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charshorrorcorner's review
5.0
4.5/5*
In the small town of Zarephath, PA there exists a door. Everyone knows about it, and everyone knows what it does. Everyone also knows not to open the door: as in NEVER, EVER open the door. But, of course, someone does, and this is the basis for BEHIND THE DOOR.
Slight spoiler below:
In my mind, this is a novel of cosmic horror. It doesn't feature Cthulhu or any Lovecraftian creatures, (though there are tentacles), but major aspects of it are there. What's behind the door is not of this world. Check. What's behind the door doesn't give a hoot about humans or humanity in general. It is cold, indifferent and unfeeling. Check, check, check. Now, it could also be interpreted as supernatural horror, in general, and that's fine too. But this is MY review and here we are.
Kathy Ryan is a fascinating character and I can't wait to read more about her. An occult specialist, she knows things. For this reason, she is called to Pennsylvania to help the town figure out what happened, and hopefully, how to undo it. She comes in and she's heard. Surprisingly, she's understood and respected-pretty much right off the bat, with the few naysayers quickly changing their tunes as the situation escalates. (As a women in a primarily male field, I felt that this was a bit optimistic, but hey, that's just me and again, my review.)
I thought the other characters were also well drawn and believable. I just wanted to hug both Kari and Cicely as much as I wanted to kick Ed and Toby. (And I wanted to kick a certain place on their bodies that isn't ladylike for me to mention.) Characters that inspire that kind of feeling in me demand to be heard.
To recap: BEHIND THE DOOR is a fast paced novel that moves right along. Evil in a small town is a favorite trope of mine, and combined with this type of horror, (see spoiler above), this was a must read for me. If any of this sounds vaguely good to you? This is a must read for you too!
My highest recommendation!
Available everywhere August 28th, 2018, but you can pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Door-Kathy-Ryan-Novel-ebook/dp/B077WZKJ2R/chashorcor-20
*Thank you to Kensington, Lyrical Underground and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*
In the small town of Zarephath, PA there exists a door. Everyone knows about it, and everyone knows what it does. Everyone also knows not to open the door: as in NEVER, EVER open the door. But, of course, someone does, and this is the basis for BEHIND THE DOOR.
Slight spoiler below:
In my mind, this is a novel of cosmic horror. It doesn't feature Cthulhu or any Lovecraftian creatures, (though there are tentacles), but major aspects of it are there. What's behind the door is not of this world. Check. What's behind the door doesn't give a hoot about humans or humanity in general. It is cold, indifferent and unfeeling. Check, check, check. Now, it could also be interpreted as supernatural horror, in general, and that's fine too. But this is MY review and here we are.
Kathy Ryan is a fascinating character and I can't wait to read more about her. An occult specialist, she knows things. For this reason, she is called to Pennsylvania to help the town figure out what happened, and hopefully, how to undo it. She comes in and she's heard. Surprisingly, she's understood and respected-pretty much right off the bat, with the few naysayers quickly changing their tunes as the situation escalates. (As a women in a primarily male field, I felt that this was a bit optimistic, but hey, that's just me and again, my review.)
I thought the other characters were also well drawn and believable. I just wanted to hug both Kari and Cicely as much as I wanted to kick Ed and Toby. (And I wanted to kick a certain place on their bodies that isn't ladylike for me to mention.) Characters that inspire that kind of feeling in me demand to be heard.
To recap: BEHIND THE DOOR is a fast paced novel that moves right along. Evil in a small town is a favorite trope of mine, and combined with this type of horror, (see spoiler above), this was a must read for me. If any of this sounds vaguely good to you? This is a must read for you too!
My highest recommendation!
Available everywhere August 28th, 2018, but you can pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Door-Kathy-Ryan-Novel-ebook/dp/B077WZKJ2R/chashorcor-20
*Thank you to Kensington, Lyrical Underground and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*
findingmontauk1's review
4.0
Behind The Door by Mary SanGiovanni captivated me from the synopsis that mentions an occult specialist. It also helped that the cover was so creepy, eerie, and menacing with these hands reaching out behind a door like they were coming for me. This is the first time I have read a book by SanGiovanni and it will most definitely NOT be my last.
