Famous horror story writer R. U. Tremblin comes to the town of Maplewood to hold a short story writing contest, offering the five finalists the chance to spend what turns out to be a terrifying--and deadly--night with him in a haunted house.

This is such a unique book. It basically is several short stories disguised in another separate short story. I know, it's a little confusing. Most of the stories are well told and somewhat scary. The main storyline is that an author holds a contest, where winners must read their story to all the contestants, while staying in a haunted house overnight. Five teen winners are chosen. Will they survive the stay? How good will their stories be? Who will win? What are the author's motives? You will have to read the book to find out. Everyone is scared by different things, this is a nice mix of scares with something that should get everyone. This is a good read for parents to read with a child. There is not much gore or language to worry about here, just good old fashioned scares. My only problem with the book was the epilogue. I didn't think it added to the main storyline. In fact if anything it detracted from all the stories. I can understand Nance wanting to write another book of short stories. This book didn't lean toward a sequel. Horror readers are way too sharp to just gloss that over. ( )

This book was very well written. It was interesting because it had different stories inside the initial one. I think each of the scenes and stories were described very well. 5Q4P The cover art is awesome and I'd recommend this for high school students. I chose to read this book because I like horror stories because they always make me want to read until the end to figure out all of the mysteries. JenniferW

Basically Rose Red for the teen set. I wavered between 2 and 3 stars, but finally settled on 2 because I guess I liked it 2.25 stars worth - though teens who are horror fans will probably like it more than I did. ( )

I felt that this book was slow to get to the point and it wasn't even really that scary. I was only able to get partway through it before I completely lost interest. 1/5 AG (12th grade) I originally chose the book because the cover got my attention and I was fascinated with the little summery that was on the back. ( )