14 by Peter Clines
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once upon a time, for many years, all I read was horror fiction. These days, my reading tastes vary pretty widely, with horror popping up … rarely. You read too much in one genre, you get burned out. That’s how it was for me, anyway. Now, when I dip back into the horror pool, I need for the book to be really good. Peter Clines’ 14 managed that.

Nate Tucker got lucky and found a nice apartment at an affordable price in an old building in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the building is also a machine that is keeping Lovecraftian horrors at bay. More unfortunately, some weird cultists have found the machine and want to shut it down so that Cthulhu and his buddies can feed on humanity.

On the one hand, I wanted to say Blech! when the full plot twist was revealed and real people like Lovecraft and Tesla were used to advance the plot. However, Clines did such a good job at creating his very believable cast of characters that I went along with it. And I enjoyed nearly every minute of this ride. There were a few things, like the constant movie references and the cliche of … who the bad guy is that were a little annoying, but they were only minor annoyances.

The book comes across like a mystery, with the horror not rearing it’s slimy head until you’re way into it. But you know it’s coming. And you know it’s gonna be big and bad. Clines delivers on that. It’s a good book and I highly recommend it. I listened to it on audio and can definitely recommend it that way, too.

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