A review of “The Room Upstairs” by Iain Rob Wright

Full disclosure – I was provided an advanced reader’s copy of this book by the author but have voluntarily provided a review. All opinions are my own.

An unwelcome visitor

Martin Gable is pretty much your average ten-year-old boy trying to navigate life with a moody older sister, slightly unstable mom and a stepfather who has been more of a father to him than his own. All that changes after a family trip to a local flea market. Shortly after returning home, strange events begin to happen surrounding the appearance of a door on their landing that was never there before. As the bizarre events begin to unfold, Martin and his family are at their wits’ end with how to handle the entity on their landing. They need help, but who can they turn to? When a stranger offers to help Martin and his family, they have no choice to accept, but will the thing in the upstairs room be able to be eradicated before all hell breaks loose?

The Room Upstairs is the newest book by horror author Iain Rob Wright. Continuing to solidify his place as a master of the horror/thriller genre this time, Wright takes a cue from old campy horror films with this new offering where he introduces a mysterious door from nowhere housing a hungry entity that feeds off careless words. The Room Upstairs is part Poltergeist, part X- Files and all gold. Set in the 1990’s we are transported back to a time of Monday Night Raw, landline phones and dial-up internet. In this less connected world Martin and his family struggle with the entity that invaded their home without the benefit of today’s conveniences to assist them. The story starts quickly and continues at a breakneck pace with new developments unfolding so quickly that it was hard to believe that the bulk of the narrative only takes place over the span of a few days. As the story concludes it seems to me that there may be more to Martin Gable’s story than the events in The Room Upstairs. While I can definitely see this as a stand-alone offering, I am still hoping for future sequels or installments in the series to explore how the events that transpired over those few days in 1998 served to influence Martin Gable that was depicted in the epilogue.