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House Of Fallen Trees (2010)

by Gina Ranalli(Favorite Author)

4.06 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0982628110 (ISBN13: 9780982628119)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Grindhouse Press

review 1: House of Fallen Trees is the fourth Gina Ranalli story I've read, but the first that I didn't care for. In fairness, I don't like haunting stories. I don't care for their lack of logic, weak characters, or events that can only be described as "dreamlike" because logic and continuity are both missing from the outset. This book is a habitual offender of all of these flaws, so this is going to come across as a harsh review.Karen Lewis is a "famous writer" who somehow earns money despite being antisocial and incapable of keeping track of time. She's obsessed over her missing brother, Sean, though they haven't spoken to each other since Karen moved away to become a drunk crazy cat lady, sans the cats. (She keeps pet flames because she's too antisocial for cats.) She's phoned ou... moret of her latest daze of writing by a chilling message: two men have the carcass. This makes her think of Sean, and the "haunting message" is so chilling that she...goes back to work on her book.But then, like a week later, the ghost realizes that Karen is an idiot and gets less subtle. At the same time that the ghost strikes her repeatedly with a clue bat, her missing brother's gay lover calls Karen to let her know that the brother she can't stop thinking about didn't talk about her at all, but he did buy a bed and breakfast in a homophobic and xenophobic redneck town to start a new life away from his homophobic and neglectful parents. (Showing that he has about the same intelligence as his sister.) Though they never made contact before, Sean's lover knows how to contact an antisocial hermit. (Logic? What's that? Sounds foreign.) Despite being so clueless, Karen decides that she's the only one who can get to the bottom of her brother's disappearance. She takes off for Fallen Trees, Washington, where right off the bat, the locals prove that they can be stereotypical, even if'n they can't rightly spell it. After meeting the local goobers and finding out how friendly they are, Karen goes to a stranger's house and does some drunken talking about her brother with his lover and their handyman, which passes vaguely for character development.Karen used to have psychic powers with her brother, but only when he was getting his ass kicked. She recalls how this power worked one time, and...gosh, maybe the link is still working, even if Sean is totally dead. I don't know why she'd need a psychic connection, seeing as how the ghost phoned her, sent instant messages, and typed on her laptop. If Sean's lover hadn't phoned with his address, I'm sure the ghost would have revealed the ability to use Google Maps and a printer with wireless networking. But no, Karen gets a psychic connection, I guess because this story wasn't suffering from enough tired haunting clichés yet.But finally, the trio arrives at the haunted house, which is of course so far away from civilization that "no one can hear you scream." (Or sigh.) Everything that happens after this has already happened in a Hollywood haunting movie. The house is eccentric, as are all ghost story houses. The ghost doesn't have a clue of what subtle means any more than the redneck locals knew the meaning of hospitality. As soon as Karen is alone in the bedroom, the ghost jumps out of hiding with a full CGI special effects extravaganza. What follows is a by the numbers haunting moving in a rapid-fire attempt to generate tension. But it’s all so fast and sloppy that nothing registers. The ending was just as much a disappointment as the beginning and the middle. At no point was I scared, nor even interested in the story or the characters. There's nothing to connect me to events. Stuff happens, and characters change locations, but none of it means anything.But my biggest complaint is, nothing original was done with the premise. In reading Suicide Girls in the Afterlife, Wall of Kiss, and Swarm of Flying Eyeballs, what made the stories great was a sense of something original and unique being added to the seemingly familiar. Here, the something original is missing, and this reads like a novelized treatment of a Hollywood ghost story. In fact, Karen's insane psychic writer reminds me a lot of Nell from The Haunting. (Well, except Nell had a personality.) I give House of Fallen Trees two stars and would only suggest it to fans of haunting stories who love pastiche and "dreamlike narratives." Everyone else will find these worn hallways dull and routinely familiar.
review 2: 'House of Fallen Trees' is a throwback to books written a couple decades ago by authors like Richard Matheson and Peter Straub. Of those two, I preferred Straub's 'Ghost Story' MUCH more than Matheson's 'Hell House'. Gina Rinalli's 'House of Fallen Trees' definitely falls toward the Straub end of the spectrum. It begins with a slow-building story line, taking time and care to introduce us to the main character, Karen, a writer in the Northwest who heads out to her missing brother's remote bed and breakfast to find out what happened to him.Around the half way mark, the story kicks into another gear, ratcheting up the creepy, ghostly happenings. The final 100 pages flew by as Rinalli keeps the tension high with mysterious plot turns that harken back to classic ghost stories. The final act makes this a must-read and the ending was just right.My only hang up was the main character. I had trouble not picturing the author as Karen here, and that pulled me out of the story from time to time. This was more evident in the beginning as we meet the character and learn about her life, but once we are emerged in the House of Fallen Trees, the story really hits its stride.This is a good, old-fashioned yarn that I would recommend to anyone who has read and enjoyed the aforementioned spook stories. It's also the second release from Grindhouse Press, following Andersen Prunty's excellent 'Morning is Dead'. So far, this newer publishing outfit is 2-for-2 and has jumped to the top of my list of favorite small presses. I look forward to reading their next few releases. less

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