DNF @ 50% - With a summary that sounded right up my alley, I am unfortunately super disappointed. There are no transitions in the writing leaving it in a stagnant bland pace. The tone of the writing feels very YA and the dialogue feels pulled from a straight to DVD movie about how adults interact with each other. I am not one to usually dnf things as there’s always the possibility for positive turnaround in the end, but I truly cannot bring myself to care.

If you’re looking for a bingeable book, you can stop your search and just go ahead and pick up The Haunting of Room 904 👏👻

Our main character Olivia is probably not the typical paranormal investigator, having spent a lot of her adult life pursuing academia. But everything changes when her sister, Naiche dies. We’ve got cults, ghosts, and a whole lot of history that comes together in a sad, layered plot.

I finished the audiobook in 24 hours. Ina Barrón is a fantastic narrator and Erika T. Wurth is a wonderful plotter and storyteller. The pacing was perfect and there were a lot of twists and turns that kept you on your toes. This story has a lot of heart, one that’s broken but trying to heal by bringing buried or conveniently forgotten truths to the surface again for acknowledgment.

We’re also gifted well-rounded side characters, some you’ll wish were your friends and others, well… you’ll see.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a horror fan, I think you’d love this. It’s mysterious with horror elements that are based in reality. It’s a book I wish I could read for the first time again, but I’m grateful I still have White Horse to read.

I was so ready for an eerie read that would freak me out. Alas, this wasn’t that read.

The storytelling style felt… analytical? That’s the word I keep coming back to. I don’t know how else to describe it. I was never scared or even on edge.

The characters lacked the spark of personality necessary to keep me invested. We’re told a lot of things, but we don’t necessarily see these things in the characters’ interactions. Also, the dialogue often felt juvenile. I mean, I can’t envision any time in which my mother would ask me if I’d “boned” a guy. Ugh.

The audiobook is narrated by Ina Barrón, who does a fantastic job. Her style reminded me of Julia Whelan, who is one of my favorites.

*Thank you (and apologies) to Macmillan Audio for the free audiobook download!*

Nicely written with just enough to keep someone interested without being overwhelmed with the feeling of impossibility. As someone who will always be torn on paranormal or not, the reality or not. I found it very interesting to be able to see how it could be twisted into our lives and a part of a persons everyday life without even realizing it. The Native American culture has so many intricate parts and stories so that this was able to include one and give not only the back story but show how it could impact our current world.

I also greatly enjoyed the mystery aspect. One of those “who is the bad guy and who isn’t….then to turn around and be like oh wait I had that wrong!” Aspects. Those are always fun and keep things interesting. A bit predictable, but not so predictable that there couldn’t be other options or that you just don’t want to read it. In the end I’m glad she did right by her people, the mystery was solved and no one else has to die in that room

Spooky hotel? GRAB!!

Received a free audio copy from NetGalley.

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This started out great and had me hooked from the beginning but then kind of fell apart for me towards the middle as so many different things were thrown at us: the death of her sister, the stalker, the podcaster, and it all becomes noise and takes away from the meat of the story. The story held my interest but I found myself struggling to keep track of the different threads. I was hoping for more spookiness but otherwise, the writing flowed well and I would read more from this author.

This is my first book of this author. I very much appreciated the insight on Native horror and Native identity. There were also some genuinely tense moments. Overall though, this one wont be one that sticks with me and I got a little burnt out with the whodonuit at the back half of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an ALC.

I really enjoyed the premise of this book! Paranormal, horror, and highlighting the horrific injustices of Native American past.

Olivia is a paranormal investigator who gets brought into a hotel where women are found dead every few years in the same room, room 904. Olivia finds this job especially distressing because it’s connected to the death of her own sister. I was fascinated and also heartbroken over the discoveries Olivia came upon during this investigation. Overall, I recommend this one!

This audio was so good. The way she communicates with the dead was something expected of her sister, not her. The audio was very enjoyable and made the story come to life. I highly recommend.

I did not like this book at all.
Not sure if it was the audio or just the confusing all over the place plot, but I definitely was not engaged.

I tried to stick it out and made it to 90% before I DNF. I couldn’t do it anymore.

Erika T. Wurth is a new author to me, but the description for her newest book The Haunting of Room 904 really grabbed my attention. After all who doesn’t love a good haunting tale? While I really liked the characters and the book absolutely oozes atmosphere at times, I thought there was perhaps just a bit too much happening. And even though I thought things could have been streamlined a bit, the story had no trouble holding my attention from start to finish, and Ina Barrón’s narration was rock solid. I’d like to thank Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review an advanced copy of the audio version of The Haunting of Room 904.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RKA14J91W9XG8/ref=pe_123899240_1043597390_SRTC0204BT_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

Olivia Becente has the ability to commune with spirits, a gift she surprisingly inherited after the tragic and unexpected death of her sister, Naiche.
A few years after that heart-breaking event, Olivia has put her gift to good use, becoming the most in-demand paranormal investigator in the Denver area.

Even though her career is a success, the loss of Naiche continues to haunt her. When she gets a call from the owner of the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel, saying he has a haunting he wants her to investigate, she jumps at the chance to explore the infamous property. More specifically, the Brown Palace has a haunting in Room 904; where every few years, a young woman is found dead, regardless of what room she checked into the night before. These deaths hit very close to home for Olivia, and she vows to get to the bottom of it.

Her investigation leads her down complicated personal paths as past and present collide, she's forced to face a possibly murderous cult, a vindictive journalist, potentially backstabbing friends, and the truth of her sister's life.

