This is very much a TV pilot dressed up as a novella, and suffers from wonky pacing and an overreliance on dialogue as a result. But there are still some good ideas in here which kept me engaged.

The dynamics of the main duo was pretty enjoyable and I liked the glimpses we got of Neuland's history. I would have preferred to see more of their relationship together rather than introducing Tilda as the newcomer

who by the end of the story ends up prepared to move across the country to become part of their team, even offerring up her services as their almost secretary/administrator. One of the guys even makes a joke about them being her dads, which is just... like, come on.

The antagonist was almost cartoonishly evil, which I don't have a particular problem with in terms of his attitude towards Tilda and the main duo (people like this actually exist, obviously), but his "plan" was overly simplistic and very much followed that TV pilot format.

The monster was a cool concept and I liked that there were some chapters from it's perspective. The chapters were a little too simple and not very horrific for a horror story (a little bit gross I'll admit, which is something at least).

The last chapter from it's perspective even seems to try and garner sympathy for the monster, bizarrely. I think in an attempt to, again like a TV pilot, hint that there are bigger, badder monsters from the Otherworld the team will face as the series continues. We don't even get to see the thing die properly, almost like the budget couldn't stretch that far so we can only imply it, or the Never Found the Body trope, so the same monster can come back later more dangerous than before in a later season twist.

I feel like I'm overly dunking on this, but mostly I feel this was in the wrong format. If I had seen this same story as a TV pilot for a longer running series, I would have enjoyed it for what it was setting up and been intrigued enough to see where the actual story of the season went. But I also would have loved it more as a standardly formatted novel with more time put into the relationship of Ford and Neuland and more description and action into the Pale House and fighting the Devil within it. If/when we get another entry in this series, I'll revisit if I want to continue.

Also, I was quite disappointed to find multiple errors in the text. For it to be so noticeable in just over 100 pages, that's just not on, Titan Books.