Sker House Review (Paranormal Mystery)

Synopsis: Dale and Lucy are two students with a fascination in the supernatural. One weekend, they travel to Sker House, South Wales, a private residence with a macabre history which has recently been converted into a seaside inn. They plan to write an article for their university magazine about a supposed haunting, but when they arrive, they meet a landlord who seems to have a lot to hide. Soon, it becomes apparent that all is not well at Sker House. An air of oppression hangs over it, while misery, tragedy and ill-fortune are commonplace. Gradually, it becomes clear that the true depth of the mystery goes far beyond a mere historical haunting. This is a place where bad things happen, and evil lurks.

Little by little Dale and Lucy fall under Sker’s dark spell, and as they begin to unravel the mysteries of the past, they realize that nothing stays buried forever.

Welcome to Sker House, a place where past and present collide. – Goodreads

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Sker House Review

Sker House, by C.M. Saunders, is a paranormal mystery set in South Wales. Though it is fiction, the location (and title of the book) is not. Sker House was first built over 900 years ago, and then completely rebuilt in the 1600s (per Wikipedia). Like most old buildings still around today has a few legends attached to it. After all, what would a historic site be without a few rumors of things that go bump in the night?

C.M. Saunders does a decent job in Sker House. The writing is fairly well done, and his characters are believable for the most part. Believable but, on the whole, not particularly likable. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, per say. It just kept me, I felt, from connecting with the characters as well as I could have. Dale and Lucy are your typical college-age kids, which means he’s a jerk and she’s a mouthy witch at times. The landlord’s been broken under the weight of the badness that’s happened in the house, and spends most of the novel as a fumbling drunkard. Rolly is probably the most unreal feeling character, but that’s simply because he is your stereotypical ‘old wise man in the ghost story’.

I’ve labeled it a paranormal mystery rather than a horror because I did not, at any point, even feel uneasy when reading the book. It was entertaining enough, but easy to put down. Overall, it’s not a bad book, but it just didn’t appeal to me. I think the main problem is that I never got that creepy atmosphere feeling which you really need in this type of book. Still, if you’re a fan of classic haunted house stories, you’d probably like it. Sker House is available on Amazon.