Kill Creek by Scott Thomas

"At the end of a dark prairie road, nearly forgotten in the Kansas countryside, is the Finch House. For years it has remained empty, overgrown, abandone. Soon the door will be opened for the first time in decades. But something is waiting, lurking in the shadows, anxious to meet its new guests... When best-selling horror author Sam McGarver is invited to spend Halloween in one of the world's most infamous haunted houses, he relunctantly agrees. At least he won't be alone; joining him are three other masters of the macabre, writers who have helped shape modern horror. But what begins as a simple publicity stunt will become a fight for survival. The entity they have awakened will follow them, torment them, threatening to make them a part of the bloody legacy of Kill Creek."--Cover flap.

This had a lot of potential. The prologue is of course an imitation of Shirley Jackson, but it's a decent imitation! I'm down with it - show me the creepy house that stands, not sane, on the Kansas prairie!

The first chapter is pretty good too. I was on board with the author/professor-character giving me a rundown of his take on Gothic literature, clearly setting out the boxes he was about to check in the narrative. He name-dropped some good classic horror. It was a little on the nose, but what the hell? I felt comfortable that this guy could take me on a scary journey.

Unfortunately, from there, the story undermined itself in multiple ways.
Plot: aimless
Voice: muddled
Characterization: shallow and shaded with thoughtless prejudice (see below regarding Moore, plus fatphobia, and basically one person of color who isn't made into a real character so much as a motivation point for a white guy.)
Length: indulgent to the point of tedium

Amid the intriguing plot developing, there were annoying fanfic-style writing tics. There are way too many strained similes and excess description. A tree branch can't merely claw at the sky, it must claw at the sky like a hand tortured by arthritis. Sam can't have a bad moment where he thinks he smells smoke - no, we have to try to parse whatever this is:

That thin wisp of smoke slithered down his throat and between his lungs, constricting, pushing breath through his teeth. The smoke serpent twisted beneath Sam's ribs and squeezed tighter, its gray head slipping around the ribbed stalk of his trachea. It pressed its upturned snout against the upper lobe of his lungs, probing for a way in.

Barefoot, she was barely five-six, but the power she radiated added half a foot. She was thirty-eight years old and cut like marble. Defined, but not obscenely muscular. Sexy, but not grotesque. Every line, every curve, was deliberate and necessary.

she toweled herself dry. She did not bother getting dressed. Padding naked up the spiral staircase to the first floor, . . . She opened the laptop that rested on a shelf of corrugated steel. For the next two hours, she wrote, her naked body kissed by the early-morning sunlight. . . .

I liked what I read in the prologue! It all went off the rails for me in chapter two, with the introduction of a female character. How she is described and written is offensive in my personal opinion. I checked out other reviews that confirmed this isn't a book for me and it only gets worse from that scene. DNF at page 31.

The first 40% of the book dragged for me. I get that he had to set the scene and all but it could have been about 100 pages shorter. It also wasn't what I expected it to be until the last maybe 20 pages. I wanted those last 20 pages throughout the entire book. Some twists and turns along the way keep me entertained throughout and overall I enjoyed the second half of the book! It may have saved my rating from plummeting.