Peering into Naomi's Room

In 1991, a short novel of ghostly horror first hit books shelves across the UK... and the book? Naomi’s Room. This well received and deeply admired book was 207 pages of blood-chilling horror from a man who would become a true master of ghostly horror over the next few years. But the author was not really used to this sort of genre at the time. He had previously written thrillers under the name of Daniel Easterman, and it was his wife Beth’s fascination with ghost stories that encouraged him to write this book.

Taken from the blurb: “Charles and Laura are a young, happily married couple inhabiting the privileged world of Cambridge academia. Brimming with excitement, Charles sets off with his daughter Naomi on a Christmas Eve shopping trip to London. But, by the end of the day, all Charles and his wife have left are cups of tea and police sympathy. For Naomi, their beautiful, angelic only child, has disappeared. Days later her murdered body is discovered. But is she dead? In a howling, bumping story of past and present day hell, Jonathan Aycliffe's haunting psychological masterpiece is guaranteed to make you sink to untold depths of teeth-shaking terror.”

Aycliffe write things that some daren’t, he delves into situations and probes and probes, while you are screaming, ‘No! No!’ But at the same time, you cannot stop looking, just as you might look at a car accident on a motorway as you speed past. His stories can leave a nasty taste in your mouth and this is no exception, but it is a taste you cannot stop yourself from swallowing again... and again.

(Paul McAvoy 2014)