I was delightfully surprised by the creativeness of this short offering. Deliciously creepy read. I loved it and did not see the end coming. Highly recommended.

The Halloween Children is frankly one of the more disturbing books I have ever read. From page to page my opinion of who was the monster behind what was going on changed from husband to wife to the children and then back. I was shocked and startled, grossed out and horrified – and I enjoyed every minute of it. And in the end, I still wasn’t sure who was the craziest – myself included. Freeman and Prentiss have created a disturbing tale with images so vivid they leapt from the page into brilliantly colored pictures in the mind. This is one powerful book. Treat yourself to this one for Halloween but be warned – have plenty of candy on hand for The Halloween Children should come knocking.

Closer to 3.5

Harris loves both his kids. Whether or not his wife believes him is another story. He works as the handyman for the Stillbrook Apartment complex where they all live while his wife works from home offering tech support. Their two kids couldn't be more different from each other. Mattie (Matt) is meticulous, considerate, and inquisitive. He takes his time, keeps to himself and asks a lot of questions and it's pretty clear that he is Harris' favorite. Amber is outgoing, creative, and messy. Her and her mother stick together more often than not. Even though Harris and his wife aren't getting along anymore, at least their kids are happy...right?

The closer it gets to Halloween the more frustrating the apartment manager becomes. Now she has decided that any celebration is going to be considered a liability and has asked Harris to distribute fliers around the complex letting everyone know. This wouldn't have been such a big deal if his wife hadn't decided that she needed to spy on the kids after a recent incident and if the neighbor who he can't stand wasn't picking right this second to ask him for favors. All he needs to do is make it through Halloween night and then everything can go back to normal.


This one was weird. Good weird. But also really graphic. I would have given it a higher rating if it weren't for an entire section of the book being dedicated to talking negatively about someone that may or may not have had a disability. That part was kind of a let down. I don't think that it really added anything to the story and honestly it would have been a stronger story without it.

Overall I thought it was really creepy. I love the idea of not knowing whether or not the kids can be trusted and of course anything written about Halloween is going to be fun to read.

Harris is a handyman for an apartment complex. He's pretty lame for a lead character and, for a husband/father. His wife, Lynn, does something too, but really all I could pay attention to was what a terrible person she was. Literally outright favouring one child over the other, playing as thought he other is the Antichrist because he's too much like his father. None of the problems in their marriage have real rhyme or reason. Lynn's attitude has zero context.

Their children were so odd and lifeless, I don't really know how to feel about them. But basically everyone is unlikable.

This book was hovering over the line of not quite being a novel and not quite being a short-story. It was too long to be a short-story, but too flat and narrow to be a novel. Things either needed to be kicked up a notch to really flesh this out, delve into the issues with the family, delve into the psychosis of the building and the people who live there, reveal all the twisted, supernatural darkness - just really go for it.

Or, it needed to be tightened up. Shorter chapters, less no-context emotional warfare. Edit it down, make it feel like the creepy, horror is just coming non-stop and then find the sweet spot to end it.

But as it is, this relatively short read feels awkward, like it doesn't know what it's doing. It's not scary enough to qualify as horror. It can be mildly creepy at moments, but the pacing is off, the moments are scattered and the characters unlikeable. So I have to give this tame awkward story a thumbs down.

Not so much scary but creepy. I can tell you I will not rent an apartment at Stillwood. Read this one at night!

This book is GOOD people!

This is one hid behind the door, waited until it was really dark and eerie and… BOOOOO!
Scared good ol’ me

Harris and his wife Lynn’s alternative first Person POVs made the story very interesting. At first the plot moves slow because it’s very character oriented, focused on this married couple and their “issues” but since it’s first person you are their IN their minds and the way they think about “marriage issues” is very odd, borderline creepy. So you are at the edge of your seat waiting for one of these two pieces of work to do something REALLY bad and then the story starts weaving some supernatural stuff in too and HELL YEAH! So entertaining!

Even if nothing ever had happened I was having a lot of fun just being in the minds of these two!

