Recommended for fans of ghost stories that blend psychological and physical horror- but you may want to give it a pass if you're particularly sensitive to violence against children in works of fiction. If you don't mind a slight pall of depression and darkness hanging around after you turn the last page, give it a try! Aycliffe is still one of the best modern authors of atmospheric horror I've yet come across- though I believe this book has more graphic violence than any of his other novels I've read so far. Evidently it is possible to simultaneously go into too much explicit detail and yet leave one or two of the biggest questions unanswered.Īh well, despite shortcomings, I 'enjoyed' reading this, if you can say you enjoyed something that made you shudder, squirm, and occasionally feel guilty that you were even reading it. Then the narrator finds a diary, and things start to go downhill. The first half of the book is wonderfully atmospheric and creepy- full of promise. I guess I want something to go on- to feel that I more or less know what the author intended- but not a too-clearly spelled-out and delineated specter.

Usually, this leaves me unsatisfied with a book- but now I'm about to complain that this book provides too much explanation! Impossible to please.

I've complained (more than once) that so much ghostly horror doesn't even try to explain itself- and when there are 'explanations', they are often disappointingly weak and thin. Reading this book reminded me of one of those tightropes I expect a good author to walk. I make what are probably unreasonable demands of authors. I have come to the conclusion that I am a picky reader. In a howling, bumping story of past and present day hell, Jonathan Aycliffe's haunting psychological masterpiece is guaranteed to make you sink to untold depths of teeth-shaking terror. Days later her murdered body is discovered. For Naomi, their beautiful, angelic only child, has disappeared. But, by the end of the day, all Charles and his wife have left are cups of tea and police sympathy. Brimming with excitement, Charles sets off with his daughter Naomi on a Christmas Eve shopping trip to London. Charles and Laura are a young, happily married couple inhabiting the privileged world of Cambridge academia.

Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe