. By the end of the story, much of that innocence was tarnished. Good writing, characters and story.
August 13, 2019
Mihail Vaduva grew up in Castle Vaduva but left when he was little. He's now decided to come back and help his grandmother and do his final year of high school there. But upon entering the grounds, unexplainable things happen and Mihail discovers that secrets have a way of coming out and his very life might be in danger.
This was awesome!! The story takes off right from the start and it's pretty much non stop all the way through. A lot of mysterious things happen and not everything lines up, but the suspense kept me reading. I was as clueless as Mihail half the time and was wondering if I missed something, but no, it eventually comes together and we get some answers! Not all of them though, there is still an awful lot left open and it made me eager to read the next one!!
I loved Mihail!!! He is terrified most of the time and reacts how I'd expect someone with no experience of the supernatural to react. He was really easy to like and I was rooting for him the whole way through. I also loved Abe!! He is a tattooed, Jewish medium, and quite ripped by the description. How could you not like him!!! I'm on the fence about Grandmother though. I'm not sure what to make of her!!
In all, a fantastic start to what seems to be an incredibly eerie series. I loved the setting, the characters and the story and I need to start book 2 straight away!!
Thom Bowers has an impressive array of tones, voices and accents and his performance here felt like listening to multiple narrators! I highly recommend his work. #
I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.
This was awesome!! The story takes off right from the start and it's pretty much non stop all the way through. A lot of mysterious things happen and not everything lines up, but the suspense kept me reading. I was as clueless as Mihail half the time and was wondering if I missed something, but no, it eventually comes together and we get some answers! Not all of them though, there is still an awful lot left open and it made me eager to read the next one!!
I loved Mihail!!! He is terrified most of the time and reacts how I'd expect someone with no experience of the supernatural to react. He was really easy to like and I was rooting for him the whole way through. I also loved Abe!! He is a tattooed, Jewish medium, and quite ripped by the description. How could you not like him!!! I'm on the fence about Grandmother though. I'm not sure what to make of her!!
In all, a fantastic start to what seems to be an incredibly eerie series. I loved the setting, the characters and the story and I need to start book 2 straight away!!
Thom Bowers has an impressive array of tones, voices and accents and his performance here felt like listening to multiple narrators! I highly recommend his work. #
I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.
August 1, 2018
Probably good for the right reader.
This story should be categorized as Young Adult.
I started reading this because I'm a big fan of Ron Ripley and figured it would be in the same writing vein as his (after all it is listed at the end of his books). It isn't.
If you're a 14 year old girl you'll love it!!!
If you're a 50 year old man....not so much :)
She kind of lost me with Abe the tattooed, gay, Jewish muscle man who fights ghosts and demons and may be a monster himself. Plus the 'comical' witty and flirtatious banter between Abe and the teen boy Mihail is more annoying than cute to me.
Who knows...try it.
You might like it.
But it wasn't my cup of tea.
This story should be categorized as Young Adult.
I started reading this because I'm a big fan of Ron Ripley and figured it would be in the same writing vein as his (after all it is listed at the end of his books). It isn't.
If you're a 14 year old girl you'll love it!!!
If you're a 50 year old man....not so much :)
She kind of lost me with Abe the tattooed, gay, Jewish muscle man who fights ghosts and demons and may be a monster himself. Plus the 'comical' witty and flirtatious banter between Abe and the teen boy Mihail is more annoying than cute to me.
Who knows...try it.
You might like it.
But it wasn't my cup of tea.
January 20, 2022
Omg! I love it! I live for books like this Haunted creepy castle,ghosts,spirits And basically anything else that goes bump in the night, my kinda book. I'm behind on my reviews as I write the review to the first I'm reading the 3rd of the series. I received this as an ARC and voluntarily choose to reveiw.
March 3, 2022
Two stars instead of one, because the book was entertaining. But I had to take off three stars, because THE PLOT HOLES. I have seen less plot holes in the fiction I used to grade as an eight grade English teacher.
I'll name just a few:
1) After the gargoyles come to life and chase Mihail and his grandmother, Bunica, shows up with a gun and starts shooting the stone monsters (told you it was kind of entertaining), Bunica pulls him into a room and they block out the monsters and she makes a phone call to someone named Clayton. After the monsters are defeated, Bunica takes a nap (yes, grandma shoots a bunch of gargoyles and then takes a nap, this book is bonkers). While she is napping, Mihail decides to investigate and figure out who Clayton is. Why doesn't he just look in the call history of HIS cell phone, since Bunica used his phone to make the call? Who knows, but that's the least of our confusion here.
