Book Review-Until the Sun Rises-Channing Whitaker

Talk about a psychological thriller which will keep the goosebumps raised on your body--and shivers going up and down your spine! A live TV event is going to be held at a mansion which is supposedly haunted by 5 contestants--they have to stay in Drake mansion until the sun rises the next day in order to share in a very large prize, a million dollars. But is it really haunted as the locals believe or is something else causing the apparitions and sounds emanating from the mansion?

Some pretty strange occurrences happen to several of the contestants as they roam the various rooms on each floor. One of the contestants finds a journal, written by the head of the family, which he proceeds to read to us--but not all at once--which gives the back story of the missing family and the magician.

By the end of this novel--which goes faster and faster as you turn each page--you will not be able to put it down--the ending--well--gulp!!


About the Book: (from Amazon)

Eighty years ago, a wealthy Midwest family returned home from a magic show, after which neither they, nor the magician, Malvern Kamrar, were ever heard from again. When several bystanders died in their mansion, the house was sealed. After nearly a century of rumors and haunted stories, for a live TV event the mansion will be opened, allowing five contestants to spend one night and win their share of a million dollars. The contestants: a psychic, a high-tech ghost hunter, a Hollywood scream queen, a local woman, and a skeptic, fuel excitement as each tries to solve the mystery. Upon entering, the journal of the family patriarch, Vinton Drake, is discovered, illuminating the mystery, rooted all the way back to Vinton’s service as a medic in WWI, when he first met the magician. Departing from the familiar haunted house tale, this story explores the very nature of belief in the supernatural, with consequences more frightening than any ghost story. Intensity sours when the contestants discover their lives, and thousands more, are in genuine peril. Is the mansion haunted? What fate befell Malvern and the Drake family? And will the contestants uncover the truth in time to save themselves?


Read a chapter or two here

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About the Author: (from Amazon)

Channing Whitaker is a novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker originally hailing from Centerville, Iowa. An alum of Indian Hills Community College, Channing went on to study cinema, screenwriting, literature, and mathematics at the University of Iowa.

Post graduation, Channing began his career in the production of television news, independent films, and commercial videos, as well as to write for websites, corporate media, and advertising. His 10-year career in writing has taken Channing from Iowa, to Alaska, Oklahoma, and currently to Texas.

Channing has written five feature-length screenplays, co-written another feature screenplay, and penned a novel. In that time, Channing has also written and directed over 50 short films.
The April 2015 publication of Channing's debut novel, “Until the Sun Rises – One Night in Drake Mansion,” comes in tandem with the first production of one of Channing’s feature screenplays, “KILD TV” - a horror/mystery. “KILD TV” released in March 2016.

Channing is a fan of many media forms and genres. He considers himself a storyteller foremost, and works in multiple media and genres himself. He regards Trevanian (known best for his divergent spy novels) as his favorite author and an inspiration for his writing career. He also credits his father, a retired psychology professor, with heavily influencing his approach to the deep, conflicted, and multifaceted characters that drive his stories. Other artistic influences for Channing include auteur directors Jim Jarmusch and Robert Altman.

Channing is among a small subset of writers who are also dyslexic. He considers learning to overcome the challenges of this diagnosis, amid a career in writing, to have aided him in persevering amid the rejection-filled, uncertain, and competitive fields of writing and screenwriting.

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