‘Audrey’s Door’ an entertaining ghost story

  Architect Audrey Lucas needs to find a new place to live after breaking up with her fiance, Saraub.
  She thinks she’s in heaven when she comes across an affordable apartment in a building in Manhattan. The Breviary is the last of its kind — the only surviving example of 1880s Chaotic Naturalism architecture.
  The building dazzles Audrey, but she soon finds out that something is off about her new home. She begins having nightmares, her neighbors are creepy and she begins building a door while deep asleep.
  Audrey, who has a family history of psychosis, is troubled by her nighttime construction. And the fact that the apartment’s former tenant drowned her children and slit her wrists doesn’t ease the 32-year-old’s mind.
  Though her obsessive compulsive disorder compounds her disturbing living situation, Audrey is determined to succeed — with her career and just maybe with her ex-fiance as well.
  Audrey struggles to keep herself together, but things worsen and she no longer can ignore that something evil has ahold of her. She tries to resist but is compelled to build the door, one she knows will cost her dearly if opened.
  “Audrey’s Door” by Sarah Langan is reminiscent of Steven King’s “The Shining,” but Langan weaves story lines of love and family to make this novel all her own. Audrey’s relationship with her mentally ill mother and the on-again off-again romance with her fiance make this horror novel more than just another King knockoff.
  Langan employs trippy scenes starring the freak show neighbors to ratchet up the tension while at the same time using flashbacks to explore Audrey’s past, flaws and growth.
  And the relationship between Audrey and Saraub adds a twist of romance — though not too much don’t worry — to broaden this novel’s appeal. “Audrey's Door” entertains and will no doubt lead more readers to Sarah Langan.