With a great plot and creepy supernatural stories, this fantasy/horror story was delightfully engaging. The characters include the following: Emrys, who has just moved to the notoriously haunted city of New Rotterdam; Hazel, Emrys's longtime friend, and unexplained phenomenon enthusiast; Serena, Hazel's friend. In the book's beginning, Emry and Hazel return to their apartment in the middle of a thunderstorm. Soon, a mysterious whistler is heard: Emrys, Serena, and Hazel decide to snoop around their mysterious neighbor's mysterious apartment (where they hear the Whistler going in). What they find astonishes them: destruction, and in the midst of it, a talking book containing the consciousness of the apartment's former owner, Mr. Van Stavern. He tells them that they are to be members of a secret order. Their mission is clear–protect New Rotterdam and the world from paranormal forces by containing powerful cursed relics. But a dilemma is caused when Serena, the skeptic, decides to forget about it. Their first task begins as a red hourglass starts appearing all over New Rotterdam, and people start disappearing. With only 2 members, will the team be able to survive the deadly relic and the organization that is putting them in public spaces? First of all, the book had very relatable themes such as climate change and friendship. The characters, such as Emrys, were all fleshed out and relatable too. The Wiki entries after every chapter were interesting and in my opinion, made the book a lot better. But I felt that one of the big flaws of the book was that the Wandering Hour, which is what the book is focused on (it's in the title even), could have been a lot scarier and stranger, like the other Wiki entries in the book. Finally, the dialogue feels natural and there are even some funny parts, which lighten up the grim tale of disappearing juveniles. About the scariness level, it's pretty mild, but there is talk of humans disappearing and dying, so I would recommend this book to middle grades and above. Also, if you like unexplained things such as cryptids, this would be an interesting book (the book goes by pretty quickly, so it's good for light reading).
The Doomsday Archives: The Wandering Hour
By Clark, Zack Loran, Eliopulos, Nick
The first in a spine-tingling middle-grade adventure series that’s Goosebumps meets Stranger Things following three friends who discover that the eerie urban legends they’ve been obsessively collecting may not be just make-believe . . .
Emrys Houtman knows something isn’t quite right in the town of New Rotterdam, although no one talks about it―certainly not the grown-ups. The sky is always overcast, and urban legends abound of mysterious disappearances, cursed objects, and strange creatures wandering the coastal fog.
While bonding with Hazel and Serena, his new neighbors and fellow horror fans, Emrys documents the town’s creepypastas, spooky legends, and cryptid sightings in a Wiki. It’s all in the spirit of good fun . . . until one day, the trio stumble upon the Doomsday Archives, a mysterious collection of relics that reveal something is very, very rotten in New Rotterdam.
To their horror, the kids discover that while they’ve been busy hunting for monsters, the monsters are now hunting them back. Emrys, Hazel, and Serena must stop the terrors plaguing their town, or risk losing their home―and possibly their lives.
Book Reviews (4)
What a read! This book is definitely not for the faint of heart. If books like Goosebumps or Scare Scape intrigue you, or even if you just like a good scare every now and then, this novel is calling out to you (just don't blame me if you jump at the slightest sound from then on!) Set in a town with a notorious reputation, at least to some, of containing countless monsters and eerie objects, Emrys Houtman is only too excited about the spookiness of the area. However, things get a little too scary for him when he and his friends realize that the monsters are actually more than just fiction. This realization leads them through an adventure filled with tension and terror. But perhaps the scariest thing of all is the fact that the children don't have the answer to a very important question: will they even live through it? I enjoyed reading this novel, even with the occasional checks to make sure no one was at my bedroom door. The authors expertly combine a compelling story with supernatural beings to create a novel that is truly among the monarchs of horror. With wiki articles about various monsters sprinkled within the pages and spooky cliffhangers at nearly every chapter, this book will prove to be a challenge to stop reading until the end.
Preposterous! With every possible hair-raising-horror cliche on every nail biting page, this is one book that will either spawn you to jump at any obscure sound and cause you to look over your shoulder…twice, even in broad daylight; or compel you to double over in laughter! Stalking the unexpected reading is a page turner of events unraveling in small town USA. New Rotterdam, can you think of a more fitting name, is a heavily fogged coastal island town that has a reputation that ranks as high as the eerily haunted New Orleans and Salem. So high that it has its own wiki site filled with countless tales of creatures terrorizing the coast line, objects of unbelievably ill-fated consequences and neighbors- young and old - poof, vanished without a clue. Doomsday Archives by Zack Loran Clark and Nick Eliopulos hedge in the reader as your heart leaps into your throat following the tri-, Nick, Hazel and Serena- on what starts out as a haunt to uncover and report on the weird, but true, monsters that have riddled the town into a tourist spot for horror legend seekers. While investigating one story, the trio find themselves turning from reporters to being the story! So if you are hungry, like really hungry, then read Doomsday Archives. Maybe monsters are real. Absurd, right? I would recommend it for readers fourteen and older.
Scary stories are often told around a campfire, preferably with some s’mores. But what happens when that story you tell to scare your friends turns into a real issue? New Rotterdam, an eerie place well known for its monster legends (it even has its own wiki!) is no place to grow up. Emrys, a young boy who happens to enjoy various items of the horror variety, absolutely loves this place. He is an admin on New Rotterdam’s wiki, helping upkeep the many articles of the fabled monsters of the town. When he and his friends, Hazel and Serena, run into a talking book that used to be their neighbor (Yes, talking book. You read that right.) they learn that maybe the legends aren’t so fun and games after all… They’re very real. The End is here, and it’s hungry. Lock your doors. Not big into horror, but while I don’t recommend reading this before bed, the plot line was very good. It keeps you tied in and ready for the next book in the series. I would recommend to any Horror enjoyer.