There is a rural town in Pennsylvania called Zarephath. And deep in the woods of this town there is a solitary door that has always been there. And no one knows how it got there. All the townspeople know is that they can write a wish down, seal it in an envelope with wax and a little bit of their blood, slide it under the door, and then in three days the wish will come true. You can only have one wish. And you must never, ever open the door. Sounds… pretty awesome and easy, right?
But just as Stephen King probed our curiosity in Pet Sematary, the Door tempts someone in Zarephath that maybe someone close to them can return to the living. That one parallel being made, this book is highly original and fresh.
The author did a great job at creating a lot of characters whose stories become intertwined as we follow along. Each character had their pasts, their sins, their wishes, and their own trip to the Door. I loved all the reasons that people went to the Door and how they all became affected by it as the story progressed. SanGiovanni did an awesome job freaking me out with these parts!
I really liked the main character, occult specialist, Kathy Ryan. She was a strong lead and had a fun personality. She makes her voice heard and is seen as someone in control with good authority from the town early on. The town already believes in the powers of the Door, so it was not super hard for them to believe there was someone like Kathy Ryan who could come in and help them. It was really cool seeing a woman take this leading role and completely dominate it! I am a fan of Kathy Ryan and will be rooting for her as her story continues to unfold in later books. I read online that this is a series and I am excited for more!
Lastly, I will always be a fan of books that have evil in a small, rural town. It’s always fun for me to see evil try to sneak in the backdoor, of a small town with what one would expect to have small-minds and inhabitants who seem simple or lack ambition. I love how they pull together and how they become strong and we get to see the growth of those characters. So if that is your thing, then this book will not disappoint.
One of the themes I will leave with after reading this book is that some things are worth surviving instead of changing. 4 out of 5 stars to this book and I am already excited to see where SanGiovanni takes me next.
Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
There is a rural town in Pennsylvania called Zarephath. And deep in the woods of this town there is a solitary door that has always been there. And no one knows how it got there. All the townspeople know is that they can write a wish down, seal it in an envelope with wax and a little bit of their blood, slide it under the door, and then in three days the wish will come true. You can only have one wish. And you must never, ever open the door. Sounds… pretty awesome and easy, right?
But just as Stephen King probed our curiosity in Pet Sematary, the Door tempts someone in Zarephath that maybe someone close to them can return to the living. That one parallel being made, this book is highly original and fresh.
The author did a great job at creating a lot of characters whose stories become intertwined as we follow along. Each character had their pasts, their sins, their wishes, and their own trip to the Door. I loved all the reasons that people went to the Door and how they all became affected by it as the story progressed. SanGiovanni did an awesome job freaking me out with these parts!
I really liked the main character, occult specialist, Kathy Ryan. She was a strong lead and had a fun personality. She makes her voice heard and is seen as someone in control with good authority from the town early on. The town already believes in the powers of the Door, so it was not super hard for them to believe there was someone like Kathy Ryan who could come in and help them. It was really cool seeing a woman take this leading role and completely dominate it! I am a fan of Kathy Ryan and will be rooting for her as her story continues to unfold in later books. I read online that this is a series and I am excited for more!
Lastly, I will always be a fan of books that have evil in a small, rural town. It’s always fun for me to see evil try to sneak in the backdoor, of a small town with what one would expect to have small-minds and inhabitants who seem simple or lack ambition. I love how they pull together and how they become strong and we get to see the growth of those characters. So if that is your thing, then this book will not disappoint.
One of the themes I will leave with after reading this book is that some things are worth surviving instead of changing. 4 out of 5 stars to this book and I am already excited to see where SanGiovanni takes me next.
Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
errantdreams's review
5.0
Though this is book one in a series, the character was already established in Chills. I think it would be fine to read this book without having read that one, but Chills is delightful enough that I recommend reading it regardless. Behind the Door depicts a world in which the paranormal is a bit more readily available than in ours. It’s something of a poorly kept secret in some towns, where some folks believe and others don’t.
