E.M. MacCallum

I recieved this ARC from Netgalley and this is my honest review of it.

Nora has been having some strange experiences lately but she is afraid to share her fears about them with her family and friends The reason is that she is not entirely certain that shes not imagining it all in her head...

After all its happened before.

She is even more unsettled when the newest addition to her circle of friends,Aidan Birket invites them all to go to an old house that his family owns. Not only because she dislikes him but that she senses that they would be wrong to to go to there.



But in the end Nora is convinced to go with them against her own doubts and her best friend Phoebe reinforcing it by telling her about a strange dream she had. But in the end they all convince each other that they are going.Who care about some weird things like that.



When they arrive Aidan warns them to not to go up the stairs to the third floor,because its not safe,but impetous Phoebe cant resist and goes to explore causing the others to follow her. They find a strange room and a door.



Things are set into motion and a shadow that takes the form of a man appears introduces himself as Damien and tell them that they have to go through the door and take on the Challenges he will make for them that will be based on their fears and desires.



If they pass the Challenges they will all go free but if they fail,or even die. They will all belong to Damien and stay in the Demons grave...



My initial thoughts about "The Demons Grave" was not entirely good as after the prologue I was thrown into a confusion in the first chapter when names where thrown at me in a rapid sucession. Who what?? I mean I the reader is not as wellknown with them,could have eased me in a little bit there author.



But after they all arrive at the house I just couldnt stop reading.



There are editing problems throughout the book,I wouldnt call them typos more like strangely constructed sentences that should be fixed.



As for our main character I liked Nora but it was not an immediate like if you understand me right. I am not sure I understood her very well at first but as piece of the puzzle began to fall in place,she grew on me.



at first Nora when they are taken to the Demons grave and meet Damien she is convinced that everything is part of her delusion and that she is finally slipping into insanity.She snaps out of it however and comes through as a strong character towards the later part of the book.



There is not really a romance in this wich I appreciated, I will however say there are hints of it but the greater emphasis is placed on friendship and other emotions. It does make sense that when you are fighting for your life you have other priorities than making googly eyes at each other.



Then...there is Damien. Our antagonist and the perpetrator of the friends miseries.In terms of personality I would say he is less whimsical than Jareth from Labyrinth but hes not quite as horrid as from Guardians Key.



I would say hes interesting in that I want to know what his deal is and why hes there.

Because of my interest in name meanings I put great significance on the meaning behind Damiens name but alas after a twitter convo with the author she told me



This book rightly belong on the horror shelf. The amount of things they go through were scary and weird.



II would expect some people will draw comparisions to L.J Smiths Forbidden Game series but to be honest this is hardly a new concept. Its all depend on what you do with it and McCallum does a great work expanding on the theme.

In fact the whole setup centers on one of my favorite reading tropes. Girl underground. Its all what you do with it and in the end this is a book I cant wait to read the sequel.


I just hope there arent any spiders.… (meer)

I got an eGalley of this book to read and review through NetGalley. The premise really intrigued me but this was more of a horror book than a paranormal read. The books starts out really slow; you are about 25% though the book before anything happens. There are also some portions that are awkwardly written and hard to follow.

Nora is plagued by strange messages and visions and is starting to doubt her sanity...again. Then her and her friends decide to spend the weekend at Adrian’s old Victorian house. This group of kids finds and opens a mysterious door they shouldn't and end up having to go through a series of seven challenges in order to return to their world. The challenges take place in a sort of horror underground labyrinth and basically consist of them confronting their own horrific nightmares.

So let me start out by saying horror really isn't my thing and this is very much a horror novel. I like dark fantasy and creepy stories, but that is not what this book is. This book is a series of horrific nightmarish scenes (spiders eating people alive and crawling into noses and ears, etc) loosely strung together by a plot.

There are a lot of characters to follow and I didn't really relate with any of them. The characters are presented in such a way that none of them are all that distinct.

The idea is kind of interesting but the pacing was just too slow in the beginning. The writing itself is okay; however some of the conversations and descriptions were a bit awkward sounding.

Overall I wasn’t really a fan of this book and wouldn’t personally recommend it. The book is more of a horror novel with lots of creeping and scenes with spiders eating people alive and horrors chasing kids through dark passages. Not what I was expecting given the description and not something I enjoyed reading. This paired with the slow start, occasionally awkward writing, and multitude of non-descript characters made this a no go for me. If you are a horror fan you might be more interested, it’s okay but not great.… (meer)