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A review by sarah2019
The Haunting on West 10th Street by Helen Phifer
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
2.5
First, thank you to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for the ARC of this book.
I was looking forward to reading a horror story to start my fall reading. While I enjoyed the premise, the characters and the two different timelines, there were some things that fell short that I just couldn’t get past. It was very evident that the author is not American. I could have gotten past the different spelling of favourite as opposed to the American favorite, but I could not get past the overuse of the word whilst. No New Yorker would use “whilst” that frequently let alone a NYC cop. Nor would a New Yorker say that the “queue” was too long. Or they “fancy” a drink. It might seem like I’m nitpicking, but it was these details that took me completely out of the story. It was a distraction and the words and phrases the author chose were out of place. So even though I did like the premise the book just really fell short for me.
I was looking forward to reading a horror story to start my fall reading. While I enjoyed the premise, the characters and the two different timelines, there were some things that fell short that I just couldn’t get past. It was very evident that the author is not American. I could have gotten past the different spelling of favourite as opposed to the American favorite, but I could not get past the overuse of the word whilst. No New Yorker would use “whilst” that frequently let alone a NYC cop. Nor would a New Yorker say that the “queue” was too long. Or they “fancy” a drink. It might seem like I’m nitpicking, but it was these details that took me completely out of the story. It was a distraction and the words and phrases the author chose were out of place. So even though I did like the premise the book just really fell short for me.