There are thankfully tales the older residents use to scare people into being careful with the Door, because the idea that nothing had gone wrong before now wouldn’t have made sense. There are stories Cicely tells of people wishing for the dead to return to life, only to have them return as walking corpses. She mentions to Kari that those who try to use the Door a second time die. Even everyday wishes get twisted and bent, and people are warned to word their requests carefully. There’s also a later explanation for why what Kari does is even possible (and why it isn’t known to have happened before), which is appreciated.
The characters are fantastic. Content warning: two of the characters are pedophiles, and they aren’t portrayed as wholly evil. That may be something people don’t want to read, but it’s handled skillfully. Retired Monroe County sheriff Bill Grainger, a major character who calls Kathy in and works with her and the current sheriff to free the town from evil, has also used the Door, and isn’t a perfect man. The characters are complex, and most of them, having used the Door at one point or another, are neither pure nor perfect. The sins of the town return to haunt them as, one by one, the granted wishes of the townspeople are rescinded, sometimes in unexpected ways.
The atmosphere is tense and engrossing. I read the book in one sitting, and then went looking for something more from SanGiovanni. The idea of what the Door might be does get addressed (there’s writing of some kind on the doorway), and it’s intriguing. The idea of why the wishes are granted isn’t addressed, but I feel like it’s at least possible to imagine some of the options from what’s here, and that’s good enough for me in this kind of story.
SanGiovanni’s world in which the occult is very much real, and more widely experienced than in our own, is full of possibility. I look forward to reading more!
Consider my rating a 4.5
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/02/review-behind-the-door-mary-sangiovanni/
There are thankfully tales the older residents use to scare people into being careful with the Door, because the idea that nothing had gone wrong before now wouldn’t have made sense. There are stories Cicely tells of people wishing for the dead to return to life, only to have them return as walking corpses. She mentions to Kari that those who try to use the Door a second time die. Even everyday wishes get twisted and bent, and people are warned to word their requests carefully. There’s also a later explanation for why what Kari does is even possible (and why it isn’t known to have happened before), which is appreciated.
The characters are fantastic. Content warning: two of the characters are pedophiles, and they aren’t portrayed as wholly evil. That may be something people don’t want to read, but it’s handled skillfully. Retired Monroe County sheriff Bill Grainger, a major character who calls Kathy in and works with her and the current sheriff to free the town from evil, has also used the Door, and isn’t a perfect man. The characters are complex, and most of them, having used the Door at one point or another, are neither pure nor perfect. The sins of the town return to haunt them as, one by one, the granted wishes of the townspeople are rescinded, sometimes in unexpected ways.
The atmosphere is tense and engrossing. I read the book in one sitting, and then went looking for something more from SanGiovanni. The idea of what the Door might be does get addressed (there’s writing of some kind on the doorway), and it’s intriguing. The idea of why the wishes are granted isn’t addressed, but I feel like it’s at least possible to imagine some of the options from what’s here, and that’s good enough for me in this kind of story.
SanGiovanni’s world in which the occult is very much real, and more widely experienced than in our own, is full of possibility. I look forward to reading more!
Consider my rating a 4.5
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/02/review-behind-the-door-mary-sangiovanni/
brucemri's review
4.0
Amazon and Apple Books sell this as #1 in the Kathy Ryan series. The protagonist was introduced in Chills, which was a mighty fine read, but everything you need to know about her is given here. Read Chills because it's a ripping yarn, not because you have too. :)
Mary SanGiovanni has built up a fascinating contemporary horror setting in this book, Chills, and the Hollower trilogy (which I also really liked and highly recommend). It's reminiscent of the horror side of X-Files without the UFO master-"plot": there are countless other dimensions out there, good and bad, some of which sometimes come into contact with ours, often with bad results. It's a messy situation nobody knows a lot about, and those who do want not to call a lot of attention to it, because messing around with it gets people tormented and killed. Ryan is an expert in this stuff, partly because she's really good at research, partly because she's managed to survive so far, and she gets called in to consult by local authorities who've learned enough about their local weirdness to know about people like her. It's got a very down-to-earth ambience that's a bi weird and flaky in just the ways that reality often is.
