I don’t think I really knew what I was getting into with Fever House by Keith Rosson. What I expected to be more of a straight ahead horror turned into a raw horror with a crime, dark-op, conspiracy twist that made for an adventure of a read.
When leg-breaker Hutch Holtz rolls up to a rundown apartment complex in Portland, Oregon, to collect overdue drug money, a severed hand is the last thing he expects to find stashed in the client’s refrigerator. Hutch quickly realizes that the hand induces uncontrollable madness: Anyone in its proximity is overcome with a boundless compulsion for violence. Within hours, catastrophic forces are set into motion: Dark-op government agents who have been desperately hunting for the hand are on Hutch’s tail, more of the city’s residents fall under its brutal influence, and suddenly all of Portland stands at the precipice of disaster…
But it’s all the same for Katherine Moriarty, a singer whose sudden fame and precipitous downfall were followed by the mysterious death of her estranged husband—suicide, allegedly. Her trauma has made her agoraphobic, shackled within the confines of her apartment. Her son, Nick, has moved home to care for her, quietly making his living working for Hutch’s boss.
When Hutch calls Nick in distress, looking for someone else to take the hand, Katherine and Nick are plunged into a global struggle that will decimate the walls of the carefully arranged life they’ve built. Mother and son must evade both crazed, bloodthirsty masses and deceitful government agents while exorcising family secrets that have risen from the dead—secrets, they soon discover, that might hold the very key to humanity’s survival.
Fever House can be gruesome and extremely fast-paced at times, while not sacrificing on the story at hand. The novel offers a wide cast of characters that are all unique in their own right, which can be challenging at times to follow but if you take your time reading can comprehend easier. Personally, it took longer to digest this book with the number of important characters and the amount of things going on, but in the end was worth the journey.
The story is bloody, gross, and visceral offering a new take on the horror genre. It combined elements of crime fiction, occult themes, as well as dark -ops conspiracies into a unique and one-of-a-kind novel. Keith Rosson does a great job crafting this dark and twisted story that leaves an unsettling feeling after you have turned each page. The pacing is non-stop and kept us engaged.
I went into Fever House not really knowing what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised. While not the best book on the market it was for sure a weird novel in all the right ways. The ending left more to be desired, but hints at a reckoning to come… This horror novel challenges our perceptions of reality and takes us on a dark journey with a cast of characters. Excited for the next installment.
Fever House is available in hardcover at bookstores everywhere with the paperback hitting shelves on June 11, 2024. Libro.fm features an audiobook narrated by Xe Sands.
