Samuel DenHartog's Blog: The Road to 1,440 - Posts Tagged "psychological"

Hello, my fellow thrill-seekers and lovers of the macabre!

Today, we are going to plunge into my new psychological horror novel, Twenty-One Nightmares. Prepare to descend into a world where the line between reality and terror is as thin as a shadow in the moonlight.

"Twenty-One Nightmares" invites you to step into the shoes of Alicia, a woman plagued by a series of harrowing dreams. Each chapter unfolds a new nightmare, more disturbing and gripping than the last. From the depths of a drowning city to the twisted corridors of an endless maze, Alicia's sleep is a canvas for horrors that blur the boundaries of her reality. It's a story that weaves a rich tapestry of suspense, emotion, and introspection.

This is not just a collection of nightmares; it's an exploration of the psyche, a journey through the darkest corners of the human mind. Alicia's dreams are more than figments of imagination; they manifest her deepest fears and unresolved traumas. As the line between her nightmares and waking life becomes increasingly blurred, we are left to wonder: what is the root of these terrors? You'll find yourself not just fearing for Alicia but also empathizing with her, understanding that sometimes our nightmares reveal more about us than our waking life.

So, brace yourselves for a journey bound to unsettle and fascinate in equal measure. Twenty-One Nightmares promises to be an immersive experience, a reminder that sometimes the scariest monsters lurk within the recesses of our own minds.

Here's to the things that go bump in the night!
Samuel DenHartog

Greetings, thrill-seekers and lovers of the macabre!

With my latest novel, "Silk Bindings", I'm venturing beyond the boundaries of the known and into the tangled thicket of the human mind. It's a departure from my previous work, and I'm thrilled (and a touch unnerved) to invite you into a world where the line between reality and nightmare frays like a cobweb in a storm.

"Silk Bindings" is not for the faint of heart. It follows celebrated novelist Jonathan Rivers to a secluded cabin deep in the forest, where the silence whispers ancient secrets and shadows move with a life of their own. It's here, amid the oppressive embrace of the woods, that Jonathan's quest for peace becomes a struggle for his soul. A peculiar spider with a story to tell chooses him as its scribe, and what starts as a trickle of words soon becomes a torrent of terror.

Join me in the dim glow of the cabin's lantern, where the scratch of pen on paper echoes like footsteps on old floorboards. Together, we'll explore the darkest corners of imagination and perhaps discover that the most frightening monsters are the ones that lurk within us all.

Until the last page turns,
Samuel DenHartog

"Wrenford’s Seventh Wing" is a novel set on a cliff above the North Sea where a discreet clinic promises rest and order. The promise holds until a brass plaque begins to point toward a corridor that should not fit the floor plan. Rain changes the building in ways that are small at first, like the scent of camphor in dry weather or a nurse using a childhood nickname unprompted. The staff is impeccable, the rooms are polished, and none of that stops the feeling that the hospital knows more about its patients than it should.

The heart of the story is Elinor, who tracks reality the way an art historian tracks provenance. She keeps an index of sights, smells, and times, trying to separate symptom from fact while the place rearranges itself around storms. Wheelchairs arrive at beds without hands on the grips, ledgers record names that fade to pale imprints, and the year 1913 keeps glinting through polite modern routines. The question is not only what is happening, but what the hospital wants from her and which version of her it prefers to keep.

You will find curatorial horror rather than splatter. The clinic collects and arranges rather than simply restrains. Hints of an older medical theater appear when lightning climbs the sky, and the building seems to file the living beside artifacts it describes with elegant handwriting. I wanted the dread to arrive through ordinary details that accumulate until denial no longer stands, so the novel leans on clocks that repeat a minute, curtains that stay damp, and documents that change when no one is looking.

At its core the book is about control, memory, and the price of choosing who we are. Elinor’s intelligence is her lantern, yet even a clear mind must decide what to keep and what to let go when a place insists on writing your label for you. The sea breathes below the windows, the storms keep their schedule, and the nurse still hums the skipping rhyme that children once used to find safe doors. I hope the story leaves you with a steady pulse, a few questions, and a sense that some corridors only open for those who are willing to look.