This story is set in the environs of a small Pennsylvania town that has for a long time had a nearby magical door, standing alone in the wilds. People have learned that if you slip a note sealed just right under it, whatever's behind the door will answer request...but not kindly or generously. Wish for the dead back, and you get zombies, as happened there at the end of World War iI. Wish for someone to leave you alone, and you may very well get a death that only you know you're responsible for. And so on. SanGiovanni rings a whole bunch of great changes on this classic Monkey's Paw theme, including how different people with similar problems make different requests that illuminate their different inner lives.
Important content note: The suffering people of this town have suffered from a whole range of things, including domestic violence and child abuse. Furthermore, some of them are perpetrators. This is absolutely not the book for some readers. I've been lax about saying so in some of my other reviews and I want to be really clear this time.
In any event, early on in Behind The Door, the inevitable happens. Someone opens the door. And now all those wishes, some of which have been in secret effect for decades, are getting undone. And those who live behind the door are coming through, with the most hostile of intents. At this point, the sheriff calls in Kathy Ryan.
Overall, I thought this was another excellent book by Mary SanGiovanni, and I'm happy to recommend it just like I've done with all the books I've read by her. The Eastern US rural feel and the general attitude of immense decency remind me of early Stephen King and of T.E.D. Klein, which is mighty fine company to keep, without ever feeling derivative of either. Also there's something that took me several books to realize: she has a gift for making me like, sympathize with, and care about character who in real life I would loathe and wish to be entirely away from. That's a significant authorial gift at work. And as always, it has a deeply satisfying conclusion.
I'm rating this a star down from where I put the others, because I felt like two particular potential scenes were missing, and their absence left some of the book's potential unfulfilled:
#1. We learn gradually that the perpetrator of a particular crime and a relative of its victim are both in town, and have both used the door for relief. They don't quite get a direct confrontation - the perpetrator does learn about the victim, but not the relative, and there's no moment for the perpetrator to be held accountable by the most-suffering survivor.
#2. Kathy's research takes her to notes assembled by someone who'd studied the door and related matters in the past. Some of that other person's or people's notes have such a sense of specificity that I'd have liked to learn something - anything - about them, but we don't. So that felt unresolved, in a secondary way.
Despite those complaints, I'm going to be diving into the next Kathy Ryan book soon. :)
Mary SanGiovanni has built up a fascinating contemporary horror setting in this book, Chills, and the Hollower trilogy (which I also really liked and highly recommend). It's reminiscent of the horror side of X-Files without the UFO master-"plot": there are countless other dimensions out there, good and bad, some of which sometimes come into contact with ours, often with bad results. It's a messy situation nobody knows a lot about, and those who do want not to call a lot of attention to it, because messing around with it gets people tormented and killed. Ryan is an expert in this stuff, partly because she's really good at research, partly because she's managed to survive so far, and she gets called in to consult by local authorities who've learned enough about their local weirdness to know about people like her. It's got a very down-to-earth ambience that's a bi weird and flaky in just the ways that reality often is.
This story is set in the environs of a small Pennsylvania town that has for a long time had a nearby magical door, standing alone in the wilds. People have learned that if you slip a note sealed just right under it, whatever's behind the door will answer request...but not kindly or generously. Wish for the dead back, and you get zombies, as happened there at the end of World War iI. Wish for someone to leave you alone, and you may very well get a death that only you know you're responsible for. And so on. SanGiovanni rings a whole bunch of great changes on this classic Monkey's Paw theme, including how different people with similar problems make different requests that illuminate their different inner lives.
Important content note: The suffering people of this town have suffered from a whole range of things, including domestic violence and child abuse. Furthermore, some of them are perpetrators. This is absolutely not the book for some readers. I've been lax about saying so in some of my other reviews and I want to be really clear this time.
