New Book Alert: The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel by K.T. Rose; An Engaging Haunted Hotel Journey Through Hell And Back

 

New Book Alert: The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel by K.T. Rose; An Engaging Haunted Hotel Journey Through Hell And Back

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: The second dark fantasy horror book that I am reading to scare up the Holidays is The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel by K.T. Rose. It also continues another trend that has been running through the blog this year: a literal trip through Heaven or Hell. This time, it's the latter. 

The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel is an engaging trip through Hell via a haunted hotel which opens up the guest and staff's guilty secrets forcing them to confront those secrets for all eternity.

Like all haunted buildings, the Gallagher Hotel has an interesting backstory to go with the current ghostly occupants. In 1921, hotelier Trudy Mona Lisa Gallagher is condemned to death for arson, destruction of property, conspiracy to commit murder, and murder. Her business connections and illegal dealings helped put the town of Holloway, Michigan on the map and now the town has hypocritically turned against her. Trudy decides to make her disappointment known in a very public and explosive manner. She burns the hotel down and curses the town before succumbing to the executioner's noose.

Over 90 years later, the Gallagher Hotel is under new management. Brenda Scott, modern businesswoman, wants to rebuild the Gallagher and turn it into a haven for ghost hunters and tourist trap for the morbidly curious. She hires a staff and invites a select group of guinea pigs uh I mean VIP guests to experience the place in all of its hellacious glory.

The guests are the usual peculiar bunch you find in these locked room mysteries/horror stories: the war vet with PTSD, the heiress with a naughty past, the flirtatious doctor with broken hearts behind him, and the staff member who mysteriously knows every nook and cranny of this place, even more so than the owner. Everyone of these characters have something to hide that is forced open in the most gruesome and unforgettable ways.

The two protagonists in the book are two helpless individuals sucked into this nightmare. Of course they carry a lot of emotional baggage that the demons and spirits dwelling in The Gallagher don't mind exploiting for their own needs.

Riley is a young woman hired as a server for this event. She is very spiritual despite or because of a troubled past in which her son died as a result of her negligence. Riley has been unable to fully recover from his death but still hopes her belief in God will pull her through.

Chris is a foil for Riley as well as co-protagonist. He comes from a family of professional thieves who want him to accept the invitation solely to clean the place out of whatever valuables he can find. Like Riley, he too has a tragic death behind him, one that has earned him the ire of his very powerful and very dangerous family. (This robbery is meant to be his last chance). Riley and Chris are already haunted tortured people, so they are like catnip to the ghouls that are looking for a few good mortals to torture and mess with.

There are some pretty graphic passages that reveal the characters' guilty secrets in very violent means. One features a doctor being haunted not only by what remains of a patient that died on his table but an obsessive nurse with plenty of sharp medical instruments.

Another features a veteran whose war ghosts come to life literally.

There are some particularly chilling passages involving Riley, Chris, and Brenda but in the name of plot revelations will be unmentioned. However, they are pretty fascinating and clever twists which causes the Reader to rethink the characters and where they really fall in the good vs. evil spectrum. 

The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel is not the type of setting that one would want to check into in real life, but it is certainly one Hell of a vacation.