I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own. 

A woman must contend with family secrets and a haunted home in author Daniel Pretorio’s “Tenebrous”, the first book in the Belcorte Horror series.

The Synopsis

Some houses were built to imprison, not to shelter.

When twenty-six-year-old Jillian Duport returns to her grandparents’ Second Empire Victorian in rural Pennsylvania, she tells herself she’s simply reclaiming her inheritance. But the house on the ridge—with its disconnected turrets, locked third-floor rooms, and a reading loft suspended between stories—has other plans.

Jillian is no stranger to horror. She survived the Indianhead River Killer, who carved a triangle into her cheek. She endured a mother whose rage could shatter a piano and a grandmother whose love always came with conditions. Diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, Jillian hires an investigator to track down the psychiatrist who fled town in 1981—the man who might finally clear her infamous grandfather’s name. She also tells herself she’s come home for reasons that have nothing to do with Ben Callahan, the man from Philadelphia who loves her anyway. She’s wrong about that too.

When the investigator vanishes, Jillian begins receiving strange calls from someone claiming to be the missing psychiatrist. She knows she’s stirred something ancient. Soon a figure with bronze teeth appears in the shadows, leaving messages about dead miners and an unexplained pestilence.

he house has been waiting for her to come home.

Tenebrous is a literary descent into generational guilt where the greatest horror may not be the monster in the attic, but the one who built the house and called it love.

THE REVIEW

This was such a rich and compelling mystery-thriller meets haunted house, supernatural suspense read. The author immediately creates a unique narrative that instills a sense of dread, as the house itself seems to come to life, as if an invisible presence lingers around every corner, hungry and waiting for the reader to turn the corner. The rich imagery and the author’s writing style bring the story to life on the page, adding depth to its atmospheric nature, as does its unique setting: a dark, haunting Victorian home.

While the horror and supernatural elements are a great hook for the story, it is the thriller’s psychological aspects that really speak to audiences. Not only does the story delve into the protagonist’s personal struggles between their own mental health and the trauma from their complex family life, but it holds on to a deeper theme of generational guilt, the lies people tell themselves about their own families, and the often negative ways people define themselves by their families.

THE VERDICT

Haunting, enthralling, and unsettling in the best way, Author Daniel Pretoria’s “Tenebrous” is a must-read Gothic horror, psychological thriller novel. The twists and turns the story takes, and the way grief and family trauma are represented in this novel, add emotional depth to a chilling narrative that is heavy with atmosphere and draws the reader in instantly. If you haven’t yet, please be sure to grab your copy today!

Rating: 10/10

About the Author

Daniel Pretorio is a pseudonym. He writes dark literary fiction in the gothic tradition—psychological, romantic—with recurring themes of identity, mental illness, and cosmic dread. He lives in the United States.

His love of horror cinema began in childhood, when he watched Blood and Black Lace, A Bell from Hell, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? That formative diet of cinematic dread has stayed with him—the 1970s in particular, though no era has escaped his attention.

He lives with his family and two cats, neither of whom is named Poe, though both may be conspiring to brick him into his basement.

https://www.danielpretoriobooks.com

https://www.instagram.com/danielpretorio