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House of Sighs
This award-winning, psychological experience is back in print, and includes the exclusive sequel The Sound of his Bones Breaking, a novella that will leave you truly shaken.
Board for free. But the cost might be your life.
In House of Sighs, Local bus driver, Liz Frost, pulls the gun from her mouth and decides to live with her loneliness for one more day. She dresses, combs her hair, and goes to work. Nine souls board her route that fateful morning in rural Australia, nine souls who Liz drags back to her home against their will. She wants to build a new family from these passengers, men and women who are willing to kill to avoid becoming her kin. The bus leaves a trail of carnage in its wake as it rockets towards a house that has held its secrets for far too long, a place where crows now gather, ready to feed on whatever is left behind.
Includes the sequel novella The Sound of his Bones Breaking: Trauma has teeth. Big ones. And it’s always hungry for seconds.
Aiden and Danny down their beers in the open bar overlooking the road, legs brushing together, about as far as they let their public displays of affection go in that part of Australia. The warm breeze and pounding music—their last happy memory. Everything changes when the taxi pulls up and its drunken driver stumbles out, starting a street brawl that leaves Danny broken and bleeding on the ground. In an attempt to give his lover the space he needs to heal, Aiden accepts an employment opportunity in Thailand, and the two men set off overseas, their fates sealed air-tight within the confines of the airplane. But in the claustrophobic hush of their tiny Bangkok apartment, and while Aiden goes off to work, instead of mending, Danny’s old scars begin to sing.
The lonely walks. The woman cooking bones in a vat of broth, whispering at him to eat the parts that hurt. The flies nobody but Danny can hear.
A burning desire to trace his heritage of hurt back to ground zero, and there, find someone to blame.
The Sound of his Bones Breaking is the dread-infused sequel to House of Sighs.
Board for free. But the cost might be your life.
In House of Sighs, Local bus driver, Liz Frost, pulls the gun from her mouth and decides to live with her loneliness for one more day. She dresses, combs her hair, and goes to work. Nine souls board her route that fateful morning in rural Australia, nine souls who Liz drags back to her home against their will. She wants to build a new family from these passengers, men and women who are willing to kill to avoid becoming her kin. The bus leaves a trail of carnage in its wake as it rockets towards a house that has held its secrets for far too long, a place where crows now gather, ready to feed on whatever is left behind.
Includes the sequel novella The Sound of his Bones Breaking: Trauma has teeth. Big ones. And it’s always hungry for seconds.
Aiden and Danny down their beers in the open bar overlooking the road, legs brushing together, about as far as they let their public displays of affection go in that part of Australia. The warm breeze and pounding music—their last happy memory. Everything changes when the taxi pulls up and its drunken driver stumbles out, starting a street brawl that leaves Danny broken and bleeding on the ground. In an attempt to give his lover the space he needs to heal, Aiden accepts an employment opportunity in Thailand, and the two men set off overseas, their fates sealed air-tight within the confines of the airplane. But in the claustrophobic hush of their tiny Bangkok apartment, and while Aiden goes off to work, instead of mending, Danny’s old scars begin to sing.
The lonely walks. The woman cooking bones in a vat of broth, whispering at him to eat the parts that hurt. The flies nobody but Danny can hear.
A burning desire to trace his heritage of hurt back to ground zero, and there, find someone to blame.
The Sound of his Bones Breaking is the dread-infused sequel to House of Sighs.
449 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
35 people are currently reading
1050 people want to read
About the author
Aaron Dries
19 books294 followersAvid traveler, former pizza boy, retail clerk, kitchen hand, aged care worker, video director and copywriter, Aaron Dries was born and raised in New South Wales, Australia. When asked why he writes horror, his standard reply is that when it comes to scaring people, writing pays slightly better than jumping out from behind doors. He is the author of the award-winning House of Sighs, and his subsequent novels, The Fallen Boys and A Place for Sinners are just as--if not more--twisted than his debut. Feel free to drop him a line at aarondries.com. He won't bite. Much.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
August 28, 2019
Crystal Lake Publishing has some seriously talented writers, and Aaron Dries is no exception.
Strange, isn't it, that when you read the blurb and come across the 'bus' part, your mind automatically flashes to the movie SPEED. I'm not judging, mine did as well, but I think SPEED is the wrong movie to think of here.
Before I make that comparison, those who know me will not be surprised to hear me say that sequels usually sucks ass - and not in a kinky way. Bad things happen on a bus, everybody thinks SPEED. However, bad things on a boat, nobody thinks SPEED 2. Probably more along the lines of UNDER SIEGE (if you are from a certain generation) But nobody thinks - bad things on a train - UNDER SIEGE 2.
However, the movie that came to mind as I went through this book was JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, since a large part of the story happened on a stationary bus. And, of course, when I started the story I was thinking along the lines of BAD DAY ON THE BLOCK - because of the unforgiving Australian heat. But later, I thought more along the lines of CUJO, for fairly obvious reasons.
But enough of that.
Dries writes very well, considering the style he chose for this story. Unfortunately, I do have a complaint or two. The shifting of POV didn't bother me much, he handled that fairly well. This book starts with the introduction of the different characters - or rather, the first part of the book. (The opening chapter was brilliant!)
I don't know if it was because of the fact that I had to grab a few pages here and there as my day went on, but when the characters were in the bus, I had a bit of difficulty differentiating between the male characters and had to go back to make sure I had the right ones in mind.
The story was fast paced, but the ending felt drawn out in comparison to the rest of the story.
Other than that, it was damn good and highly recommended.
Be the voyeur in this menagerie of tragedy - you will feel more than you expect in this one.
Looking forward to reading more work by this author.
Strange, isn't it, that when you read the blurb and come across the 'bus' part, your mind automatically flashes to the movie SPEED. I'm not judging, mine did as well, but I think SPEED is the wrong movie to think of here.
