Starting with this one.
Tyson parks is a writer. He was successful twenty years ago but his star has fallen a long way. His last six books have been flops. The last one made a loss. He needs a new hit to resurrect his career, but is suffering with extreme writer's block and his agent isn't interested in the book he wants to write instead of the one he's contracted to.
When his girlfriend buys him a new writing desk for a surprise present, it seems to do the trick and his writer's block is gone, but at what cost? The desk has a less than salubrious past and is exerting an influence.
This is a quick and easy read with some extremely good set pieces. The last third of the book is genuinely brilliant.
It's not particularly original. Possessed/cursed object gives owner what they want at a price is a well used trope, but this is a good example of how to write it.
The Desk causes chaos before it even reaches Tyler's house. Once it's there. it sinks its tendrils into poor old Tyler almost immediately he sits down next to it. What follows is a violent and occasionally pretty gory take on the theme.
It's not a perfect book. There's one major subplot left hanging, and the punchline on the last page is maybe a bit cheesy. The present tense narration grated on me for a while, and I never normally have a problem with that - but for the last several chapters it worked really well.
Unless I missed a detail, there's a reasonably large plot hole regarding the lineage of our antagonist Miss Montresor (other than the horror aficionados in the story not making any Poe related comments).
I raced through this book in just two days. It's a real page-turner. It's fun, it's violent. There's a desk possessed by an evil ghost that kills anyone who gets in its way. What more do you want?
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