Genre: Science Fiction, Adult Fiction, Mystery-Thriller

Pages: 403

Published by Flying Body Press

THE COMPLETE STORY! There are hangovers, there are bad hangovers, and then there’s waking up inside someone else’s head. Thirty-something bartender Charlie Wilkes is faced with this exact dilemma when he wakes to find finds himself trapped inside The Black Room; a space consisting of impenetrable darkness and a huge, ethereal screen floating in its centre. It is through this screen that he sees the world of his female host, Minnie.

How did he get there? What has happened to his life? And how can he exist inside the mind of a troubled, fragile, but beautiful woman with secrets of her own? Uncertain whether he’s even real or if he is just a figment of his host’s imagination, Charlie must enlist Minnie’s help if he is to find a way out of The Black Room, a place where even the light of the screen goes out every time Minnie closes her eyes…

IN THE DARKNESS, THAT’S WHERE I’LL KNOW YOU tells the complete story of THE BLACK ROOM PARTS ONE TO FOUR all in one book, and contains all of the adventures of Charlie and Minnie. All the answers are revealed in a story guaranteed to keep the reader on the edge of their seat.

★★★☆☆

This book was a trip, that’s for sure. I was hooked from the first few pages and wanted to know the reason WHY right away.

The main character, Charlie Wilkes is in the same position we are on the first page. Why are we in this Black Room, why are we taking note of a woman’s body, there are so many bloody questions that begin to pop up off the bat, too.

This is one of those books that I can’t really divulge much because each little nugget is something that is detrimental to the mystery of the book in the first place, all I can say is that it’s mind blowing, perhaps literaly.

Minnie Cooper is the counterpart to Charlie Wilkes and he just so happens to be inhabiting her mind, she is a frazzled individual who seems a touch..out of sorts even as far as someone being inside your brain goes. We soon discover why, too.

As the story progresses things swiftly take a turn into WTFville and it is not at all what I had been expecting, which is great. There were spots where I just found myself flicking through the pages and skimming because it was just a bit of filler and chatter that wasn’t important to the actual plot. At times I felt like it was really a stop and go as far as some of the parts [not really chapters,] went.

The actual story and idea is phenomal, but the execution was a little off for me. It’s difficult to portay an individual who is inside your mind without it becoming dull or limited, but Smitherd did well to make it intriguing, there were just some spots that I felt were rather superfluous. Again, I can’t go into detail because unfortunately any detail is really a spoiler. Ha.

I give it 3 stars just because of those spots where I felt we were reading unneccesary acts, or re-hashing events that truly didn’t need to be there. Still, Smitherd’s work here is just so wonderfully odd… I did enjoy it.

If you’re looking for a quick, mind blowing, science fiction, “what if” read, this is it!