I was thrilled to pick up an early copy of Peter Clines, The Broken Room. Peter is one of my favorite authors, and I jumped at the opportunity to read his latest book.

It starts with Hector Ramirez sitting at his local bar, deciding if he will get a little or a lot drunk. We surmise that he is an ex-special forces operative working daily through a bottle of anything to escape his past.

As he contemplates ordering that next drink, a little girl walks into the bar. She approaches Hector, introduces herself as Natalie, and informs him she fled a secret government facility called The Project with the help of his old partner.

The partner then led Natalie to find Hector, to call in an old favor. The same partner who subsequently has been dead for seven years. Unfortunately, Hector has little time to contemplate the girl or her situation when two suited FBI types enter and attempt to take Natalie into custody.

Hector quickly has to make a decision. Let the men take this frantic girl and continue drinking his life away or step back into a world he has been trying desperately to escape. He makes his choice, dispatches the men, and takes charge of Natalie.

Now on the run, Natalie tells Hector about the experiments conducted on her and the other children. It becomes clear there is only one course of action, The Project must be stopped.

What follows is one action scene after another, with Hector pushing his training to the limits—trying his best to keep Natalie safe. The Project reacts by sending out more specialized operatives to control the situation. Culminating in an ending battle that could alter the world as we know it.

Clines's adrenaline-pumping style of writing is entertaining and engaging. The book never has a lull in action or suspense. Be warned; there are some grotesque and creepy parts in the story. Those of you with a queasy stomach, watch out.

Overall the book was a fun time from start to finish. If you are familiar with Clines and his body of work, this new novel will fit right into your expectations. Fans will get some shout-outs to past events, with ties into the Threshold Universe, his ongoing supernatural-based book series.

But don't let that deter you if you are a first-time reader. The book easily stands on its own and won't detract from your enjoyment of it. Instead, it may be a great introduction to the author's world.

A blockbuster adventure/horror-thriller in book form.
Hector is an ex-operative who is drinking himself to oblivion when SHE walks in... she being a tiny 12-year-old (Natalie) who needs help and has a way to get it from Hector. The adventure proceeds mostly from Hector's point of view except when Natalie tells her story and a few other select times. Shadowy operatives, wanton death and destruction, emotionless scientists performing horrific experiments on the helpless.... this book checks all of the boxes of why you should sympathize with the protagonists (and does it well).
Clines moves us through this dark world which is recognizably our own. He includes such details as the horrific travails of South American refugees trying to make it to America and the continuing ugliness of the reception they find. His characters are Hispanic and he has the honesty of writing to show the difference that makes in America. While not the focus of the book, the inclusion of the details is especially important because the are reality for so many. Ignoring them would have made for a less honest, and poorer book overall.
I have read many books by Peter Clines (LOVED his Ex-Heroes series), and always pick up his books given the chance. You should too.
Thank you to the publisher (#BlackstonePublishing) and Netgalley (#Netgalley) for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
#theBrokenRoom #PeterClines

A great classic thriller with slash of Cline's customary alternate dimension horrors.

I loved the relationship between Hector, the ex Black Ops killer, and Natalie, an escaped test-subject with a gift, and their high charged adventure to keep her safe.

It reads like a film and has all the beats you want in an action, thriller, horror, and characters that are familiar without being cliche.

It is a genuinely fun read; I was excited to get another twisted story from Peter Cline and was not disappointed!

Clines is great again, this one reads almost like a straight thriller for parts of it with a super competent action hero with a past as the main character, but it dips into more familiar territory from the author of books like [book:14|28375457]. I read this as an eARC from Netgalley, looking forward to the physical release.

When a child approaches Hector in a bar, he's pretty much committed to helping her. He definitely didn't want to, but she invoked the name of a person he absolutely owed favors. Powerful people in the dark side of the government want this little girl dead--she knows too much and now Hector does, too. Her agenda is to rescue her friends, and Hector is trapped by his own ethics. Fast paced, and believable near future scifi plot.

I've been a fan of Peter Clines ever since his Ex Heroes series. However, I hadn't read his most recent work like The Fold. I was excited to jump into The Broken Room and see what a he would do with the techno-thriller genre and the results were mixed.