Before I make that comparison, those who know me will not be surprised to hear me say that sequels usually sucks ass - and not in a kinky way. Bad things happen on a bus, everybody thinks SPEED. However, bad things on a boat, nobody thinks SPEED 2. Probably more along the lines of UNDER SIEGE (if you are from a certain generation) But nobody thinks - bad things on a train - UNDER SIEGE 2.
However, the movie that came to mind as I went through this book was JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, since a large part of the story happened on a stationary bus. And, of course, when I started the story I was thinking along the lines of BAD DAY ON THE BLOCK - because of the unforgiving Australian heat. But later, I thought more along the lines of CUJO, for fairly obvious reasons.
But enough of that.
Dries writes very well, considering the style he chose for this story. Unfortunately, I do have a complaint or two. The shifting of POV didn't bother me much, he handled that fairly well. This book starts with the introduction of the different characters - or rather, the first part of the book. (The opening chapter was brilliant!)
I don't know if it was because of the fact that I had to grab a few pages here and there as my day went on, but when the characters were in the bus, I had a bit of difficulty differentiating between the male characters and had to go back to make sure I had the right ones in mind.
The story was fast paced, but the ending felt drawn out in comparison to the rest of the story.
Other than that, it was damn good and highly recommended.
Be the voyeur in this menagerie of tragedy - you will feel more than you expect in this one.
Looking forward to reading more work by this author.
March 3, 2019
Desperation’s cage is built one bar at a time and we construct it ourselves without even realizing it.
Aaron Dries is good. Really. Fucking. Good.
And evidently a bit deranged. Because holy crap this was brutal.
James Bridge, Australia. Population 2022. Two hours northwest of Sydney, it was a highway town passed through on the way to somewhere better. If you ever come across The Bridge, keep on going and don’t look back. Ever. It’s a toxic place.
Despite some strange time and pov jumps that were a wee disorienting this one was a balls to the wall, bat-shit-crazy, Francis Bacon painting brought to life.
The sequel The Sound of his Bones Breaking started a little slow and I couldn’t figure out wtf was going on and then it hit the fan. Huge.
All men are scarecrows stuffed with regrets and trauma they are not allowed to speak of. Mouths sewn tight.
Damn, Dries. You went there. Yep. You did.
Grief was like taffy, it was sticky as hell, and the longer you played in its snare the sweeter it became.
Aaron Dries is good. Really. Fucking. Good.
And evidently a bit deranged. Because holy crap this was brutal.
James Bridge, Australia. Population 2022. Two hours northwest of Sydney, it was a highway town passed through on the way to somewhere better. If you ever come across The Bridge, keep on going and don’t look back. Ever. It’s a toxic place.
Despite some strange time and pov jumps that were a wee disorienting this one was a balls to the wall, bat-shit-crazy, Francis Bacon painting brought to life.
The sequel The Sound of his Bones Breaking started a little slow and I couldn’t figure out wtf was going on and then it hit the fan. Huge.
All men are scarecrows stuffed with regrets and trauma they are not allowed to speak of. Mouths sewn tight.
Damn, Dries. You went there. Yep. You did.
Grief was like taffy, it was sticky as hell, and the longer you played in its snare the sweeter it became.
Want to read
April 25, 2015This is copy 4 of 57 signed numbered copies.
April 1, 2019
I don't know a lot of Australian authors that aren't Bryce Courtenay.
I don't know if its just me but it seems like a good majority of Australian authors get lost in the flow of time because their work doesn't pander to Australian culture. The only Australian writers I know of in the speculative fiction genre are D.M Cornish, Shaun Tan and Garth Nix (who write for kids) and David Conyers and Leigh Blackmore (whose work I haven't read much of).
Where are all the Australian horror writers?
Well, now I can add Aaron Dries to that list and ask myself - WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU IN MY LIFE TEN YEARS AGO?
P.S I only have myself to blame.
The blurb of House of Sighs isn't exactly clear and the cover itself doesn't do much favours, so without spoilers I'll try to summarise. At its core, the book is a combination of family horror/psychological horror with the main bulk of the plot basically following the events in a day in the small town of James Bridge, centred initially around the Frosts. The Frosts as a family unit are, for lack of a better word, completely fucked.
- Wes the father is a belligerent child-beater whose better days are behind him.
- Reggie the mother is stuck in a loveless marriage who feels trapped in a loveless family.
- Jed the son is strung out on PCP and paranoia.
- And Liz the daughter suffers from PCP addiction, mental illness and suicidal tendencies.
And it's Liz who kickstarts the plot. After balking on a suicide one morning, she gets into her bus driver outfit, climbs into her bus and along her route, proceeds to flip the fuck out. And it's Liz's psychotic break that really kicks the plot into high gear when her passengers become prisoners to her breakdown and get dragged back to her house, where shit really hits the fan.
It takes a lot to shock me these days, especially in horror novels. Ed Lee's stuff is so over the top that its more black humour than horror, Richard Laymon's work reads like a horny teenage boy wanking himself off while stuffing food into his gob and Stephen King even at his nastiest oftentimes flubs it by having aw-shucks moments sprinkled throughout (Except Misery.....shudder). So for House of Sighs to genuinely give me chills and make my butthole pucker from tension is a feat in and of itself.
The plot itself reads like a combination of a snowball plot combined with a random events plot. Bad things happen, prompted by Liz's psychosis, but its the characters' miscommunications, psychological hangups and bad decisions that ultimately lead to where things go. The writing is crisp and fluid, surreal at times when characters have out of body experiences, hear voices or have hallucinations. But Dries doesn't waste time with too much flounce or purple prose. There's just enough to give some segments a nightmarish quality but not too much to bog down the plot. The pacing is razor tight as well with Dries using short quick sentences to carry tense moments and slower introspective sentences for darker, more dramatic moments. The description is quick but graphic with the violence being brutal and cruel. On that note, the tone of the story is completely straight. There's no black humour or silly moments to soften the setting. This is horror at its most stark and horrible and I love it for it.
The characters are all surprisingly interesting and are all given a decent amount of screentime for be fleshed out. Aside from the Frost family we have:
- Michael, a young gay bloke with self-esteem and self-worth issues
- Jack, an ocker bloke who quickly proves to be a bigoted bully
- Sarah, a grandma whose husband is dying of cancer
- Diana and Julia, sisters whose relationship is slightly strained because Diana is from America and longs for home.
- Steve, a deadbeat husband with an addiction to horse races
- And Peter, a quiet, shy, good Christian boy who wants to be a poet.
All of them have their quirks and flaws and while some last longer than others in the scheme of the plot, they're all given enough characterization to feel real so that when people starting dying, it smacks in the gut.
And when I saying people start dying, I mean it. This isn't some sanitized Hollywood movie. The deaths in this book are brutal and cruel, nihilistic and ugly. There's no beauty nor fun to be had here. People die without meaning or big scenes, its all played for the horrible drama that it all unfolds as and because things are so chaotic, there's are very few moments when you can guess who will die next. Even when you can guess, their deaths are played straight.
If I had to pick out a few flaws, it would be a few small matters of pacing and mispellings. I don't know if its a flub with the Kindle version or whatnot, but more than a handful of words were compressed together in my copy. Also, the opening setup was a little confusing. The start of the story centres around young Suzie Marten and her fate before jumping back and forth between the book's characters. In addition the chapters run backwards from 104 to 0 so that initial confusion
jumps from mild to WTF.
But these are really minor nitpicks. House of Sighs is a solid, brutal horror outing that I thoroughly enjoyed. The writing is crisp, the characters are varied and interesting, the violence actually feels brutal and shocking and the whole plot does what good horror should do. It shocks and horrifies you. It makes you feel powerless and small. It makes you feel numb.
Quick Warning: The following review contains a minor albeit important spoiler. Turn back now and think of puppies with rabies.
The Sound of his Bones Breaking is the second outing in this compilation, a sequel/companion piece to House of Sighs, in that both of them centre around psychological breakdowns and madness. The plot is pretty simple this time. Danny and Aiden are lovers living in Thailand after Danny has a nervous breakdown from an incident back in Australia where he was glassed in the middle of a drunken bar brawl. But Danny's darkness goes much deeper than being glassed. And now all of Danny's darkness is leaking out.
Unlike House of Sighs, The Sound of his Bones Breaking is a much slower, character driven story, taking cues from the likes of Jacob's Ladder and The Machinist. The story's a lot shorter but also a lot more tightly focused on Aiden and specifically Danny, or rather I should say.....
Michael.
Yup, the same Michael from House of Sighs aged up roughly twenty old years, a plot twist that I honestly didn't see coming because Dries does such a good job of setting up Aiden and "Danny" right from the start as individual characters. The early chapters like in House of Sighs are short, crisp with the right amount of dark poetry to set the scene and provide characterisation for the pair along with short clipped sentences and repetition to drum into the reader the stark, sometimes unsettling atmosphere.
And if that sounds like a bunch of poncy highbrow academic speak.....Tough titties cause you'll just have to harden the fuck up and learn to speak proper English like the rest of us. ;P
Dries also makes a good point of foreshadowing the reveal with small throwaway references and bits of info, something which gets a big tick from me. And once the reveal happens, we get into the real meat and potatoes of the story, which is Michael's descent back into his past and confronting his demons.
However as things moved on, I started to notice cracks in the framework. House of Sighs had a really good sense of pacing that allowed me to put the book down, go off and live my life, only to come back and know exactly where I was. The Sound of His Bones Breaking however, has a pacing that could best be described as wonky as fuck. A good 3/4's of the story is spent wandering around in Michael's mind and it's a trippy wordy place, full of vagueness and unsettling ideas, only for the last quarter of the story to suddenly fly us back to James Bridge where the climax is both shocking and.....weird.
The ending I think for me, is where a number of things fell down. The ending while horrifying also felt more like just a complete stop. Driving at 100 clicks an hr only to smash into a brick wall. No conclusion like House of Sighs, no explanation or what was going on, no denouement, just nothing. Not only this but I was genuinely confused by the ending. Maybe Aaron Dries is just a literary genius and I'm just thick as pig shit, but the ending literally threw me for a loop, to the point where I put the book down and said, "That's it?!"
Finally the biggest problem with The Sound of His Bones Breaking, was that it didn't feel like a story at all. It was more akin to a long distance epilogue, something so far removed from the original story and yet so connected to it, that there was both a disconnect and a connect at the same time. This Michael doesn't feel totally like Michael. It feels like someone else inhabiting his skin and maybe that's the point, but it also made it difficult at times to see these two stories as connected in that way.
The Sounds of His Bones Breaking isn't a bad story. It's not like Ray Garton's Night Life, which felt like a slapdash sequel that blew out a lot of the good things from Live Girls, but it does have its flaws. Weird pacing, a little too much vagueness, and an ending that feels like it comes out of left field. But its still gripping and engaging and unsettling throughout and I'd totally recommend both stories.
Now where are the rest of the good Aussie horror writers?!
I don't know if its just me but it seems like a good majority of Australian authors get lost in the flow of time because their work doesn't pander to Australian culture. The only Australian writers I know of in the speculative fiction genre are D.M Cornish, Shaun Tan and Garth Nix (who write for kids) and David Conyers and Leigh Blackmore (whose work I haven't read much of).
Where are all the Australian horror writers?
Well, now I can add Aaron Dries to that list and ask myself - WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU IN MY LIFE TEN YEARS AGO?
P.S I only have myself to blame.
The blurb of House of Sighs isn't exactly clear and the cover itself doesn't do much favours, so without spoilers I'll try to summarise. At its core, the book is a combination of family horror/psychological horror with the main bulk of the plot basically following the events in a day in the small town of James Bridge, centred initially around the Frosts. The Frosts as a family unit are, for lack of a better word, completely fucked.
- Wes the father is a belligerent child-beater whose better days are behind him.
- Reggie the mother is stuck in a loveless marriage who feels trapped in a loveless family.
- Jed the son is strung out on PCP and paranoia.
- And Liz the daughter suffers from PCP addiction, mental illness and suicidal tendencies.
And it's Liz who kickstarts the plot. After balking on a suicide one morning, she gets into her bus driver outfit, climbs into her bus and along her route, proceeds to flip the fuck out. And it's Liz's psychotic break that really kicks the plot into high gear when her passengers become prisoners to her breakdown and get dragged back to her house, where shit really hits the fan.
It takes a lot to shock me these days, especially in horror novels. Ed Lee's stuff is so over the top that its more black humour than horror, Richard Laymon's work reads like a horny teenage boy wanking himself off while stuffing food into his gob and Stephen King even at his nastiest oftentimes flubs it by having aw-shucks moments sprinkled throughout (Except Misery.....shudder). So for House of Sighs to genuinely give me chills and make my butthole pucker from tension is a feat in and of itself.
The plot itself reads like a combination of a snowball plot combined with a random events plot. Bad things happen, prompted by Liz's psychosis, but its the characters' miscommunications, psychological hangups and bad decisions that ultimately lead to where things go. The writing is crisp and fluid, surreal at times when characters have out of body experiences, hear voices or have hallucinations. But Dries doesn't waste time with too much flounce or purple prose. There's just enough to give some segments a nightmarish quality but not too much to bog down the plot. The pacing is razor tight as well with Dries using short quick sentences to carry tense moments and slower introspective sentences for darker, more dramatic moments. The description is quick but graphic with the violence being brutal and cruel. On that note, the tone of the story is completely straight. There's no black humour or silly moments to soften the setting. This is horror at its most stark and horrible and I love it for it.
The characters are all surprisingly interesting and are all given a decent amount of screentime for be fleshed out. Aside from the Frost family we have:
- Michael, a young gay bloke with self-esteem and self-worth issues
- Jack, an ocker bloke who quickly proves to be a bigoted bully
- Sarah, a grandma whose husband is dying of cancer
- Diana and Julia, sisters whose relationship is slightly strained because Diana is from America and longs for home.
- Steve, a deadbeat husband with an addiction to horse races
- And Peter, a quiet, shy, good Christian boy who wants to be a poet.
All of them have their quirks and flaws and while some last longer than others in the scheme of the plot, they're all given enough characterization to feel real so that when people starting dying, it smacks in the gut.
And when I saying people start dying, I mean it. This isn't some sanitized Hollywood movie. The deaths in this book are brutal and cruel, nihilistic and ugly. There's no beauty nor fun to be had here. People die without meaning or big scenes, its all played for the horrible drama that it all unfolds as and because things are so chaotic, there's are very few moments when you can guess who will die next. Even when you can guess, their deaths are played straight.
If I had to pick out a few flaws, it would be a few small matters of pacing and mispellings. I don't know if its a flub with the Kindle version or whatnot, but more than a handful of words were compressed together in my copy. Also, the opening setup was a little confusing. The start of the story centres around young Suzie Marten and her fate before jumping back and forth between the book's characters. In addition the chapters run backwards from 104 to 0 so that initial confusion
jumps from mild to WTF.
But these are really minor nitpicks. House of Sighs is a solid, brutal horror outing that I thoroughly enjoyed. The writing is crisp, the characters are varied and interesting, the violence actually feels brutal and shocking and the whole plot does what good horror should do. It shocks and horrifies you. It makes you feel powerless and small. It makes you feel numb.
Quick Warning: The following review contains a minor albeit important spoiler. Turn back now and think of puppies with rabies.
The Sound of his Bones Breaking is the second outing in this compilation, a sequel/companion piece to House of Sighs, in that both of them centre around psychological breakdowns and madness. The plot is pretty simple this time. Danny and Aiden are lovers living in Thailand after Danny has a nervous breakdown from an incident back in Australia where he was glassed in the middle of a drunken bar brawl. But Danny's darkness goes much deeper than being glassed. And now all of Danny's darkness is leaking out.
Unlike House of Sighs, The Sound of his Bones Breaking is a much slower, character driven story, taking cues from the likes of Jacob's Ladder and The Machinist. The story's a lot shorter but also a lot more tightly focused on Aiden and specifically Danny, or rather I should say.....
Michael.
Yup, the same Michael from House of Sighs aged up roughly twenty old years, a plot twist that I honestly didn't see coming because Dries does such a good job of setting up Aiden and "Danny" right from the start as individual characters. The early chapters like in House of Sighs are short, crisp with the right amount of dark poetry to set the scene and provide characterisation for the pair along with short clipped sentences and repetition to drum into the reader the stark, sometimes unsettling atmosphere.
And if that sounds like a bunch of poncy highbrow academic speak.....Tough titties cause you'll just have to harden the fuck up and learn to speak proper English like the rest of us. ;P
Dries also makes a good point of foreshadowing the reveal with small throwaway references and bits of info, something which gets a big tick from me. And once the reveal happens, we get into the real meat and potatoes of the story, which is Michael's descent back into his past and confronting his demons.
However as things moved on, I started to notice cracks in the framework. House of Sighs had a really good sense of pacing that allowed me to put the book down, go off and live my life, only to come back and know exactly where I was. The Sound of His Bones Breaking however, has a pacing that could best be described as wonky as fuck. A good 3/4's of the story is spent wandering around in Michael's mind and it's a trippy wordy place, full of vagueness and unsettling ideas, only for the last quarter of the story to suddenly fly us back to James Bridge where the climax is both shocking and.....weird.
The ending I think for me, is where a number of things fell down. The ending while horrifying also felt more like just a complete stop. Driving at 100 clicks an hr only to smash into a brick wall. No conclusion like House of Sighs, no explanation or what was going on, no denouement, just nothing. Not only this but I was genuinely confused by the ending. Maybe Aaron Dries is just a literary genius and I'm just thick as pig shit, but the ending literally threw me for a loop, to the point where I put the book down and said, "That's it?!"
Finally the biggest problem with The Sound of His Bones Breaking, was that it didn't feel like a story at all. It was more akin to a long distance epilogue, something so far removed from the original story and yet so connected to it, that there was both a disconnect and a connect at the same time. This Michael doesn't feel totally like Michael. It feels like someone else inhabiting his skin and maybe that's the point, but it also made it difficult at times to see these two stories as connected in that way.
The Sounds of His Bones Breaking isn't a bad story. It's not like Ray Garton's Night Life, which felt like a slapdash sequel that blew out a lot of the good things from Live Girls, but it does have its flaws. Weird pacing, a little too much vagueness, and an ending that feels like it comes out of left field. But its still gripping and engaging and unsettling throughout and I'd totally recommend both stories.
Now where are the rest of the good Aussie horror writers?!
April 26, 2019
"She had nowhere to go. All roads led home."
I liked the concept of House of Sighs much more than the execution. The prologue immediately grabbed my attention, and this book has some great gory scenes. However, they were few and far between until the ending when everything is crammed together.
House of Sighs is set up like a slasher story with a ton of characters that you know are going to get picked off. This book spends way too much time focusing on the backgrounds of all the characters, and it was difficult to keep anyone straight. I was frustrated with it after a while - I was intrigued by the present day story, but it kept jumping around to a bunch of different people's pasts.
It got pretty far-fetched by the end, but there were still several entertaining scenes. This is definitely not a bad book, and clearly many readers enjoy it. I just struggled to connect with it. Thank you to Tracy for buddy reading with me!
I liked the concept of House of Sighs much more than the execution. The prologue immediately grabbed my attention, and this book has some great gory scenes. However, they were few and far between until the ending when everything is crammed together.
House of Sighs is set up like a slasher story with a ton of characters that you know are going to get picked off. This book spends way too much time focusing on the backgrounds of all the characters, and it was difficult to keep anyone straight. I was frustrated with it after a while - I was intrigued by the present day story, but it kept jumping around to a bunch of different people's pasts.
It got pretty far-fetched by the end, but there were still several entertaining scenes. This is definitely not a bad book, and clearly many readers enjoy it. I just struggled to connect with it. Thank you to Tracy for buddy reading with me!
July 31, 2012
Aaron Dries is a talent to watch. I may personally think of "House of Sighs" as a classic suspense story, albeit with some gruesome details, instead of being a "Horror" novel, but WHATEVER it is, it does what it does quite well with enough originality and story telling ability to merit a confident recommendation. Horror? Suspense? Thriller? Well, there's nothing supernatural going on and the violence isn't portrayed with the loving sadism of a Rob Zombie or Friday the 13th part whatever flick. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this work, and something which separates it from "House of 1000 Corpses," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and "1,000 Maniacs" is the sympathetic portrayal of the family of "villains." They are thought through more carefully than in the average "slasher flick," for me making it a much more enjoyable "read."
"House of Sighs" is a darned GOOD suspense story with great and not over-used (i.e. cliché) characters, an unusual setting and an unexpected catalyst to set things in motion. The plot concerns the fate of an unlucky group of bus passengers. The bus driver .... Well, she's having a bad day -- a very bad day. Ever sit on a bus and wonder what would happen if the driver just totally loses it? I sure have. Aaron goes for it and brings the story off with aplomb.
I give it four out of five stars for subjective reasons. As an American, whenever I encounter the classic "disparate-group-of-people-suddenly-thrust-together-against-a-common-enemy-who-will-survive?!" scenario, I am reminded of 911 and that spoils the entertainment a little. There's nothing any writer can do about that except let time work to heal the wounds.
But taken on its own terms, which is how it should be taken, "House of Sighs" is good stuff.
Worth reading!
"House of Sighs" is a darned GOOD suspense story with great and not over-used (i.e. cliché) characters, an unusual setting and an unexpected catalyst to set things in motion. The plot concerns the fate of an unlucky group of bus passengers. The bus driver .... Well, she's having a bad day -- a very bad day. Ever sit on a bus and wonder what would happen if the driver just totally loses it? I sure have. Aaron goes for it and brings the story off with aplomb.
I give it four out of five stars for subjective reasons. As an American, whenever I encounter the classic "disparate-group-of-people-suddenly-thrust-together-against-a-common-enemy-who-will-survive?!" scenario, I am reminded of 911 and that spoils the entertainment a little. There's nothing any writer can do about that except let time work to heal the wounds.
But taken on its own terms, which is how it should be taken, "House of Sighs" is good stuff.
Worth reading!
June 13, 2018
Holy Cow
What a ride. House of Sighs is brutal, bloody, edge of your seat brilliance. The reader is taken on one of the most scariest of bus rides, driven by a psycho who thinks she can create a new family from her passengers.
The book also includes the sequel The Sounds of his Bones Breaking. Such an emotional read. You will laugh, you will cry and you won't believe the ending. I am left breathless and this book will be with me for a very long time. Utterly brilliant. A+++++
What a ride. House of Sighs is brutal, bloody, edge of your seat brilliance. The reader is taken on one of the most scariest of bus rides, driven by a psycho who thinks she can create a new family from her passengers.
The book also includes the sequel The Sounds of his Bones Breaking. Such an emotional read. You will laugh, you will cry and you won't believe the ending. I am left breathless and this book will be with me for a very long time. Utterly brilliant. A+++++
September 3, 2011
This was a total surprise. The hardcover was borrowed to me by a friend who is a hardcore horror addict and he loved it too! This is some intense, fast paced stuff. I loved the Australian setting and the characters are super well drawn. I really liked how the chapter numbers ran backwards and seemed to throw you closer and closer to the end. The character of Sarah is just wonderful! Very unexpected conclusion and disturbing, to say the least.
I'd recommend it to fans of Jack Ketchum. This book has a lot of heart too- and makes some really profound points about male behavior and family dynamics.
I also really liked that it was all set in a single day- and didn't drag at all. It had me from the opening sentence to the brilliant final line. Dries can really write.
I'm super keen to get the paperback when it arrives. It'd make one hell of a movie.
I'd recommend it to fans of Jack Ketchum. This book has a lot of heart too- and makes some really profound points about male behavior and family dynamics.
I also really liked that it was all set in a single day- and didn't drag at all. It had me from the opening sentence to the brilliant final line. Dries can really write.
I'm super keen to get the paperback when it arrives. It'd make one hell of a movie.
May 29, 2015
Just finished reading House of Sighs by Aaron Warwick Dries, and all I can say is WOW! This one really grabbed me and impressed me. The premise is simple enough: what if a people on a bus were taken hostage by an unstable and murderous driver? But in Dries hands, there was nothing predictable about this story. It took several twists and turns I never saw coming, and always managed to be gripping and engrossing. The characters were wonderfully realized, and I loved how he gradually revealed each person's back story, giving depth to them and making the tragedies of the tale all the more emotionally affecting. This was my first experience with Dries, but it won't be my last. He has earned a lifelong fan with this one.
April 25, 2011
A fantastic first effort from Dries. A riveting story that held me from the dramatic first chapter.
This up and coming author shows great promise and I look forward to more from him.
This up and coming author shows great promise and I look forward to more from him.
January 9, 2019
This book is incredible. The original novel is brutal and intense. The included sequel novella is full of heart and equally brutal. Superb, harrowing stuff.
April 15, 2012
I had no idea what to expect from Aaron Dries's first novel, but it totally blew me away! From the beginning i was hooked. House of Sighs is gruesome, scary, mean and nasty. As the reader, you have no idea what will happen and when it does you're like "Wow and Woah!" I love his writing style, how he talks about one character's point of view and sprinkles in something like "as his daughter blew some kid's head off". Read it and you'll understand. This is a true, horrifying horror novel, filled with chaos to the maximum level, but done so damn smoothly. I have a new favorite author on my radar.
October 12, 2012
A more in-depth review is forthcoming on Dread Central but just quickly, I loved this book! Gruesome, edge-of-your-seat drama, gory, interesting characters and I LOVE the Australian setting - not NEARLY enough Aussie horror makes it across the ocean. A must-read for horror fans!
October 21, 2012
Great dark moody horror. Fast paced too. Highly recommended!
March 19, 2019
Very enjoyable and chaotic ride. No one is safe in this novel.
"We teeter on the brink of chaos every day, regardless of the tightly-wound control we think we have over our lives. Beneath everyone—himself included—there lurked the potential to do terrible things. This potential sometimes manifested itself, purged itself, stretched its spindly spidery legs, in a number of ways. And it wore many faces along the way. But most people hold true. They don’t tap into the well.
This was different.
They were here in this tucked away corner of the valley, in the great property surrounding the family’s house, because they had been invited, albeit against their will. The driver was their host, and in welcoming the passengers into her life, she unlocked that door within them all. This was what made that teetering control tip, sliding them into the murky waters where The Beast waited, where it eagerly grinned, a thing that was only too happy to rise to the occasion and fulfill its purpose in the world. Come into my house, the driver said. Be yourself here."
"We teeter on the brink of chaos every day, regardless of the tightly-wound control we think we have over our lives. Beneath everyone—himself included—there lurked the potential to do terrible things. This potential sometimes manifested itself, purged itself, stretched its spindly spidery legs, in a number of ways. And it wore many faces along the way. But most people hold true. They don’t tap into the well.
This was different.
They were here in this tucked away corner of the valley, in the great property surrounding the family’s house, because they had been invited, albeit against their will. The driver was their host, and in welcoming the passengers into her life, she unlocked that door within them all. This was what made that teetering control tip, sliding them into the murky waters where The Beast waited, where it eagerly grinned, a thing that was only too happy to rise to the occasion and fulfill its purpose in the world. Come into my house, the driver said. Be yourself here."
January 25, 2015
This is the second book by Dries that I've read, although it was the first written. It's about a really sad and insecure bus driver named Liz who kidnaps her passengers to be her new friends. She takes them home to meet the family. This is some seriously scary horror here!!! Fans of Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, and Stephen King (the Stephen King of Cujo, Misery, Gerald's Game, that is) pay note. Dries is the real deal.
Like all of Dries's stuff, House of Sighs is intense, visceral, suspenseful, surprising, and is full of interesting, complex and broken characters that feel so REAL. But more than any of his other books, this one is the most fast paced. And whilst the book is told in chronological order, the chapters count down backwards ... like a ticking time bomb. It's an amazing gimmick.
Horror books don't get much better than this, or so I thought until I read the rest of Dries's work. He's my new favorite author. His mind is like Thomas Harris meets Tobe Hooper!
Like all of Dries's stuff, House of Sighs is intense, visceral, suspenseful, surprising, and is full of interesting, complex and broken characters that feel so REAL. But more than any of his other books, this one is the most fast paced. And whilst the book is told in chronological order, the chapters count down backwards ... like a ticking time bomb. It's an amazing gimmick.
Horror books don't get much better than this, or so I thought until I read the rest of Dries's work. He's my new favorite author. His mind is like Thomas Harris meets Tobe Hooper!
November 19, 2018
Interesting debut novel which is hampered by extremely frequent jumps between character POVs from one paragraph to the next, and a completely unbelievable reaction from the family of the initial antagonist. (Sorry, but I just could not get my head around people behaving the way they did - which means either I missed the point or the author did not do a good enough job of establishing why they would react like this)
Those criticisms aside, Dries does a very good job of creating vivid characters and placing them within an Australian setting from a time that I still recall vividly (ie. just before mobile phones were a thing, otherwise this book wouldn't have been possible). This means there is a care factor attached to the deaths which occur, and it is not clear who will be left standing by book's end - something which I will always appreciate.
3 Unscheduled Bus Stops for House of Sighs.
Those criticisms aside, Dries does a very good job of creating vivid characters and placing them within an Australian setting from a time that I still recall vividly (ie. just before mobile phones were a thing, otherwise this book wouldn't have been possible). This means there is a care factor attached to the deaths which occur, and it is not clear who will be left standing by book's end - something which I will always appreciate.
3 Unscheduled Bus Stops for House of Sighs.
September 1, 2019
I'm not sure I will be able to find the words to articulate how much I loved this book. It is one of the most beautifully written stories I've read. It is darkness and love, beauty and tragedy. Yes, the words painted vivid imagery, but more than that it birthed emotions, raw and powerful. I could taste the fear, smell the asphalt and metal, feel the sweat on skin, see the allure of the tragedy and hear the rushing of blood in my ears. I've always been one who even in the most tragic moments, sometimes especially in the most tragic of moments, has a moment where I see something so exquisitely beautiful that it takes my breath away. I feel as though Aaron saw into my mind and captured both the lovely and the horrible that I seem to see in life, daily. My only regret is that I can't give this more than five stars.
July 29, 2013
wow, very good. Started of a little slow but it was to establish the characters. The chapters were short which made it hard for me to put down. I would read 20 chapters before I had to force myself to put it down and go to sleep
January 4, 2014
The reverse engineering in this brutal, bloody debut is a joy to behold as Aaron Dries eviscerates the everyday to reveal the raw meat of his characters. You might want to bandage your fingers when reading - turning the pages so fast can make them bleed.
May 9, 2018
Happy endings are highly over-rated! Check out my full review here... https://horrornovelreviews.com/2018/0...
April 23, 2019
3.5-4 review coming this weekend
March 17, 2022
I read this book in a single day. I had trouble tracking this book down, which only made me want to read it more. I was immediately drawn to this book for its dark premise. Content warning for gore, child death, drug addiction, homophobia, religious abuse, sexual abuse, suicide, and brief mention of eating disorder. It’s the summer of 1995, and the passengers of the Sunday bus into town have realized that something is very, very wrong with their driver. They don’t know that she began her day planning to kill herself, but they know that she’s threatening to kill them. They began the ride as her passengers, but now they’re her captives. She’s already shown she won’t hesitate to use that gun in her hand, and no one wants to be the next to die. They have no idea where she’s taking them, who will be left alive when they get there, or what‘s in store for the survivors. With a madwoman at the wheel, the bus has gone far off its route, deep into insanity., and for most of the passengers, the next stop will be their last. I was immediately shocked by how brutal and gory this book was. The first few pages made me excited for what was to come as it really establishes the tone that this book will take. The author does a good job at slowly introducing the main cast after the devastating first few pages, and even though we are meeting and learning about so many characters, it is done succinctly and effortlessly communicates that another average day is going to take a sinister sharp turn for these people. I love how fast-paced this was and how it immediately jumps into a dark part of the story and then flashes back to quickly see how we got there. Realizing that the chapter heading was counting down to something was exciting considering so much was already happening right from the jump. The short flashbacks kind of messed with the fast-pacing, but they were fast and helped flesh out the characters and tone which enhanced the story whenever we arrived back with the characters in the present. I admit that I got a few of the characters mixed up in my head (not a problem with the book or writing, but with me), but I figured out who was who by the end. This book didn’t have a huge message at the end, but it wasn’t trying to. This book was about how trauma and pain can snowball into chaos, gore and death. This would make an amazing horror movie. I liked how messy and brutal the death scenes were, and I loved how the climax of the book devolved into pure chaos. I recommend this book for fans of stories with gory, brutal ultra violence.
May 9, 2021
A devastating & horrific tale of violence & loss, House of Sighs is not an easy book, but it is a great one. It will leave you shaken at the end & the added sequel The Sound Of His Bones Breaking will compound this feeling with its disturbing conclusion to the story of one of the characters.
A disparate group of characters find themselves hostages of extremely troubled bus driver Liz. Following a hit & run, Liz drives the bus back to her remote home, where her equally troubled family love, including her meth head brother Jed & violent father. What follows is a grim battle for survival between the two groups & much bloodshed.
Dries’ writing is characterised by short paragraphs & chapters that almost read like a screenplay - scenes that don’t overstay their welcome but also contain a lot of detail & character. After reading a lot of ‘wordy’ horror, his style is a breath of fresh air & conveys just enough info & backstory for the characters. In the early section of the book, Dries impressively introduces the large cast of characters before throwing them all together on the bus fighting for their lives.
Despite some of the despicable acts committed by Liz’ family, Dries gives us a good glimpse behind the dysfunction to see the damaged souls who will do anything for each other. In the writers eyes, they are more than just the villains of the story. Another clever aspect of the book is the elevation of one of the hostages to both saviour & ultimately villain towards the end as the siege brings out a long dormant blood lust.
The less said about the sequel the better, but when it lays its cards out on the table, it is truly a devastating conclusion to the overall story. Dries’ ability to examine humanity through extreme situations & ultraviolence was a rough but thrilling ride & recommended to fans of strong horror.
A disparate group of characters find themselves hostages of extremely troubled bus driver Liz. Following a hit & run, Liz drives the bus back to her remote home, where her equally troubled family love, including her meth head brother Jed & violent father. What follows is a grim battle for survival between the two groups & much bloodshed.
Dries’ writing is characterised by short paragraphs & chapters that almost read like a screenplay - scenes that don’t overstay their welcome but also contain a lot of detail & character. After reading a lot of ‘wordy’ horror, his style is a breath of fresh air & conveys just enough info & backstory for the characters. In the early section of the book, Dries impressively introduces the large cast of characters before throwing them all together on the bus fighting for their lives.
Despite some of the despicable acts committed by Liz’ family, Dries gives us a good glimpse behind the dysfunction to see the damaged souls who will do anything for each other. In the writers eyes, they are more than just the villains of the story. Another clever aspect of the book is the elevation of one of the hostages to both saviour & ultimately villain towards the end as the siege brings out a long dormant blood lust.
The less said about the sequel the better, but when it lays its cards out on the table, it is truly a devastating conclusion to the overall story. Dries’ ability to examine humanity through extreme situations & ultraviolence was a rough but thrilling ride & recommended to fans of strong horror.
Read
August 25, 2019No rating because it was written by a friend. But a friend whose horror prose is so disturbing and chilling if I wasn’t already friends with him I’d probably be a little frightened to meet him.
July 1, 2020
Aaron Dries writes with some of the most elegant language I have read in a while. I swear his sentences read the way smoothing hot butter on toast feels. I am completely entranced when reading. This is the second book of his I have read (the first was a collab called Where The Dead Go To Die) and he continues to wow me with his style.
This story follows Liz Frost, a bus driver going through some stuff, and the passengers and victims on a wild ride to hell. And she is pretty psychotic and unhinged. What's interesting is all I could think about was the scary bus driver and bus scenes in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 throughout most of this book - in a good way! But this book is far more brutal than that! The story is pretty fast paced and alternates between multiple POVs. My only struggle with this book was that, while it alternates POVs, it also alternates past to present with them all, and I had a difficult time knowing who or what was going on SOMETIMES. I was pretty focused on the present because - well - SHEER TERROR AND PANIC from Liz Frost in the present. But sometimes I just got a little lost - but again, his writing is just so nice to read with vivid descriptions and great details that I did not mind a bit.
Going to give this one 3.5 stars and round up to 4! Aaron Dries is a true talent and I am glad to have added him to my library of authors to be on the look out for. Now on to my next Dries book...! :)
This story follows Liz Frost, a bus driver going through some stuff, and the passengers and victims on a wild ride to hell. And she is pretty psychotic and unhinged. What's interesting is all I could think about was the scary bus driver and bus scenes in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 throughout most of this book - in a good way! But this book is far more brutal than that! The story is pretty fast paced and alternates between multiple POVs. My only struggle with this book was that, while it alternates POVs, it also alternates past to present with them all, and I had a difficult time knowing who or what was going on SOMETIMES. I was pretty focused on the present because - well - SHEER TERROR AND PANIC from Liz Frost in the present. But sometimes I just got a little lost - but again, his writing is just so nice to read with vivid descriptions and great details that I did not mind a bit.
Going to give this one 3.5 stars and round up to 4! Aaron Dries is a true talent and I am glad to have added him to my library of authors to be on the look out for. Now on to my next Dries book...! :)
June 25, 2018
House of Sighs is a stunning thrill ride. Just when you think you know where Aaron Dries and the story is taking you there's a hard left off the road and you're once again in unfamiliar territory. House of Sighs has all the horror, gore and psychotic characters we've come to expect and love from Aaron's novels along with some of the clearest evocation of Australian landscape I've experienced in a very long time (as an ex-pat living through one of the worst Scottish winters in recent memory I really needed to smell that summer-baked dirt road and Aaron Dries NAILED it).
All this and an honest representation of an LGBTIQ character (think more Holding the Man rather than Will and Grace), House of Sighs has everything you'd want in contemporary Australian horror and lots you wouldn't even consider asking for.
Although I would not recommend reading it on a ten hour bus journey - you might get extremely nervous about your fellow passengers :)
I'm looking forward to reading his back catalogue and his new works well into the future.
All this and an honest representation of an LGBTIQ character (think more Holding the Man rather than Will and Grace), House of Sighs has everything you'd want in contemporary Australian horror and lots you wouldn't even consider asking for.
Although I would not recommend reading it on a ten hour bus journey - you might get extremely nervous about your fellow passengers :)
I'm looking forward to reading his back catalogue and his new works well into the future.
November 1, 2012
I don't know if the kindle edition has been "translated" for the US market, but the American voice for what is claiming to be an Australian story is jarring and hard to get past.
Other than that, while the gore is indeed gruesome and on par with the best of horror writers the characters are flat and the pace is very slow. To really exploit the horror of gore, an author has to make you care about the characters, and I'm afraid I didn't care at all.
The writing in itself is fine, but the story isn't particularly compelling. I didn't end up finishing it.
Other than that, while the gore is indeed gruesome and on par with the best of horror writers the characters are flat and the pace is very slow. To really exploit the horror of gore, an author has to make you care about the characters, and I'm afraid I didn't care at all.
The writing in itself is fine, but the story isn't particularly compelling. I didn't end up finishing it.
December 19, 2012
One of the most suspenseful books I've ever read. Impossible to put down. Although be warned, it's not for the faint-hearted. It's full of beautifully drawn characters (some good, bad and even some are lost between), the plot is lightning fast (and superbly crafted in that it makes you think it's about one thing but really it's about another!) and horror fans won't be disappointed.
Finish this and then pick up Dries' second novel "The Fallen Boys". It's just as good -if not better- and the stories both sync up!
Intense and truly scary. This is damn fine stuff.
Finish this and then pick up Dries' second novel "The Fallen Boys". It's just as good -if not better- and the stories both sync up!
Intense and truly scary. This is damn fine stuff.
June 9, 2018
Wow! House Of Sighs was deeply disturbing. Not even because of the gore, of which there is some, however not over the top. But in the way that your normal, everyday people can become monsters with just the right (or wrong) conditions.
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