In any event, early on in Behind The Door, the inevitable happens. Someone opens the door. And now all those wishes, some of which have been in secret effect for decades, are getting undone. And those who live behind the door are coming through, with the most hostile of intents. At this point, the sheriff calls in Kathy Ryan.
Overall, I thought this was another excellent book by Mary SanGiovanni, and I'm happy to recommend it just like I've done with all the books I've read by her. The Eastern US rural feel and the general attitude of immense decency remind me of early Stephen King and of T.E.D. Klein, which is mighty fine company to keep, without ever feeling derivative of either. Also there's something that took me several books to realize: she has a gift for making me like, sympathize with, and care about character who in real life I would loathe and wish to be entirely away from. That's a significant authorial gift at work. And as always, it has a deeply satisfying conclusion.
I'm rating this a star down from where I put the others, because I felt like two particular potential scenes were missing, and their absence left some of the book's potential unfulfilled:
#1. We learn gradually that the perpetrator of a particular crime and a relative of its victim are both in town, and have both used the door for relief. They don't quite get a direct confrontation - the perpetrator does learn about the victim, but not the relative, and there's no moment for the perpetrator to be held accountable by the most-suffering survivor.
#2. Kathy's research takes her to notes assembled by someone who'd studied the door and related matters in the past. Some of that other person's or people's notes have such a sense of specificity that I'd have liked to learn something - anything - about them, but we don't. So that felt unresolved, in a secondary way.
Despite those complaints, I'm going to be diving into the next Kathy Ryan book soon. :)
loram's review
4.0
Somewhere in the woods of Pennsylvania there is a mysterious door and for generations people have written requests and sealed the envelope with wax mixed with their own blood and slipped the letters under the door. They always get a result, but not always in the way they anticipate.
This is a similar concept to another book I read last year, but in this one someone changes her mind and tries to retrieve the letter. Opening the door was a very, very bad idea. This is mentioned in the book description so I'm not giving a spoiler.
The details of individual situations is what makes the story. Rather a lot of people in the town have made use of the door at some time or other, though many won't admit to it. They are reluctant to talk about it and some incidents are about covering up things the people in question don't want revealed. A professional, Kathy Ryan, is brought in to help deal with the occult occurrences.
If you like truly horrific imagery and especially tentacled monsters, then this is for you. The situation gets progressively more gruesome as things move on, leading up to a dramatic ending. I can't put my finger on why, but I didn't feel what I was supposed to feel as the plot thickened. I think there were a few jumps in the plot that threw me off, just little things like how a group of people in a car are suddenly walking in the forest.
Kathy Ryan is the central character for a series of stand alone stories where she is a sleuth dealing with occult situations. I do find myself curious about the plots of other stories in the series.
This is a similar concept to another book I read last year, but in this one someone changes her mind and tries to retrieve the letter. Opening the door was a very, very bad idea. This is mentioned in the book description so I'm not giving a spoiler.
The details of individual situations is what makes the story. Rather a lot of people in the town have made use of the door at some time or other, though many won't admit to it. They are reluctant to talk about it and some incidents are about covering up things the people in question don't want revealed. A professional, Kathy Ryan, is brought in to help deal with the occult occurrences.
If you like truly horrific imagery and especially tentacled monsters, then this is for you. The situation gets progressively more gruesome as things move on, leading up to a dramatic ending. I can't put my finger on why, but I didn't feel what I was supposed to feel as the plot thickened. I think there were a few jumps in the plot that threw me off, just little things like how a group of people in a car are suddenly walking in the forest.