There were plenty of other equally “odd’ characters in Stillbrook Apartments to keep you guessing…

AHA!!! THE NEIGHBOR! HE IS THE ONE! HE IS THE CULPRIT!

Oh no, wait!…

IT’S THE TEENAGERS!

Oh no, wait!…

IT’S THE LITTLE GIRL!

Everyone is creepy here people! Read this book for Halloween! Or any time of the year when you want to be really spooked!

I liked the flow of the story and only had twenty percent left, then I updated my kindle app and the story disappeared. I would really have loved to see what happened in the end.

Thank you to NetGalley, the authors, and the publisher for providing me a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book sounded like it would be interesting, but I found it to be boring. I just couldn't get into it and I gave up on it.

I did like the setting (or lack of) of this book. The author did a nice job of being in Anytown, USA. It seemed almost old-fashioned in a way, but the wife works from home as a IT consultant, so it is modern day. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the book as much I thought I would. It was a little boring to me. I think it would have been better as a short story or novelette.

I’m giving The Halloween Children a solid four stars because it created a smothering sense of creepiness and managed to maintain it throughout the entire story and it held my attention from beginning to end. You know from the beginning that something terrible is coming but you’re never sure exactly what form that terribleness is going to take and when it’s finally revealed in all its gruesomeness it is quite terrible indeed!

But this isn’t a five star read for me because it is told by two very unreliable narrators and in the end many things were left unanswered. So many things! The authors could potentially write another short story just tying off all the dangly bits. I don’t need everything wrapped up in a bloody little bow but when I finished this story I felt like I needed to read it again in an attempt to learn more.

Basically it’s a story set in an apartment complex that may or may not be inhabited by insane occupants, murderous humans small and large, soul-stealing demons, or perhaps evil, whispering ghosts. Take your pick or choose them all, if you wish. Harris and Lynn are our main narrators and neither are very stable personalities, though usually entertaining to listen to. They have two children and they each favor a particular child and don’t work too hard at hiding their feelings. That’ll mess a kid up, just saying.

Harris is the building maintenance man and starts to notice some very strange and usually smelly events occurring when he’s out on late night calls. When the party pooping property manager cancels the Halloween party the events ramp up and this strangeness begins to infect his personal space and, well, I can’t tell you any more without spoiling too much.

This is a great little story to read on Halloween. It has some delightfully ghastly imagery, creeped me out and even made me laugh a few times. I am very glad that I no longer live in an apartment complex and that I always bought candy for the brats when I did!

I received an ARC of this story from Netgalley, thanks Netgalley. I also read this book to participate in the Horror Aficionados October Group Read.

I'm sorry to say that I really did not like this book. I think it could have fared better as a short story or a short film in a horror anthology? Even then, it is lacking desperately in plot and answers.

I received a copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley over the summer, but given the awful state of affairs with my perpetual TBR stack I didn't manage to get to this novella until now. But damn if October certainly isn't a mighty fine time to read something like The Halloween Children.

Early on in this story, authors Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss write about how an apartment complex is the perfect setting for a haunted house. You don't need an ancient Native American graveyard or a scene of senseless mass slaughter (although they certainly help!). Apartment complexes present a transitory population, often times with rapid turnover, various cultures, ethnicities, and beliefs - a virtual melting pot, really, for ghoulish horrors to develop and mingle over years or decades.

Or this bit of stage-setting could just be ramblings of insanity told by the damned...

The Halloween Children is a multi-POV narrative, with the chapters structured as interrogation interviews, recordings made by Harris (the apartment complex's handyman), his wife's journal, and e-mails from a college student recently moved into the complex. Between these various devices, Freeman and Prentiss keep the tension ratcheted up high and left me guessing as to who the ultimate culprit - or culprits - were in this story of madness.

Between some solid scares, psychological shenanigans, and brief yet brutal depictions of horrifying violence, this one's a winner. I found The Halloween Children to be a perfect kick-off to this season of the witch.

