When Tori moves into a studio at the rundown Lamplight apartment complex, she gets more than she bargained for. The faucet leaks, the water heater barely functions, and the lack of air conditioning makes the summer nights brutal… But worst of all is the dark presence that stalks the building. When she and her friends play around with a Ouija board, Tori learns first-hand why the living have no business communing with the dead. Something sinister is roused in the process, and her life begins to spiral into madness soon thereafter. She suffers terrible nightmares, hallucinations, and feels as though she’s being watched at all hours of the day. And that’s only the beginning. If the spirit has its way, it’ll consume her completely. With a terrifying specter on her trail and only a few cryptic clues about the building’s curious past to aid her, Tori searches desperately for a way to get rid of the spirit. What has escaped from the underworld will not go back so easily, however.
Horror Book Review Blog: The Seance in Apartment 10
Growing up in NYC, I was not privy to what the suburbs offered: space, silence, woods, and, most importantly, darkness. Still, the lack of these, what I consider vital components in communicating with the dead, did not stop a band of friends and me from using a Ouija board. I’ll admit, there were many sessions where it was clear that someone was pushing the planchette across the board for laughs. But, there were times when I was genuinely terrified, and it felt like there was an invisible force at play. It was these moments that I looked forward to. What can I say, I was (still am) a junkie for the supernatural. It fascinated me to no end. Never, did I consider any of these Ouija sessions a seance. I am no expert in the matter, but sitting around a circular table, candles ablaze, and a medium adorned in black are images conjured in my mind when thinking of a seance. I picked up Ambrose Isben’s The Seance in Apartment 10 with the hopes of being engulfed in said darkness and spooky shenanigans.
Tori is excited to move into a studio apartment at the Lamplight Complex despite her father’s reservations. Still, this is a big step for her and just another step in being independent. There are red flags that are raised by the father, predominantly the fact that there is only one other tenant in the building. That, in and of itself, is enough to sway my daughter in looking elsewhere. Still, Tori relents, and her dad succumbs to her wishes. Tori eventually moves into the studio apartment and to commemorate the occasion, she invites her friends over for a few drinks to celebrate. One of her friends brings over a Ouija board, and things don’t go accordingly.
After their evening with the Ouija board, strange things occur to Tori. After speaking to the only other tenant, more information on the history of the establishment is divulged. Tori starts to sting things together with the help of visions and dreams, which is, in my opinion, a lazy method utilized for the sole purpose of moving the story along and cutting to the chase.
There is little to be desired with The Seance in Apartment 10. I dove right in and expected a lot more than what was delivered. The scares were far and few in between, and if we’re honest, there were not many. Sure, there were a few moments where I could see some, mostly tweens, possibly sending a jolt of fear but not for me. For the most part, I was captured by the world and environment that was created by the author simply because there’s really not much to go on. Here, we are treated with a seemingly abandoned and “dead” town due to the off-season when the college kids are away for the summer break. I lived in a college town for a good part of my life, and yes, while it is quieter when the kids are gone, it is by no means desolate as people still live in the town, so I had a hard time wrapping my head around this.
The premise alone is captivating, but that alone could not warrant me making this a five-star review, let alone four. The writing was OK but, still, there was something off about it and a few things that perturbed me, especially with how Isben structured many of the sentences. This is the first Isben book that I have read, and even though I was not a major fan of this one, I was not put off enough to not want to read another one of his works. Hopefully, it will be one that scares me.
In the end, The Seance in Apartment 10 was an OK read but did little, if anything, to impress me.
NOTE: I have the paperback version of the book, and in chapter nineteen for some odd reason, the page numbers cease to exist only to show up again in chapter twenty… strange.