So Mihail googles Clayton and the town and he finds Abe Clayton, a paranormal investigator, and sneaks out of the castle and takes a taxi to see him.
This phone call that Bunica made to Abe is never fucking mentioned. In fact, it's like the author forgot about it.
Abe acts like he has never heard anything about this castle. Mihail has to tell him everything from square one. Then Abe is like "Your grandma has got to get out of that castle" and Mihail is like "She won't listen to me. Maybe she'll listen to you. But you have to come to the castle with me. She won't listen to a stranger over the phone."
Um...stranger? Isn't the whole reason Mihail found Abe that Bunica called him? Are they strangers? It seems like it. So then wtf was up with that phone call? In the climax of the book, Bunica asks all kinds of questions about Abe and is super suspicious of him. Abe is suspicious of her too and thinks Bunica is in cahoots with demons.
But...but...WHAT? What was up with that phone call?
She calls him in the middle of shooting off rounds at sentient gargoyles, but then the two of them are strangers for the rest of the plot. What in the world just happened?
2) When Abe and Mihail arrive at the castle to attempt to convince Bunica to leave, Mihail sees Bunica fall from the battlements into the pond. Then Mihail goes in after her and is attacked by the ghost of the drowned woman. Abe saves him and Abe's parents are on his phone on skype and they have a bunch to say. They all talk about how the castle is a "dead zone" and it's full of "gremlins" which I guess are like demon cockroaches that can disorient everybody. Then they all go, "Okay! Let's go inside and get Bunica!"
But...but...she's in the pond, right?
Continuity, we do not know her!
Seriously, did anyone beta read this? Did the author give even half of a shit?
It appears not.
He went into the water to save Bunica, almost gets killed by the pond ghost, gets saved, talks about how haunted the castle is, then everyone goes, "Okay, time to go in and save Bunica" even though she just fell into the pond at the start of the scene. If that was a ghost or an illusion or something, maybe that should have been referenced. Is THAT why they were talking about demon roaches disorienting people? Bunica was an illusion? I just figured that out while typing this review. I was confused as fuck while reading it. They really should have explicitly said, "That wasn't Bunica. She's still inside. That was an illusion." While reading, I just found it so weird that he gets saved from the pond and it's like he immediately forgot he went in to save Bunica. He doesn't even say anything about her. They just start a whole new conversation.
3) The climax....what the fuck even happened?
No, really. What the fuck happened?
So, they show up and Abe says the castle is a dead zone and nothing should live there. Abe and his parents explain the whole demon roach/gremlin thing. Abe says that the walls are full of souls all stitched together in a giant macabre patchwork. Abe says the nesting doll Mihail found must have freed a spirit. Mihail's ghost grandpa shows up with his mouth stitched shut. The ghost that supposedly broke free of the nesting doll possesses Abe. Abe disappears. Mihail finds Abe all fucked up and tied up on the weird room that is somehow completely exposed to the elements (I can not picture anything described in this castle for the life of me-I really did try). Abe is all bloody and tied up (Who in the hell tied him up??) Abe breaks free and chases Mihail and Bunica. Bunica says "This girl I used to be friends with was in the nesting doll. You let her out and she's inside of Abe now. We have to re-drown her in the pond in some mysterious ritual that will not be explained at all. Cool, see you at the pond!" Then Mihail gets Abe in the pond. Somehow that gets the ghost out of him, because she thinks she's going to drown? (Wasn't this dead bitch chilling in the pond like 3 scenes ago?) and then Bunica does some ritual that we don't see much of and isn't explained at all, while Mihail improperly does chest compressions (do it to the beat of Staying Alive). Then Abe is alive and the doll is resealed and we are told that all is well and the spirits are calm.
Save for a little foreshadowing for book two, where Abe says this is just the eye of the storm, we're told that the problem is good for now.
Um...what?
That one ghost being put back in the nesting doll solved it? Even as a temporary solution that doesn't make any damn sense to me.
What about all these demon gremlins? What about all the souls stitched together inside of the castle walls? Releasing one ghost was enough to stir up all these demons? Aren't demons more powerful than regular old human ghosts? Even if not, can the book at least explain to me what one has to do with the other?