Kathy Ryan is the central character for a series of stand alone stories where she is a sleuth dealing with occult situations. I do find myself curious about the plots of other stories in the series.
rovertoak's review
4.0
Cosmic horror can be like quantum physics, leaving one with more questions than answers. If you "get it," then you really don't understand it. I loved this so much, just being dropped in to the town of Zeraphath, PA, where there's a wish-granting Door townsfolk have used for decades...and that's just normal. Until it's not. Fiction like this exists between the lines of reality, outside the periphery, and somewhere in the void, that it's normal for a small town to have access to an inter-dimensional Door, while nothing of it shows up on YouTube, social media, or the 24-hour news cycle. Hm...no one in the town (to my memory) even has a cellphone! Readers familiar with cosmic will have no trouble suspending the disbelief on more than one level required to really enjoy the second Kathy Ryan book. And readers not familiar with the sub genre may just want to investigate a bit more.
lilyn_g's review
4.0
Mary SanGiovanni’s Behind the Door has tentacles, mayhem, and mystery. If that line doesn’t interest you, then you’re not the right audience for the book.
Kathy Ryan first appears in the author’s novel Chills. (I read it a few years ago and really liked it.) You don’t need to have read that book to enjoy this one. With that said – I would recommend it. At just under 200 pages, Behind the Door feels like it’s missing something. And that something, I fear, is a connection with Kathy Ryan.
The story is good. It was weird, creepy, and fun. The whole idea of the door, the way the creatures manifest later, all awesome. But I just couldn’t ever really connect with the main character, and that was a problem. It left me a bit wanting in the end.
SanGiovanni doesn’t hold back from giving us unlikable characters in Behind the Door. In fact, one of the two problems I have with the book centers around this. I can’t go into details without spoiling anything, but I could see several people having an issue with it, especially if they have certain traumatic events in their past.
Let’s just say there are some types of human monsters that don’t need to be ‘humanized’.
But, this is a horror book, and not a platform upon which to discuss morality, so we’ll leave that there and move on.
(Read this spoiler if you’ve got any major triggers and you want to know what I’m talking about with the characters just in case)
There are two pedophiles in the book. One is directly responsible for a little kid’s suicide. He ends up being a ‘good guy’ at the end.
The author addresses grief very well in Behind the Door. There was one passage in particular that resonated strongly with me, especially considering the anniversary that just passed.
(Please keep in mind that this quote is from an ARC and may not be present in the final copy.)
"She had been relegated to a kind of camp or colony for people who had undergone an Awful Tragedy, a thing they were thankfully unable to relate to in any meaningful way."
Overall, I enjoyed Behind the Door quite a lot. It had good pacing, atmosphere, and the small town felt like it could have been any small town in any state. I look forward to reading more about Kathy Ryan in the future!
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley for review consideration.
Kathy Ryan first appears in the author’s novel Chills. (I read it a few years ago and really liked it.) You don’t need to have read that book to enjoy this one. With that said – I would recommend it. At just under 200 pages, Behind the Door feels like it’s missing something. And that something, I fear, is a connection with Kathy Ryan.
The story is good. It was weird, creepy, and fun. The whole idea of the door, the way the creatures manifest later, all awesome. But I just couldn’t ever really connect with the main character, and that was a problem. It left me a bit wanting in the end.
SanGiovanni doesn’t hold back from giving us unlikable characters in Behind the Door. In fact, one of the two problems I have with the book centers around this. I can’t go into details without spoiling anything, but I could see several people having an issue with it, especially if they have certain traumatic events in their past.
Let’s just say there are some types of human monsters that don’t need to be ‘humanized’.
But, this is a horror book, and not a platform upon which to discuss morality, so we’ll leave that there and move on.
(Read this spoiler if you’ve got any major triggers and you want to know what I’m talking about with the characters just in case)
The author addresses grief very well in Behind the Door. There was one passage in particular that resonated strongly with me, especially considering the anniversary that just passed.
(Please keep in mind that this quote is from an ARC and may not be present in the final copy.)
"She had been relegated to a kind of camp or colony for people who had undergone an Awful Tragedy, a thing they were thankfully unable to relate to in any meaningful way."
Overall, I enjoyed Behind the Door quite a lot. It had good pacing, atmosphere, and the small town felt like it could have been any small town in any state. I look forward to reading more about Kathy Ryan in the future!
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley for review consideration.
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