Townhouse by Brian Rowe

Sara Crimson isn't happy about moving into a shady apartment complex with a man she barely knows. But after discovering she's pregnant with her first child, she decides to try to make a relationship work with the baby daddy Max, an up-and-coming talent agent.

An aspiring novelist, Sara at first is elated with the additional free time she has to focus on her writing. But as the days turn to weeks, she starts to suspect that something peculiar is happening in the Executive Townhouses of North Hollywood, California. People start disappearing, strange noises echo down the corridor, and an old, creepy tenant finds his entertainment value in staring at her from afar.

But what Sara doesn't know is that the hidden horrors that lie inside the complex are far worse than anything her overactive imagination could have ever conceived...



This is one suspenseful book! I read it throughout the course of the day because I couldn’t put it down.

Mr. Rowe has a knack for writing convincing characters, that’s what always stands out from his novels. He is able to create a balance of hero/ine with someone who has as many faults as a “regular” person. Sara, the main character, is not someone extremely lovable, we see her as a selfish, curious person who is stuck in a situation she’d rather not be in. At first, she strikes the reader like someone not caring enough to be a heroine. And yet, she does grow on us. We start to see parts of ourselves reflected in her actions and her not-so-altruistic thoughts. We begin to worry about her well-being as she tries to uncover the secrets her neighbors hide. The other characters are well crafted, also. We have Max, Sara’s fiancée, who although proclaims his love for her, can’t seem to really show it; we have Cory a precocious boy who would not be out of place in a Stephen King novel; and the villain, of course, which I will not reveal because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone.

The plot is fast-paced, never boring the reader. We follow Sara until the shocking conclusion, and never, not once, did the plot reveal itself prematurely. It’s one of those books that make you want to keep reading well into the night.

I can easily recommend it to anyone who likes a good scare, but I do suggest not to eat while you read the last fourth of the book.