Book Case #25 – Parasylum

Book and Author Details:
Robbie Thomas
Parasylum on Facebook
Parasylum on GoodReads
Parasylum on Amazon

My Review:

Every paranormal team has that ‘dream’ location. Every paranormal team has their ‘baby’, the one place that they managed to conquer permission to traipse around and investigate the claims of paranormal activity.  The team in this book, “Parasylum” by Robbie Thomas, has done just that; Grandview Mental Asylum.

This book is fantastic! It’s an eerie, bumpy ride through the eyes of different team members. This is a must read book for anyone interested in paranormal investigations, ghost hunts, and haunted locations. Grandview is much like any other mental asylum that has been abandoned. The stories the walls hold are more than just mistreatment of patients, they hold something more sinister.

Parasylum begins with a premonition and ends with a supernatural reality. We are taken on a bizarre trip with the team, starting from the moment they leave their house. We are introduced to the interpersonal relationships between various team members, and it very much echoes real life paranormal teams; tension, humor, but above all, camaraderie.

Roadside carnivals.
Spooky Fortune Teller.
Weird, creepy “people” with a warning for the team.

This book is Ghost Hunters meets Death Tunnel.

 There were quite a few moments in this book where I could not turn the virtual page fast enough, where I chewed off all the nails on my left hand (why just the left? :: shrug ::) This has the great makings of a movie, one that I definitely would watch, and review too.
This book, this gem of a book, is part one. The author, Robbie Thomas, has made it into a trilogy. Book II, “Parasylum II: The Unleashed“, which was released earlier this year and Book III to be announced 2014. I know I will be reading the other two in the trilogy. Great author, GREAT STORY, and even better story topic! I LOVED THIS BOOK.

Negatives:
There weren’t many, actually. Only ones that come to mind were the dialogue/interplay between some of the characters in the book. At points it didn’t seem to flow and seemed forced, like space filler.

I would love to more of the history of Grandview, as to what made it that evil. What kinds of things took place. What kind of “patients” were brought there. Was it always a mental asylum? Was it ever used for anything else? I’m a history buff, so background always makes a more intriguing novel for me.

Description from Author:

A team of inexperienced paranormal investigators find themselves involved in the deepest darkest recesses of the unknown when they enter into Grandview’s Asylum. The souls of yesteryear seek revenge on whomever enter into the abyss of no return. The horrors are plenty with many twists and turns and an ending that will keep you shaking your head. Enter into the mindscape where a dream turns into a nightmare and the nightmare is your reality.

The mind is a complex yet simple frame to be in. We travel many different corridors to understanding, which at some point we become enlightened to what it is that plagues us. Enter the mindscape that transforms dreams into nightmares and nightmares into reality. The way we perceive life is only a perception with some, who share in the illusion of disillusionment. We create the path in which we walk, yet the trail upon which one steps could very well be a story that is never ending. Welcome to Parasylum, where what may seem impossible is possible and what might seem sinister is just plain evil!

Anchored in the subjective mindset, he relinquishes his will to the inevitable. Everything seems to be of a set memory, glimpses from the past, forged into the now, leaving only the permeated sense of nothingness. Hung like a ragdoll in abject misery, the echoes of many shake the very foundation upon which the hallowed grounds cry. He closes his eyes, only to recount once more, everything over, and over again. There’s no escaping this torture from within, welcome to your Nightmare!