This is a story about a family with two children, living in an apartment building in the lead up to Halloween. While there are hints at creepy goings on and possible nastiness at the apartments in the past, this is more a story about a family going through a rough patch. When Halloween does finally arrive it isn't actually very frightening, just a series of grisly tableaux really. The ending is quite good but the story is somewhat lacking in suspense and, overall, I was a little disappointed. However, it is a quick read and fine if you want a dysfunctional family drama with a bit of gore rather than a full on horror story.

Not the most entertaining story I've read. The story crawls along with little tension or build up. The last 10% of the story is where the story should have started. This was the only part that held my interest. The book had an ok ending.

This super short book genuinely creeped me out. Mostly in the whole "I'm never having children because they'll inevitably murder me in my sleep" kind of way, which is not my favorite way to be scared. I read this in one sitting with the hopes that if I made it to the end I wouldn't be freaked out anymore. No such luck, as the ending is the creepiest part. So, if you're looking for a pretty spooky read to get yourself in the mood for the Halloween season, this might be the book for you.

Something eerie is going on at Stillbrook Apartments where Harris is the maintenance man. The bizarre and disturbing residents, screaming birds, strange noises and odors, an eerie abandoned unit—these all add up to make a chilling and oppressive atmosphere. I’m so glad that I don’t live there.

This spooky tale is told by Harris and Lynn, two parents with opposing viewpoints on most everything, along with the random email from Jessica Shepard, a tenant. Harris and Lynn’s marriage is on the rocks even though Harris doesn’t realize it. The majority of their trouble centers on their differing views about their children.

Lynn sees things one way and Harris sees them another way. Through the journals they keep, we learn about the turmoil in their family life and in their marriage.

In one of her emails, Jessica warns her boyfriend not to come visit her because the Halloween children are there.

The tension builds page by page until it finally explodes into a mass murder on Halloween night. But this is an explosion that has been planned by the person or persons doing the killing.

This is one twisted book that grabbed hold of me and I didn’t want to put it down. I read it so fast that I was amazed when I saw that its print length was 300 pages.

For those of you who are faint of heart and don’t like reading horror, stay away from this one. On the other hand, if you are into horror stories, curl up on your couch one night with a glass of wine or a cup of tea, preferably during a thunderstorm, and read away! This tale full of horror, blood, gore, grotesque murders, and paranoia is perfect for Halloween or any time of the year you’re in the mood to be creeped out.

Horrific Halloween Hijinks!

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Oh my God! Shades of The Shining which quickly disappear. Brian and Norm begin with a pretty benign story ... an apartment complex caretaker going about his rounds just before Halloween. Sprinkled in is the conflict between the caretaker and his wife over their disparate parenting styles pertaining to their son and daughter. The father favors the son while the mother favors the daughter. We are then introduced to some of the strange/odd/creepy tenants of Stllbrook Apartments.

The story is told from multiple perspectives, which are woven together seamlessly and propel the story forward at a breakneck (almost literally!) pace. We switch back and forth from the caretaker's journal, to his wife's counselor-assigned journal to recordings, emails and interviews. Not until the end will you discover what is truly happening and who is responsible for the horrific goings-on at Stillbrook.

Ultimately, this was a truly scary collaboration from two authors who are no strangers to horror. Definitely well worth the read ... but remember to keep the lights on!

This is a good read. Note: if you are a reader that prefers straight reading, this may be a hard read. It is written like a journal, each paragraph alternating the writer. The story starts out relatively normal, but quickly picks up speed, keeping you engaged and guessing. You think you know the answer and then the next chapter has you guessing again. I found myself liking one character and hating the other, but by the end, realized I had missed clues that should have made me view the characters differently. This is a great Halloween read.

​Totally works for creepy. Written with plenty of suspense, are these kids normal or not? ​Seriously creepy neighbors, birds that scream, two kids who's parents might be divorcing, a cover-up, all in one apartment complex. Reminiscent of the ever well know King, this book didn't disappoint me. Where is the guilt going to fall?

My copy came from Net Galley. My thoughts and opinions are my own. This review is left of my own free volition.