The horror theme continues, this time with my review of No Doors, No Windows by Joe Schreiber. Joe Schreiber is a newcomer to Star Wars, with his upcoming Death Troopers to be released next week – but he’s already proven himself in the eyes of Del Rey, since they’ve already signed him up to write another Star Wars book for next Halloween. Is that faith justified? Read on after the break to see what I thought of his other book to be released next week.

Scott, a 30 something year old hallmark greeting card writer, has returned to his small hometown out in the middle of nowhere because his father has passed away. We start the story after the funeral has already happened – with Scott and his nephew Henry playing catch. Scott’s brother Owen, Henry’s father, is the town drunk – a man who can’t hold a job and can barely take care of his son. He’s hoping there’s some hidden fortune their dead father has left them – but all they find is an unfinished manuscript called The Black Wing, written by their father who was slowly losing his mind.

Scott has always wanted to be ‘real’ writer, so he reads his father’s novel – a dark book about a man who lives in a house in the woods with his wife; a house that holds many secrets – from the hidden rooms and corridors to the hallway with no doors and no windows. Scott knows it’s a good book, but it needs to be finished – and he begins to feel that maybe he can complete the work himself. Especially when he discovers that the house is real – and is available for rent.

So he sets up camp there and he starts to reconnect with the people he left behind, but there’s always an undercurrent that there are things no one is talking about. Like his high school girlfriend Sonia who’s having an affair with the husband of the richest woman in town – Collette McGuire. Collette herself is hiding secrets in the remains of a burned up theater where Scott and Owen’s mother perished in a fire years ago. And she seems oblivious to her husband Red’s cheating, even though he had faced charges in the death of his first wife.

And how does the Round House connect all this together, its history not only with the town but with these two families in particular. It’s called that because there are no sharp corners inside the house – everything is rounded. And as Scott starts to explore it, he begins hearing things and seeing things that couldn’t possibly be real. Is he slowly losing his mind, just as so many in his family have before – or is there something within the house itself causing this madness.

I loved most of No Doors, No Windows - probably 90% of it. Joe Schreiber reminds me of Stephen King – both the good and bad. There are wonderful characters who you really care about, and an engrossing story – that ultimately fell a little flat in the final moments. The novel is genuinely spine tingling, en eerie novel that keeps you guessing well into the third act. But then a convenient plot twist and revelation that I might have been ok with, led into a final encounter that actually didn’t really make much sense to me and I’m left with mixed feelings at the very end. It’s a 276 page novel, and I loved 260ish pages of it. I didn’t hate the end; I just felt like the end didn’t live up to the rest of the novel for me. At the same time it’s an engrossing story, and an interesting companion piece to Death Troopers in certain respects (there’s even a subtle and not-so-subtle reference to Death Troopers in No Doors, No Windows). If you wind up enjoying Death Troopers and are looking for another book by this author, I’d definitely recommend No Doors, No Windows. It’s a great book for the season, and one worth reading.