Why was haunted shit happening before Mihail fucked with that nesting doll?
Before he ever saw the nesting doll, there was that haunted piano scene.
And the Ouija board! What was up with that Ouija board!
Holy hell this book was confusing.
For a book that was this much of a mess and so riddled with plot holes, it did still manage to be fairly entertaining. I just didn't feel any tension or fear or really care much what was happening. It's tough to be invested when the author doesn't give enough of a fuck to maintain any kind of consistency or logic throughout the book.
I won't be reading the next book in the series, but it's not the worst haunted house book I ever read.
I'll name just a few:
1) After the gargoyles come to life and chase Mihail and his grandmother, Bunica, shows up with a gun and starts shooting the stone monsters (told you it was kind of entertaining), Bunica pulls him into a room and they block out the monsters and she makes a phone call to someone named Clayton. After the monsters are defeated, Bunica takes a nap (yes, grandma shoots a bunch of gargoyles and then takes a nap, this book is bonkers). While she is napping, Mihail decides to investigate and figure out who Clayton is. Why doesn't he just look in the call history of HIS cell phone, since Bunica used his phone to make the call? Who knows, but that's the least of our confusion here.
So Mihail googles Clayton and the town and he finds Abe Clayton, a paranormal investigator, and sneaks out of the castle and takes a taxi to see him.
This phone call that Bunica made to Abe is never fucking mentioned. In fact, it's like the author forgot about it.
Abe acts like he has never heard anything about this castle. Mihail has to tell him everything from square one. Then Abe is like "Your grandma has got to get out of that castle" and Mihail is like "She won't listen to me. Maybe she'll listen to you. But you have to come to the castle with me. She won't listen to a stranger over the phone."
Um...stranger? Isn't the whole reason Mihail found Abe that Bunica called him? Are they strangers? It seems like it. So then wtf was up with that phone call? In the climax of the book, Bunica asks all kinds of questions about Abe and is super suspicious of him. Abe is suspicious of her too and thinks Bunica is in cahoots with demons.
But...but...WHAT? What was up with that phone call?
She calls him in the middle of shooting off rounds at sentient gargoyles, but then the two of them are strangers for the rest of the plot. What in the world just happened?
2) When Abe and Mihail arrive at the castle to attempt to convince Bunica to leave, Mihail sees Bunica fall from the battlements into the pond. Then Mihail goes in after her and is attacked by the ghost of the drowned woman. Abe saves him and Abe's parents are on his phone on skype and they have a bunch to say. They all talk about how the castle is a "dead zone" and it's full of "gremlins" which I guess are like demon cockroaches that can disorient everybody. Then they all go, "Okay! Let's go inside and get Bunica!"
But...but...she's in the pond, right?
Continuity, we do not know her!
Seriously, did anyone beta read this? Did the author give even half of a shit?
It appears not.
He went into the water to save Bunica, almost gets killed by the pond ghost, gets saved, talks about how haunted the castle is, then everyone goes, "Okay, time to go in and save Bunica" even though she just fell into the pond at the start of the scene. If that was a ghost or an illusion or something, maybe that should have been referenced. Is THAT why they were talking about demon roaches disorienting people? Bunica was an illusion? I just figured that out while typing this review. I was confused as fuck while reading it. They really should have explicitly said, "That wasn't Bunica. She's still inside. That was an illusion." While reading, I just found it so weird that he gets saved from the pond and it's like he immediately forgot he went in to save Bunica. He doesn't even say anything about her. They just start a whole new conversation.
3) The climax....what the fuck even happened?
No, really. What the fuck happened?
So, they show up and Abe says the castle is a dead zone and nothing should live there. Abe and his parents explain the whole demon roach/gremlin thing. Abe says that the walls are full of souls all stitched together in a giant macabre patchwork. Abe says the nesting doll Mihail found must have freed a spirit. Mihail's ghost grandpa shows up with his mouth stitched shut. The ghost that supposedly broke free of the nesting doll possesses Abe. Abe disappears. Mihail finds Abe all fucked up and tied up on the weird room that is somehow completely exposed to the elements (I can not picture anything described in this castle for the life of me-I really did try). Abe is all bloody and tied up (Who in the hell tied him up??) Abe breaks free and chases Mihail and Bunica. Bunica says "This girl I used to be friends with was in the nesting doll. You let her out and she's inside of Abe now. We have to re-drown her in the pond in some mysterious ritual that will not be explained at all. Cool, see you at the pond!" Then Mihail gets Abe in the pond. Somehow that gets the ghost out of him, because she thinks she's going to drown? (Wasn't this dead bitch chilling in the pond like 3 scenes ago?) and then Bunica does some ritual that we don't see much of and isn't explained at all, while Mihail improperly does chest compressions (do it to the beat of Staying Alive). Then Abe is alive and the doll is resealed and we are told that all is well and the spirits are calm.