The Horror Community is certainly being blessed in 2025. I really enjoyed White Horse by this author, and tend to enjoy Indigenous Horror in general, but this is even an improvement over White Horse for me, as far as the character interactions go and how quickly the story kicks off. I love how Olivia, and her best friend/roommate, Alejandro, are a sort of an Ed and Lorraine Warren team in this story (IYKYK). I was drawn in from the start, learning what happened to Olivia's sister was so sad, and hearing the history of the Brown Palace was uber-compelling.

I felt like I truly went on a ride with Olivia. I enjoyed getting a front row seat for her investigation, and watching as she started to put the pieces together. She certainly showed a lot of courage against everything.

There were other aspects I appreciated too, including a historical perspective that shined a light on the Sand Creek Massacre, which occurred in the 1860s, and is connected to this land and helped develop the history of the place. There's also some really fun mixed media elements that have to do with various potentially paranormal items on the virtual market. It's hard to explain, but just imagine the owners of Annabelle put an ad on Craig's List.

Those were such an entertaining little break among the darker narrative, and in fact, I felt like they gave the story an even stronger air of reality. People pay a lot of money for that type of object; it's a niche market, but a ravenous one. Overall, The Haunting of Room 904 was so good. I'm such a Wurth fan at this point, I'm already anticipating whatever she's going to deliver next. I would recommend this to any Horror Reader, particularly if you enjoy Occult elements, or Paranormal Investigations.

For me, it did start to get a little muddled towards the end, nevertheless, a very solid Paranormal Horror story, with strong characters and a captivating plot. Wurth does a great job of creating relatable characters with real emotions in them. Even when they're experiencing things that you may personally have never experienced before, you can still FEEL it. That's such a talent.

Thank you to the publisher, Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I definitely recommend the audio format and can't wait for more from Wurth!

I'm going to keep reading this author's books as long as I like the premises, because she is improving as a writer as she goes. There are still things in here that ultimately meant I couldn't bump this up to four stars (dear lord, the sex scene*) because this simply just isn't as good as books that I have rated four stars in the past. But her ideas intrigue me, and her execution is not bad, even if it's not great. So anyway with that ringing endorsement . . .

This one follows paranormal investigator Olivia Becente, a mixed race Native person, who is still mourning the death of her sister by suicide five years before. Her sister died in the titular Room 904 of the Browne Palace Hotel, where every five years or so, young women check in and never check back out, Hotel California style. Upon her death, Olivia inherited her sister's paranormal sight (or her own were activated by the trauma) when previously she didn't believe in any of it. We come into the story when several of her jobs all point to the same haunting, that of Room 904, and her sister's death, which may not have been a suicide at all.

*I can't even explain to you how hard I laughed at this scene, which was supposed to be sexy. Also, I didn't like the guy she was having sex with and thought the "romantic" elements should have been cut entirely from the book.

I liked the way she used the supernatural/paranormal elements to highlight the atrocities done to Native peoples, and how tied the main conflict was to her Native identity. It was also extremely personal to her, as the plot ends up not only involving her dead sister, but her mother as well. Her character work, while more detailed than in White Horse, does still need some work, as the side characters sometimes fell flat.

All in all, not mad I read it. And if you liked White Horse more than I did, you will probably like this one even more.

The audiobook narrator did a really good job bringing life to the author's otherwise bare bones writing style.

[3.5 stars]

I was excited for this one a mix of paranormal and horror intermixed with Native mysticism. I really liked the main character Olivia and I could relate to her. I did think the story was all over the place at times, but overall I really enjoyed it. I liked the mix of Native and Jewish mysticism and the relation between people of different faiths to work together. Olivia was never supposed to see the dead but after her sister mysteriously kills herself in a room where a woman kills herself every five years Olivia sees the dead. She works to find and neutralize haunting which are usually about helping a spirit feel heard. But lately she has been finding things that feel more dark. As she finds small pieces of what happened to her sister she gets closer and closer to the danger as her mother appears marked for this year’s sacrifice. This book was good and I listened to the audiobook and liked the narrator a lot. She did a good job bringing the story to life and keeping me interested in the story.

4/5 ⭐️

If you take the creepy mirror from the movie Oculus and put it in a creepy room like the one in the movie 1408 and then add an expiration date for its victims like in The Ring you have the makings of this book.

I enjoyed the twists and turns of this book and never really knowing who was good or bad. I appreciated all of the representations within this story as well. Overall, a solid and creepy thriller.

Unfortunately, I had to dnf this one. Horror is hit or miss with me, and this one was a miss.

Thanks so much to Macmillan Audio for the ALC. My opinion is my own and willingly given.

A haunted hotel story that feels more like a paranormal romance, the real draw here is the relationship between heroine Olivia and the ghost of her sister.

On my first listen of The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T. Wurth, I became consumed by the story, finished in two sittings and then it was over. No notes. I liked how the haunted items related to Native American heritage. I enjoyed the narration by Ina Barrón. ALC was provided by Macmillan Audio via NetGalley. I received an advance listening copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I thought the premise of this book was great but didn’t enjoy the execution. I loved the mix of horror and paranormal. I also enjoyed the inclusion of indigenous culture. My issue was that the plot didn’t flow nicely. There are many different subplots and it made it difficult to stay focused on the audiobook.

Olivia inherited her late sister Naiche's ability. She now can communicate with the dead. Olivia is now regularly contacted to help with hauntings. She’s becomes a popular paranormal investigator.

The hotel where her sister Naiche died contacts her to help with the mysterious deaths that occur every 5 years in the same room Naiche died in.

This book kept me listening. I would highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys paranormal horror mysteries.

4.5 stars
Published March 18, 2025

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan audio for this audio ARC copy for an honest review.