To start with the good, I really enjoyed the characters, especially Hector and Natalie. They are a great duo and I really enjoyed how Peter Clines bounced the two characters off of each other. Due to this being a book really built on that foundation, I found the book more successful than not. The general premise, while not entirely novel (Stephen King's The Institute and Netflix's Stranger Things feel like more effective versions of a similar plot line with similar plot points) was enough to have me engaged.

However, I found for a thriller the action scenes weren't quite as engaging as I would have liked and I also found the mid-book deep dive into Natalie's life and first forays into the Broken Room to have thrown off the flow set up in the earlier portion. Maybe if Natalie's story had been broken up into every other chapter running alongside the main storyline that wouldn't have been the case but I also know that Clines set it up as Natalie telling her story to Hector. Either way, the action scenes and the Natalie backstory sections threw off the flow for me and it was hard to come back from that.

Ultimately, this book was fun read but not much beyond that. I think diehard fans of the technothriller genre would enjoy this book but not find anything entirely novel in it. As always, I look forward to Peter Clines' next book, even if this one wasn't a complete winner for me.

Hector is a retired government operative who has descended into a life of drunkenness. While at his favorite diner one day he is approached by a 12 year old girl who somehow knows Hector's deceased partner Tim. When agents show up to the diner looking for her, Hector decides to protect Natalie and goes on the run with her. He learns that Natalie is an immigrant from El Salvador who was captured at the border and then places in a secret government program called the Project, where bizarre experiments were performed on her and other immigrant kids. Natalie recounts her two years there in chapter after chapter of stoic detail, and explains that she can speak to Tim's ghost.

Hector steals a lot of cars, changes identities, and kills a lot of people in evading the Project's security forces. He's an entertaining character with his secret agent knowledge of how to stay incognito and deal with opponents combined with halting efforts to be a dad to Natalie. Natalie is endearing as a child who speaks in an advanced, precise vocabulary but doesn't know much about colloquial language or how the world works after two years in captivity. It's an entertaining thriller, but then the story moves into horror and supernatural territory when Natalie starts throwing up huge insects, Hector finds that he has gone from saving one child to saving millions of people. Natalie's help is key as she returns to the Project to face the Broken Room that is the source of the threat to the world. A wildly entertaining thriller/horror novel!

An entertaining speculative thriller from Clines. A recommended purchase for collections where Clines previous titles are popular.

Two immediate thoughts: 1. Since the novel 14, I will read anything by Peter Clines produces. 2. Generally I am not a big fan of the Thriller genre nor of action films (except for Early Steven Segal). Mr. Clines' newest, THE BROKEN ROOM, is a massively riveting cross-genre blockbuster....and I hope this one is adapted for film, because it would fill theaters to the brim.


Horror Noir plus Lovecraft + Thriller + Mad Science + Seriously Bad Guys + Antiheroes Saving the Day! A "retired" black ops agent unexpectedly enlisted to rescue and protect a "special " young child, both of them persons of color, from The Project, where Mad Science runs amok in experimentation on children and crossing the Cosmic Void; and beware what's crossing the void into our reality via "The Broken Room."

I've read most of Peter Clines' other books and enjoyed all of them. I'm happy to report that his latest - THE BROKEN ROOM - did not disappoint! I will not go into detail about the plot in order to avoid spoilers, but the best thing I can say about this book is that once I started reading I could not put it down. I did not plan on staying up past midnight to finish, but that is what happens when you get to read a great book with an interesting/engaging story. I will recommend that my library purchase a copy.

Thanks to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for providing an early copy to review.

The Broken Room
by Peter Clines

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I've never read anything by Peter Clines.
And honestly it was a very interesting book.
With fantastic writing, great interesting characters, mystery and intrigue I was sucked into Hector and Natalie's world.
I can say that I thought it was a terrific sci-fi book.
The action was also amazing, kept me wanting more.
Finished this late last night.
And I don't feel bad about losing hours of sleep. Worth it.

Blackstone Publishing,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review closer to pub date.