Save for a little foreshadowing for book two, where Abe says this is just the eye of the storm, we're told that the problem is good for now.
Um...what?
That one ghost being put back in the nesting doll solved it? Even as a temporary solution that doesn't make any damn sense to me.
What about all these demon gremlins? What about all the souls stitched together inside of the castle walls? Releasing one ghost was enough to stir up all these demons? Aren't demons more powerful than regular old human ghosts? Even if not, can the book at least explain to me what one has to do with the other?
Why was haunted shit happening before Mihail fucked with that nesting doll?
Before he ever saw the nesting doll, there was that haunted piano scene.
And the Ouija board! What was up with that Ouija board!
Holy hell this book was confusing.
For a book that was this much of a mess and so riddled with plot holes, it did still manage to be fairly entertaining. I just didn't feel any tension or fear or really care much what was happening. It's tough to be invested when the author doesn't give enough of a fuck to maintain any kind of consistency or logic throughout the book.
I won't be reading the next book in the series, but it's not the worst haunted house book I ever read.
January 4, 2020
This is the first of what is so far another excellent series by Sara Clancy and Scare Street. Mihail Vaduva reunites with his long-forgotten grandmother at the family castle in Romania. Of course, Romania being Romania, you know things are going to go south pretty quickly and they do. There are entities within the castle that are not resting in peace. Mihail discovers a set of Russian nesting dolls that turn out to be a safe haven of sorts to the dead. Don't open the dolls, Mihail! Does he listen? Of course not. What happens then drives Mihail to seek out help and he finds Abe, a medium with some odd traits himself. It's all good fun.
I listened to the Audible.com version of this book narrated by the always excellent Thom Bowers. Whether you read it or listen to it, this series is well worth your time.
I listened to the Audible.com version of this book narrated by the always excellent Thom Bowers. Whether you read it or listen to it, this series is well worth your time.
February 1, 2020
This is book one in a series of three. Sara Clancy does a great job creating a mood. You have the grandson Mihail Vaduva who grew up in the Vadusa Castle in early years then spent his time in boarding schools. Grandma needs help, His mom cannot go so he decides to do his last year of school in the Castle Vaduva in Romania. Then he finds his grandmother and the castle have secrets. There are Demons and ghosts. This castle with a strange layout. You could get lost in nothingless in this castle. The plot is well developed and you have believable and interesting characters. Mihail gets a big adventure with the ghosts and demons. Thom Bowers does an excellent job with the narration. Thom has a way to make you feel the emotions of the book. I enjoyed this book.
November 27, 2017
Mihail has returned to the home of his birth and the haunting starts. This book begins with the action right away and doesn't stop. A fast paced horror novel that's worth the read.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 18, 2019
Very good book . Getting ready to start the 2nd book . I love Abe he is funny ! Something is really off with grandmom. She is keeping some big secrets! Mihaul teels her he has seen ghosted and she says nightmare ! Wow
Awesome
Awesome
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2019
Can't wait to find out just how innocent Grandmother isn't..
New series for me, but I'm already excited to see who and what comes next! Abe is an interesting addition, looking forward to seeing how his parents might fit into the mix..
New series for me, but I'm already excited to see who and what comes next! Abe is an interesting addition, looking forward to seeing how his parents might fit into the mix..
July 20, 2023
Mihail returns home to the anscestral castle that he grew up in before boarding school, and discovers that things are not like he remembers. The castle is full of secrets, and not all of those secrets are safe.
Interesting read overall.
Interesting read overall.
April 21, 2018
Book 1
Read it in 2 hours. Was on the edge of my seat from day 1. So looking forward to book 2
Read it in 2 hours. Was on the edge of my seat from day 1. So looking forward to book 2
March 10, 2020
I was lucky enough to have gotten a free audio book from the author. Fantastic book will definitely have you looking over your shoulder
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews