Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz

I hoped that would be a positive, and it was. Plus, the first one was, in my book, even if it did a decent job of developing every character, cluttered, which distracted from the scares. But as the only other book in this series so far, and this was released five years ago, it at least promises answers, gore, and much-anticipated confrontations. I was actually quite excited when I finally picked this book up, which sounds like a clashing phrase when you say “finally picked up”. She tries to maybe let it go and adapt when she’s let out of the hospital and given a cafe job, but hints are surfacing the killer is stalking her, and with no one taking her seriously she heads out to find the only other known survivor and plan their next move, which will eventually bring them to the sequel of the Dark House, literally. Ivy is 100% certain whoever orchestrated this Justin Blake killing trap is the same one who murdered her parents, and suffering from fright, she scoffs at promises from the police she sees through like plastic. But then again, as we now learn, neither were their bodies.

Nor were any of the contestants who died Garth, Shayla, Frankie or Natalie. Ivy ran for help but Parker was nowhere to be found. Parker, a guy Ivy had taken a liking to, also survived his nightmare but couldn’t reach the closing gate in time.

One of the contestants, Taylor, followed her gut over something and left early, which was definitely the right call. How the last book ended was Ivy Jensen was not the only survivor of a carnival gone as wrong as possible. I also said it left an involving cliffhanger, and a few days ago, it brought me back to the Dark House. I said it was a jump-scare book that wasn’t set up to truly scare, and by the time it actually got to the good stuff, I was more relieved than excited. This book convinced me I should one day return to this duology, and see the first one anew, which I gave a rather unfavourable review of.

Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz