When I first read what this book was about, I knew that I’d love it! It’s mystery and horror. The scarecrow crimes has a town in fear. Ben digs into the mansions history hoping find what caused the evil. Had me from beginning to end!

[edit]
"Scarecrows scare. That's what they do."

Ok, I'm not sure where to start with this one. Is it a crime thriller? Yes. Is it a horror story? Yes. Is it suspenseful? Yes. It's all of these and it's scary and creepy!

Right from the first page, you are drawn in by a horrific crime scene and you can just tell the rest of the book is going to be a wild ride. The town of Crooked Tree has been plagued by crimes, both mild but weird, and downright brutal, not to mention the disappearance of several children.

The latest murders seem to be mimicking scenes from a newly released horror book by author Ben Bookman, called the Scarecrow. But, there's more to Ben than just his writing. Everything that's happening seems to be somehow connected to his family's heritage and the family mansion, Blackwood. It is a tangled web of connections - a brother missing for over a decade, nightmares coming to life, books with no words on the pages, Mares and Mr. Dreams - all embroiled together in a gripping story.

And that ending was intense!!!

I really enjoyed this one!! It's rare that I actually bite my nails while I'm reading, but after this one? I don't have any nails left!!

Sleeping and dreaming. It's a mystery that feels like no one understands. Why do we have nightmares or dreams? There are myths and fables, stories of Sandman and Night mares. This book goes into the very heart of dreams - what if our nightmares are real?

This was a great msytery and fun horror story. I loved getting to know all the characters. It's fast start but then a slow burn. It builds the story layer by layer so you feel like you are really in the midst of the mystery of it all.

I loved the father/daughter dynamic througout the book. You have Mills and his daughter Blue, both detectives. You have Ben the author and his daughter Bri - as they struggle to maintain a happy life and home in the midst of all this msytery and turmoil. There are back and froth timelines and multiple POV but all of them really round out the story and complete the horrible background to bring light to the current events. It was a great read, one I was hooked to as soon as we hit the 94 dreamcatchers and the book signing.

I really hope there is more to this story. I'd love a book 2!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

The Nightmare Man is a horror/thriller that brings on the adrenaline in a spooky heart pounding story where nightmares come to life. Ben Bookman is the self proclaimed “Nightmare Man, a best selling horror writer. The police come knocking when a series of murders match his book exactly. But Ben knows things about nightmares, his grandfather was a psychiatrist who helped treat extreme nightmares. The family home, Blackwood Estate, contains a literal library of nightmares. Murders and terror drive a spooky and twisted story that keeps the pages turning and the chills traveling down your back for an entertaining thriller. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy.

I have to say honestly I haven't read a book in a long time that actually kept me up and night and this one definitely did . Really can't put a genre on it because it falls under them all. Now we have another boogeyman to worry about.

This book will keep you on the edge of your seat turning the pages. I couldn't put it down! Definitely a must read.

This one took me a bit to get into, not because of the writing, but the ARC formatting was just off.
Once I got my head around that, I could actually delve into the meat of the story.
It kept me on the edge of my seat, and once I started, I had to know how it ends. I carried my phone with me everywhere, reading on breaks, staying up too late at night.
Taking the dogs out after dog became too frightening and I had to get my partner up outside with me. He told me not to read scary stories before bed 🙄, he is probably right. The Nightmare Man messed me up big time.

Thank you to NetGalley, J.H. Markert & Crooked Lane Books for a copy.

Ps: love the pop culture references/inside jokes spattered throughout the book!

It's a bit difficult to try to summarize this book. I really enjoyed it, and read it very fast. Is it perfect? Of course not. We have Ben Bookman who is an author who specializes in thrillers. What is the inspiration? Do his characters come to life? It's all very dark and disturbing. Detective Winchester Mills is somehow able to help most people overcome their nightmares, but how? Ben's grandfather, Dr. Robert Bookman treated so many tormented people in his asylum, but was he helping or hurting them? At times I felt I was losing track of what was happening but as I kept reading it started to really come together. I would definitely recommend this to my friends that like thrillers that can really get your heart beating.

This was a trippy, weird, creepy tale that I quite enjoyed. The characters, setup, and ending were a marvelous blend of horror and detective tale that kept me furiously flipping pages from the opening salvo. I loved the interplay between Mills and Blue and the mystery behind the town's bizarre criminal activity was well-established and well-explained. And how creepy and evocative is that cover?? This was a well-told tale that was horrifying and fascinating from start to finish.

Wow! Wow! Wow! J. H. Markert’s “The Nightmare Man” is a story that will send you reeling and leave you breathless! From the moment I cracked the first page, I was totally enraptured in this spine-chilling, nightmare of a tale. The author does a monumental job of weaving an intricate combination of characters and backstory and hits you with them, full force!

The Nightmare Man is a story about nightmares come to life (literally)! Starring an author named Benjamin Bookman whose grandfather made his livelihood on capturing people’s nightmares, only to find out that somebody’s released them and now they roam free...

I do not wish to disclose too much information about the book, as I truly believe that it will speak for itself in its own distinction. The author paid a substantial amount of attention to the story’s detail; making the environments in which the story took place, come alive. The character composition, and how they were all vital components in this complex piece, is remarkable. Not to mention the renditioning and materialization of people’s nightmares in human form... IT IS SHEER GENIUS!

I have so much praise to sing for this story... But unfortunately, I did have one complaint. After much consideration, because I really wanted to give this book a 5-star review, I decided to deduct a star for Devon’s piece (read the book if you want to know who I’m talking about)... because as much as I loved his backstory and the buildup, the bits and pieces of his childhood years, I just felt his piece was somewhat anti-climactic and I surmised that it might’ve been missing something.

But overall, I loved the book’s concept; It’s new and fresh, and I hope this work will get a movie rendition... because if it does, I will be first in line!!!

Special thanks to Netgalley, Crooked Lane Books, and J. H. Markert for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! Just wow. There aren’t more words… I need to catch my breath from this one! Haunting, terrifying, and YES, nightmarish… That’s The Nightmare Man in a nutshell. Read it when you think you’re well rested enough to stay awake for days because you won’t want to close your eyes after reading this book!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really found the central concept here to be very clever and hold a lot of promise. However, the writing and storytelling felt a bit all over the place. There wasn't a strong through-line impelling me forward. I kept drifting away from the story and would have to drag myself back to finish. But there's a great story in there and some interesting characters.

J. H. Markert’s "The Nightmare Man" gives you everything you want from the trope of the horror writer being trapped in a world of his own making, and then some. I remember watching In the Mouth of Madness as a teenager at the Sunset Drive-in when it was released. As far as I can remember, this was my first exposure to this trope. I’ve sought it out elsewhere as well: in horror films from the seventies and in other books. The Nightmare Man is packed not only with this classic trope, but so many others from across horror subgenres that it is an all-too-satisfying read, and I can’t wait for the sequel that is hinted at in the final chapter.

Ben Bookman is our novelist. He’s (of course) also an alcoholic (a nod to The Shining) and is having trouble keeping his marriage together after an allegation of an affair with the nanny (classic, but it becomes even more twisted later). The novel starts at a book signing of his most recent story. There, a man shoots himself in front of Ben, claiming Ben stole his nightmare for the novel. This coincides with a family being found, murdered in exactly the way Ben has described in his book. At first, Detective Mills and his daughter, Detective Blue, think it’s a copycat killer, simple as that. But as the story progresses, we learn there is so much more going on, a tension that has been building for decades. And the climax? Absolutely worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, but I’ll leave it at that.

I read and listen to a lot of horror. I write some myself. Rarely do I come across a novel that I find so absolutely nostalgic of the stuff I was reading in the early nineties. Titles I’d find at the local used bookstore. Titles that probably (and this isn’t a bad thing) originally came off a twirling wire rack at a Thrifty's or Rexall drugstore. "The Nightmare Man" delivers that nostalgia. As mentioned in the intro, there are so many tropes that appeal to fans of that older style of horror: an asylum, too many moths (for some reason), a cop in AA, a priest with a past, a big derelict house... And all the pieces fit together. At the end (and this isn’t really a spoiler), we get the child prodigy who is ready to start fighting the evil years later.

Overall, this is good stuff. It is a perfect summer horror read. I’m excited to see what this novelist is going to do next with his characters.

The nightmare man by J. H. Market is consuming. The blend of nightmares and mysteries surrounding them captivates you from the beginning and holds on until the very end. The ending seems to hint at a sequel and I would definitely read it. I would recommend the nightmare man to all fans of horror and suspense. This was my first introduction to this author but I will definitely keep an eye out for more of his work.

