The Playroom

A Horror Novel

By: Wallace Henry

Narrated by: Tom Sleeker

John Carpenter's The Thing meets Se7en or House of 1000 Corpses.

What lurks in the cabin in these dark, South Georgia woods? More importantly, what lurks beneath the cabin? Two cops go in alive. One - or none - will come back out.

On a backwoods road in Middle Georgia, two small-town cops sneak out for a midnight drink. Bill is the LJPD's grizzled vet, Jason his rookie counterpart. The plan is to relax and shoot the bull until their shift is over.

However, their plans get derailed when a young woman, naked and bloodied, runs screaming into the glow of their cruiser's headlights. She's wild-eyed and frantic, and she's got a horrifying story to tell. It's not that they don't believe her. It's just that it's...unbelievable.

She leads them to a spot in the nearby woods they've never visited before. No one has, really. And what they find out there will defy all understanding.

Survival becomes the operative word as they discover the secret to what lurks beyond the trees, behind the county line and inside the playroom.

©2019 Tyler Braddy (P)2020 Tyler Braddy

The Playroom

I liked this book! There were parts I could have skipped.I'm not a torture fan. The main story was a very goo old school horror novel, with a twist. Two cops, heading out to ones cabin for a drink on the sly ,encounter a naked woman. They think she is a victim, but soon find out they have been had. Humanity is the victim and time could be on our hero side. Narration by Tom Sleeker was well done. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Thought provoking and scary good!

How would I best describe The Playroom? If Stranger Things started dating The Night of the Living Dead, and out of ideas for what to do for laughs on a Saturday night, the two decide to start the zombie apocalypse in a shack on a backwoods road in Middle Georgia, that would be close, but in actuality, The Playroom is really so much more! For starters, it is extremely well written and beautifully narrated, It is also violent, graphic, definitely for adults only and not for the squeamish! But beyond all that, I found it to be extremely thought provoking. Each of the two main characters are dealing with personal “baggage” for lack of a better word, and without engaging in spoilers, I found it fascinating how that came into play in the story! I can honestly say that I was completely engaged in the story and I have to admit to a definite feeling of satisfaction with how everything worked out in the end. I will definitely be looking for more from this author, Five stars! I could not stop listening!

Great Horror but doesn't stick the landing

From looking at the reviews, you wouldn't guess that this is good because someone decided to give it a low rating without giving it its due. Sure, the book has some flaws, but its slow opening doesn't contribute to that.

I feel as though the slow opening lends credit to the horrors that come later in the book, and, seriously, the descriptions that Wallace Henry gives on the things happening to the people in this story makes my skin crawl (in a good way).

At first I didn't like the narrator, I thought he was too dry and a bit boring, but the more I listened, the more I felt he captured the spirit of the characters, in that they are small town cops who would see the world in that dry, somewhat boring way.

While I do have issue with the ending, and really there are a lot of stories I love that don't stick the ending, what's presented here is a chilling, sickening narrative that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Ignore the rating on this one — or even better, read it for yourself and give it the rating it deserves — and take a read/listen to this one. It's well worth your time.

That took a turn!

It's Jack Ketchum meets Peter Clines. The author said and I quote "serial killer victims impregnated by alien parasites" and that pretty much sums up the whole book.

It started out as straight horror. Girl in the road. Creepy cabin in the woods. Two cops cruising the backroads. Jason, a young rookie, and Bill, an older, wiser, veteran of the force. Bill is having an existential crisis relating to his marriage falling apart, and his burgeoning alcoholism. And then it got weird, like really weird.

Much of the language used is fairly simple and some of the phrasing is awkward but every now and then the author tosses in an homage to Tom Wolfe or has a character say something utterly profound so I suspect it's on purpose.

This is one that I requested for review from FreeAudiobooks.com so it's my own fault. To be fair I missed the part of the description where it mentioned Hannibal Lechter meeting Cthulhu so I wasn't entirely prepared when the story evolved away from crazy dude with a playroom full of sex toys and power tools. The narrator does a great job, very easy to follow along.

Not what I expected

But I like that about it. I expected a standard haunting or demonic presence to be the evil lurking in this story, but the truth was so much better.