Review: The Voices by F.R. Tallis

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Pegasus (December 14, 2014)
• ISBN: 9781605986562
• Source: Publisher

It’s the summer of 1976, the hottest on record. Christopher Norton, his wife, Lauren, and their infant daughter Faye move in to their new home in North London.  The Norton’s put a lot of money into refurbishing the old Victorian home.  Christopher, a composer of film soundtracks, has created an elaborate recording studio that permits him to work from home.

The stifling heat makes it nearly impossible to sleep comfortably. Lauren swears she hears voices coming from the baby monitor. It isn’t until Christopher picks up the same voices, along with others, in his recording studio that he begins to believe his wife’s claims.  Lauren wants to move, but with so much money put into the house to repair it, this isn’t an option. Instead, Christopher finds an opportunity in the voices: a production featuring the voices, now pervasive and threatening.  He doesn’t share his discovery with his wife, instead becoming obsessed with the voices that demand to make themselves known. This decision has life-altering consequences, destroying the very constructs of their family. The house has a history, the severity of which is discovered far too late.

The Voices takes haunted houses to a completely different level. Knowing your house is haunted is creepy enough, but to repeatedly (and intentionally) record voices from beyond? The whole concept sends shivers down my spine.  Tallis manages to craft a setting and storyline so absolutely realistic (and plausible!) that it terrified me, an aficionado of horror fiction.  Readers are mere witnesses, unable to act as we watch the resolve, the sanity of the characters whither away before us. The house consumes them, unrelenting.

Generally, it takes a lot to terrify me.  Haunted houses, though, terrify me to no end. This novel was no exception. I found myself only reading during the light of day, never in the dark or when I was home alone. So, because this novel succeeded at doing what so many other horror novels fail to do, it comes highly recommended from this reader. With warnings, of course: not for the faint of heart…or mind.