This is a sequel to The Sorrows, the first book. It really should be read first to better understand the castle, but this one has enough info that the reader will "get it". The story begins a bit slow but quickly picks up when all the characters arrive on the island. I found that this on is more brutal, bloody and gory than the first book so if you are squeamish at all you might want to skip both of these books, but if you love a good scary roller-coaster ride...these two books are right up your ally. ( )

In all, an improvement over its predecessor, but damn do I ever hate the 'missing kid' MacGuffin in horror fiction. It tends to override and dominate and become all-encompassing to the point of irritation. This was almost a 5-star book for me, but the last 75 pages were so dominated by the infuriating 'My baby, my baby!!!!' mentality in every step the protagonist took that it dropped to a frustrating 2. There was enough redemption in the final few pages that I wound up rating it a 4 overall, but be warned that at one point the protagonist refuses to fire a gun at an encroaching zombie/specter because he's 'worried it will damage the hearing' of the wailing baby he's carting around. Fortunately, the book is more or less saved by the skillful craft of the author. It is deftly written and quite riveting, aside from the aforementioned reliance on that all-too-common trope of fear, "Daddy Wants Kid Back."

I love Jonathan Janz as a writer. I dig his style, I usually applaud his audacity, and I appreciate many of the aspects of horror that manifest in his books. I will continue reading Janz and will probably enjoy most of his stuff, but I have to say here and now that Ben Shadeland is an annoying protagonist who I would relish punching in the face, were it not for the fact that he seems to have transformed from a chubby horror score composer to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the space of about 9 months between the two books. So he'd probably kick my ass, same as he somehow manages to do to Federal agents, gangster bodyguards, and even the Great God Pan. ( )