A spoiler free review of Schrader’s Chord (Audio Book) by Scott Leeds.
Have you ever been in an antique shop and felt like half of the objects there were haunted, ever seen a creepy old doll that looks like it might be cursed? There are many items I’ve seen at thrift shops or yard sales that I absolutely would not touch, because cursed objects are the one thing that actually scare me. As a kid I read The Demonologist by Ed and Lorraine Warren, it absolutely terrified me so much so that I had an overwhelming urge to burn the book afterwards. The demon hunting couple may have turned out to be a set of very convincing con artists, yet that is one of the only books that has every truly terrified me, and what a feeling! Anyways, one of the big takeaways from the Warren’s teachings was to be careful with what you bring into your home because certain objects can have demons attached to them: cursed objects.
Schrader’s Chord features four “cursed objects” in the form of vinyl records made in part with the bones of a mad composer desperate to open the door to the land of the dead. Together the records play one cursed chord which does just that, but no-one would be stupid enough to play them, would they?
This paranormal horror begins with a prologue in which the door to the land of the dead is already propped opened and Louis Goodwin is seeing dead people, more specifically his dead wife. Shortly after breaking into the home of his recently deceased client, he finds his dead friend, Raymond Remick, still hanging from the tree where he had offed himself. What do these two men have in common? Oh, just a set of cursed records, that’s all.
We are quickly introduced to Raymond’s son Charlie and his daughters Ellie and Susan, as they learn of their fathers death and make plans to return to the family home. Through the trio we begin to learn about Charlie and Raymonds troubled relationship and other assorted family dramas. The siblings quickly go through the motions of settling their fathers affairs and Charlie inherits a case of records with a note from his late father: “I told you they were real.” Aside from the mysterious records, Charlie, who already has a career in music, inherits his fathers beloved record shop along with two employees Dale and Anna.
After revealing the story behind the records of crazed composer Ivan Schrader, Charlie and Anna convince Ellie and Dale to help them play the records. What follows is, well exactly what you’d expect. Following a brief euphoric state brought on by the mysterious sound, they are cursed to see dead people, and worse Ivan Schrader won’t rest until the four of them are dead. What follows is a race to find out how to appease the insane composer before they meet their untimely ends.
The marketing on this book was well done, because it was all I was seeing on social media for about month prior to the release in September. It did catch my eye and so this was a highly anticipated read for me, and I was not disappointed.
I purchased the audiobook version of Schrader’s chord, and the narration by George Newbern was great. This audiobook was about 12 and half hours long, but was well narrated and engaging so I had no trouble flying through it at 1.4x speed.
The family aspect of this paranormal horror, followed by the curse driven attempts on the character’s lives make this novel a little bit Haunting of Hill House, a little bit Final Destination and it did read like a horror movie for me. While the story starts out with the realm of the dead fully meshed with our own, the eerie and spooky vibes quickly take on more humorous tones throughout Charlie and Annas quest.
Full of music references throughout, this story also takes on themes of loss and grieving as well as messy family dynamics and the often complicated relationships between parents and their adult children.
I really liked the premise of this novel and thought it was a pretty unique one, for a debut novel Scott Leeds is off to a great start in the horror genre. While I didn’t understand every music reference, I really don’t think you need to in order to get the vibe that the author was going for with this Rock n’ Roll horror. Really, I was just happy to go along for the ride and had a lot of fun with this audiobook. Typically, I always prefer to have a physical book in hand, but in this case I would recommend the audiobook for sure.
This was a 4/5 star read for me and I can’t wait to see what this author comes up with next.