Review: Dark and disturbing...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 22, 2013
are words I would use to describe this novella from a new author.  This is dark horror at its finest.  The author uses random flashbacks intermingled with present day events to help tell the story of the old house and the new tenants.  Stacey and Liam have rented the top floor "flat" in an old Victorian house on the most crime-ridden street in the city, but it's all they can afford and they forge ahead to make the most of it.  Liam has started a new job and Stacey is left to deal with the move by herself.  Right from the beginning, she begins having visions of events from the house's dark past.  She begins to have panic attacks and has to drop out of university.  She slides into severe physical and mental decline, which serves to make the panic attacks and visions worse.  She eventually meets an elderly neighbor who tells her the story of the house, including the murder of a mother and children by a boarder.  Are Stacey's visions really hallucinations brought on by her rapid mental and physical decline?  Or are they something else?  Has the past come crashing into the present with intent to repeat itself with Stacey?  SHATTERED leaves it to the reader to speculate what actually happened to Stacey.