Oh my goodness, this book was great! If you like a twisty turny horror, then this book could well be for you.

The writing was smooth, clever enough to keep you hooked, but not the type of author who likes to over use big and overly clever words. The chapters are written from different points of view, and it does come across that way, in the way you can forget the same person is writing them. The story was good, you did not know which way things were going to go, and who was going to be affected by what.

If you want to read a good horror book, then pick this up. I dont think you will be disappointed.

I am writing this after receiving and ARC from the publisher.

The Nightmare Man is a fast paced, gory mystery. The characters are surprising and whilst I figured out some of the ending there were still surprises throughout. The central plot is good and the gradual relationship between the characters is unveiled at a good pace with just enough information given at any time. The crime element is dealt with well and keeps the reader engaged with the mystery.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this ARC in return for an honest review.

The Nightmare Man by J.H. Market is an unsettling horror/crime novel based around a small town cop investigating weird and terrible crimes and a famous author who writes horror novels. When the crimes start to match the books, people start to wonder what is really going on.

I really enjoyed this book! It was a bit slow in the middle but the overall sense of unease that existed through the whole book made it worthwhile. I could absolutely see this being turned into a horror film that I would love to see!

I would definitely recommend to horror fans!

The Nightmare Man is well-named. Filled with plot twists and creepy characters, the reader becomes infatuated with the role of moths. The incorporation of famous paintings and classical music adds to the detail well-used in this spooky book. If you enjoy mysterious, haunting books with a psychiatric bent, this would be a good choice. I do imagine the reader might not sleep well at night both from wondering what the ending will be and because of the connections made between life while sleeping and while awake.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the advance review copy.

A horror writer’s latest book’s release coincides with the story unfolding in real life as he and the police try to prevent further devastation in J.H. Markert’s The Nightmare Man.

Detective Mills arrives at a crime scene where a family have been murdered and bundled inside cocoons stitched together from corn husks and hung from the rafters of their barn and he’s unnerved by the scene before him, but the daughter of the slain family is shockingly alive in her cocoon, offering them a chance of a lead. Ben Bookman’s latest horror novel, The Scarecrow, has just been released yet the murder of that family is much too similar to what he’s written to be sheer coincidence, placing him once again under the close scrutiny of Detective Mills. Ben’s younger brother Devon had gone missing from their family estate, Blackwood, years previously and presumed dead but Mills has always had suspicions that Ben had more knowledge of what happened than he ever told; Ben can’t remember much from when he completed the novel in the Blackwood room of numbered, but empty, books forbidden to him by his grandfather, Dr. Bookman, but as he digs in to his family and the property’s history, he fears he may have unleashed something vicious that was trapped long ago. When a second family’s murder occurs that again closely mimics the series of events in Ben’s book, he quickly becomes the prime suspect; Mills and Detective Samantha Blue, his daughter, are determined to find out the link the killer has with the book, before the chilling climax of the novel has an opportunity to come to pass in their small town.

Told from the perspectives of Detective Mills and Ben Bookman, with interludes from before from both of them that slowly fleshes out context for the characters, the narrative of investigation of the brutal and frightening murders occurring unfolds while also delving in to personal histories and relationship conflicts. In balancing the multiple narrative threads, the writing was adept at placing the Bookman family at the center of suspicion and providing clues, repeatedly, for readers to piece together the role that Dr. Bookman had and theorize about Devon after going missing as a young boy. As the story came closer to the conclusion, there was a rapid growth in action as chaos ramped up, propelling the narrative forward through the various twists as realizations finally revealed the previously obscured truths; however, there are still some more practical questions raised from what was revealed that weren’t addressed to an adequate degree to satisfy curious minds. The underlying premise of life imitating art was explored in an intriguing way, beyond a book within the book driving action, through the incorporation of dreams, or more accurately nightmares and the lore surrounding them; the prevalence of dreamcatchers, the concept of dream eating, and sleepwalking within the narrative’s small town setting seemed a bit far-fetched, but provided an explanation for the oddities occurring as myths and the fantastically monstrous were made real in their lives.

Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very original story, and gripping. this will definitely keep your attention. A little emotionally heavy at times, and does have talk about suicide. But it gets pretty eerie.
Definitely one to check out. A nice twisted plot. I will say however the names of the characters could have been a little better.
Overall, very satisfied.