REVIEW: #22 Worst Nightmares

Synopsis: (Taken from inside of book)

Dermot Nolan is an international, award-winning, bestselling author who seems to have it all – a successful career, fame, fortune, and a beautiful wife. Between the royalties coming from his most recent book, and the revenue he has received from the film company that bought the rights, Dermot seems every bit the literary darling.

And yet, for the last year, he has suffered from a bout of writer’s block and an in the process has grossly overspent his income. So when Dermot comes across an unsolicited horror manuscript stuffed into his mailbox from one Albert K. Arnold entitled My Worst Nightmares – My Delicious Memoirs, he cannot help but feel intrigued. It tells the story of the twisted, homicidal “Dream Healer” who snares his victims via his website worstnightmares.net, seduces them into revealing their own very own nightmares upon them, magnified a hundredfold. And while Dermot is disgusted by the horror of Mr. Arnold’s manuscript, he is so deeply intrigued, so much so that he seeks to solve his writer’s block by rewriting Arnold’s novel as his own.

Sweeping aside the threatening prospect of plagiarism, Dermot begins to rework the novel while simultaneously researching Arnold’s stories. In his search, he slowly begins to realize that the novel may not be entirely fictional, that these poor characters may have perished at the hands of the twisted torturer.  Could the Dream Healer be real? Could hese innocent cyber-surfers have fallen victim to a raving maniac? And could Dermot be writing his own ticket to death .. his very own worst nightmare?

Review:

What is YOUR worst nightmare? Mine – I will never tell. After reading this book – I almost feel as if my life depends on that sort of secrecy.

Worst Nightmares is a literary mix between two movies, Saw and Untraceable. The story is psychologically gory with a sense of updated connection to its reader through the use of technology and its website references. The reader is immediately thrust into gore-filled, murderous scenerios involving The Dream Healer. If the name itself is not spooky enough, involve society’s new-found urge to handle every issue in their life to what they can find on the internet. As if everyone, at one point or another, didn’t look for a solution to their problem on the world wide web. You know you have.

Dermot Nolan realizes he is in deep trouble with his agent (and publisher) for not coming up with a novel. However, truth be told -  Dermot is suffering from a serious case of “Writer’s Block”. This is something I can completely sympathize with as I have been struggling with the same few novels for a few years. Luckily though, I haven’t had to deal with the continual pressure of higher-ups who have already invested a pretty penny in my story (or is that supposed to be a bad thing?) Anyhow- one day Dermont encounters a red-headed scruffy man shoving a manuscript in his mailbox, which isn’t entirely a rare occurrence as many people would assume Dermot could help them publish their writing.  Bored and without expectations, Dermot takes a quick glance at the manuscript and immediately feels as if he wants to throw it directly into the wastebasket. It was a piece of junk and disgustingly morbid to boot. A little too morbid for Dermot’s taste.

Everything changes after a strange encounter on the subway and a continual string of ear chilling phone calls from the deranged person claiming to have written this manuscript, his own personal truth of events. Threatened into publishing the manuscript, Dermot makes the unthinkable choice to rewrite the diary as his own work of fiction. Will publishing this sociopaths disgusting gore-filled tale of encounters save his wife’s life? Also, just as importantly – will his own career be jeopardized?

Worst Nightmares was never filled with a dull moment – from page 1 to the very end.  I can say I honestly enjoyed this book and felt it was an entertaining and thought-provoking read. Just when I assumed I knew who the killer was – I was absolutely surprised. What seems like a string of random murders, in the end, makes perfect sense. I enjoyed the novel as I felt that Shane Briant, the author, put a little of his own life inspiration into the novel filling my mind with eerie thoughts and questions.  There were enough similarities between Briant’s life and that of his protagonist to arouse suspicion in the reader. This created in me a sense of “Wait – is this story real, or what?” I believe this to have been the purpose of Briant as it helped increase the overall creepiness of the novel in it’s entirety.

My only issue with the entire novel was that I felt Neela was a tad flat and boring as a character. She lacked a separate voice of and sounded identical to that of her husband so I didn’t completely buy them together as a romantic unit. I feel that Neela needed more dimension over all, and show more anger and resentment towards Dermot for his lack of giving her a child that she so desperately wanted. Being married (and a woman who loves kids) I personally felt like she should have been more of a negative character, maybe even a tad short with her husband.  She seemed as if a little too supportive and understanding for it to be completely realistic. But, that’s just my opinion.

Overall, Worst Nightmares is a worthy read capable of capturing your interest page beyond page and I would recommend it.