The Home [Paperback]

Freeman Mills is diagnosed with rapid-cycle manic depression (bipolar) with suicidal tendencies, kleptomania, antisocial behavior, cyclothymia, and mid schizophrenia. As long as Freeman can remember, his dad had used him as a guinea pig for experiments. Dr. Kenneth Mills (a.k.a. "Dad") was once an esteemed clinical psychologist. Then Freeman's mom was killed and Dad was locked in an insane institution. However, the damages to Freeman were already done and ran deep. But that was years ago. That is all in the past. Now Freeman is twelve-years-old and has just been transferred to yet another group home.

Wendover Home is located in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. The Wendover Home, itself, has a long and dark history. During the Second World War it had been a state mental hospital where inhumane experiments were conducted on mentally unstable patients. Many people died within cells located in the Home's basement. Though the Home is now used as a group home for children, the basement cells remain. Some items have also been added within the basement. There are glowing generators, metal cylinders, Liquid Nitrogen, advanced superconductors, and so much more. All of it is hooked directly to Room Thirteen above.

Dr. Richard Kracowski treats the children in Wendover Home. Room Thirteen is where Dr. Kracowski gets to play God. The doctor calls the electroshock treatments "Synaptic Synergy Therapy". He kills his patients to help their brains align harmonically. When the children come back to life they find themselves altered. For a temporary time the kids have telepathy, clairvoyance, and/or precognition abilities. After each treatment, the abilities last longer.

Freeman finds an unlikely ally in another child named Vicky Barnwell. Other than Freeman, Vicky's powers are the greatest. As the two warily learn about each other, they begin noticing new oddities around Wendover. The experiments in Room Thirteen have awaken those in the basement from their eternal rests. Being covered up long ago and forgotten are returning.

***** Author Scott Nicholson has become my favorite writer of the Horror genre. No one else can quite resurrect horrors that will haunt your dreams for years to come. Scott Nicholson is simply unforgettable. Don't believe me? Pick up a copy of this novel. I dare you! You'll never think of your basement again without wondering if anything in its past may come back to play with you. Highly recommended! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Life has not been easy for young Freeman Mills. As a child, the twelve year old was tortured by his now absent father, ostensibly in the name of science. Although not charged with any crime by the authorities, the youth believes he is responsible for his mother's death. Finally, the boy's been shunted from one childcare facility to another, finding each successive home more miserable than its predecessor.

As the novel begins, Freeman has been transferred to Wendover Home, a facility run by obsessive born again Christian Francis Bondurant and deranged physician Dr. Krackowski. Krackowski treats the residents of the home as his personal stable of guinea pigs in the misguided experiments he conducts in the ominously numbered Room 13. These experiments, which result in the temporary clinical death of his subjects, have two side effects. One is that the test subjects develop psychic powers. The other, far more dangerous side effect is that the machinery used to conduct the experiments seems to be stirring up the spirits of the tortured and angry souls who have died within the confines of Wendover over the decades. A gifted psychic before being subjected to Krackowski's demented experiments, Freeman quickly realizes that things are coming to a head in Wendover; he seeks to escape before he joins the legion of the damned trapped inside the home.

Nicholson has come a long way since his first novel, The Red Church, shedding many of the annoying habits and quirks which marred that book. A focused, tightly written work, The Home successfully combines tropes of science fiction and horror to produce an effective work of suspense. Although the villains of the piece sometimes go a little over the top, and Nicholson takes his sweet time letting the tension build, none of this interferes too badly with the novel's overall forward momentum--in the end, The Home proves itself a quick, satisfying, scary read.

What I really liked about this book was how fluid and clear it was. I really enjoy writers who have that special way with words where reading the story doesn't end up being a chore, but a true pleasure. This was my first Scott Nicholson book but certainly not my last as I have since gotten two more of his books.

The story is about a young boy, Freeman Mills who enters Wendover Home for juvenile kids, and while he has been going from home to home, this one is simply another stop for him before he can figure a way out. What he doesn't know is that this is not a regular old house. The institution itself treated mental patients very long time ago and some of them still haunt the rooms where other juvenile kids live. In this story what you get is a couple of creepy FBI type people who meddle in business that makes people disappear while cover-ups are made in case kids die while receiving their "therapy" sessions, doctor Kracowski who thinks he's second to God and who treats his young patients in very questionable ways, Mr. Bondurant who does everything in the name of the Lord, but who is a closet predator; basically a self proclaimed preacher who is a huge hypocrite. There's also Starlene, one of the counselors who purely and genuinely cares for the welfare of the kids along with a bunch of very interesting young kids such as Freeman himself, Vicky, Dipes, Isaac and Deke who's a dyslexic bully, while they are disturbed you can see that they are not bad deep down and the relationships they form have real meaning.

The story itself is pretty far fetched, it merges the world of the living with the world of the dead, and the writer does such a great job of showing how its done, that I almost believed it myself to be possible. I really liked the ESP woven through, when Kracowskis treatments were giving certain people the ability to read minds, and not only the minds of the living but also of the souls of those who died in the house a very long time ago while it was an insane asylum. I'd say reading about ghosts is scary enough but insane ghosts are really something quite interesting to submerge in. As the house itself becames more haunted with the continuous experiments involving electromagnetic fields, Freeman himself starts going into other peoples minds and pieces together a truth that is more terrifying than he could have imagined.

I really enjoyed this story as it reminded me of Shawshank Redemption, since the house was a mental institution where the kids were treated as test subjects and prisoners as only their minds remained free. The ending was also really good. Many unexpected people popped in and made it very interesting and while I don't want to spoil anything, the writer does a very good job of merging all the story lines together to form a solid tale.

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