Welcome to my MTMC Tours stop for Horror Hotel by Victoria Fulton & Faith McClaren!
This was a quick and fun read and I couldn’t put it down 👀👌🏻 I’ve recently been getting into more horror books lately, so I was excited for this one. It’s bite-sized and fast-paced, set over the course of a single night. It’s not super graphic, but has a bit of blood-splattering around, so it feels like a nice light entrance into horror if you haven’t read much before.
The story is narrated by Chrissy, Chase, Emma and Kikki who are desperate for a really good ghost story for their YouTube channel. They want to hit that 1 million subscribers and boost themselves to Youtube Stardom. And quite honestly their channel has something very special about it — Chrissy is a real and legit psychic. She can see dead people, she can talk to ghosts, she knows things no one else could know. The Ghost Gang truly has one foot in the paranormal world, and they’re confident this trip to the Horror Hotel will bring the Creeptastic content they need.
But I mean 😂 everything of course goes wrong.
Cue creepy hotel shenanigans, weird owners who are SO hiding something, odd guests, serial killer legends, freaky elevators and haunted rooms. It has all the fun, campy tropes and the teens quickly become trapped in a murder mystery they did not anticipate.
It also has a big theme about friendship and being there for your friends. Not to mention a bit of romance 👀👌🏻 Chase and Chrissy have a bit of best-friends-won’t-admit-their-feelings thing going on. And Kikki and Emma are hesitant to talk about their feelings too. Nothing like a hair-raising, death-defying night in a horrifying hotel with blood splattered on the walls to make you talk to your crush!!!
Nothing is what it seems and there’s a mystery to unravel…before it’s too late and the horrors of the past quickly become the horrors of right now.
And head over to my instagram page for the INTL giveaway.
Title: Horror Hotel
Author: Victoria Fulton & Faith McClaren
Publication Date: February 1st, 2022
Genres: YA Horror
Purchase a copy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Blackwell’s | Book Depository | Indiebound
Add on Goodreads
This addictive YA horror about a group of teen ghost hunters who spend the night in a haunted LA hotel is The Blair Witch Project for the TikTok generation.
When the YouTube-famous Ghost Gang—Chrissy, Chase, Emma, and Kiki—visit a haunted LA hotel notorious for tragedy to secretly film after dark, they expect it to be just like their previous paranormal huntings. Spooky enough to attract subscribers—and ultimately harmless.
But when they stumble upon something unexpected in the former room of a gruesome serial killer, they quickly realize that they’re in over their heads.
Sometimes, it’s the dead who need our help—and the living we should fear.
@cgdrews Thanks @mtmctours & @Get Underlined 👻 my review is up on my blog! #horrorhotelbook #horrorhotel #books #getunderlined #horrorbooks #yabooks #booktok #booktiktok #bookstan #books ♬ HORROR MOVIES – Neoni
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Together with her bestie Victoria Fulton, FAITH MCCLAREN is the co-author of the young adult psychological thriller HORROR HOTEL. Victoria and Faith also co-authored the international Wattpad phenomenon and 2018 Watty award-winning rom-com ELLIE IS COOL NOW. Originally from Texas, Faith now lives in Los Angeles with her guitar-making husband, Pokemon-loving son, and two scruffy dogs. When she isn’t listening to BTS or watching K-dramas, Faith writes contemporary romance novels and volunteers with wolves in a sanctuary outside Los Angeles. Twitter | Instagram
Together with her bestie Faith McClaren, VICTORIA FULTON is the co-author of the young adult psychological thriller HORROR HOTEL. Victoria and Faith also co-authored the international Wattpad phenomenon and 2018 Watty award-winning rom-com ELLIE IS COOL NOW. Originally from Ohio (where she graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton), Victoria now lives in Los Angeles with her fiancé and their two cat children. When she’s not writing about smooching or serial killers, she’s co-running a PR agency with her other bestie and endlessly scrolling videos on TikTok. Twitter | Instagram
Hi Victoria and Faith! Thanks so much for chatting with me today 🤗 Tell us about your publishing journey and how Horror Hotel went from first idea to finished novel on our shelves!
We’ve both been writing for years — we met in a young adult/middle grade online writing workshop, but a few years ago we decided we were both fed up with writing in a vacuum, so on a half-whim, we wrote a chapter of an adult romcom and plopped it onto Wattpad. That book ended up with a sizable readership, and had its own wild ride to publication with Forever of Hachette Book Group next year. But it also helped us find our incredible agent, Katie Shea Boutillier, who guided us through the process of submitting a book on proposal to Underlined.
When we saw Wendy Loggia’s call for submissions on Twitter, we decided to go for it. We sent the tweet to our agent, and she agreed to help us pursue the opportunity – as long as we could pull together a solid pitch. We knew there would be a ton of authors interested, and most submissions would be romance, so we decided to go with horror (since we both also love the genre).
We spent two hours going back and forth until we got to the idea. We sent the idea for what would eventually become HORROR HOTEL over to our agent and she loved it. For the next four days, we hashed out the 11-page proposal and 42 pages of the book. We even pulled an all-nighter the night before we promised to send it to our agent. Katie read it, loved it, and sent the pitch to Wendy and Alison Romig (our editor) the next day. A week later we got the offer (cue confetti).
That is such an exciting origin story for you both!! Favourite thing about writing horror?
Our favorite part of writing horror is creeping ourselves out as we write. Landing on the thing that makes your hair stand up on your arms or your heart race when you walk into a room with the light turned off. You know you’ve got it right when you can induce that feeling in yourself as you’re writing it.
Can attest to the fact you got it right 😂👌🏻 So many creepy moments. Can you briefly introduce us to Chrissy, Chase, Emma, and Kiki?
The Ghost Gang is a group of four best friends on a quest to find out the truth behind famous haunted locations and have a blast doing it. We have Chase, the subscriber-obsessed (almost to a fault) media mogul in the making, Emma, the science-brained skeptic with a sarcastic wit, Kiki, a flamboyant TikTok influencer scared of her own shadow, and Chrissy, the psychic who sees the dead and knows the truth about the living (who is also the star of the show).
Can you tell us a bit about your co-writing process? What does it look like and what’s your favourite thing about co-writing?
We have a blast! We have different strengths that complement each other so well. Faith loves to draft and flesh out characters and setting, while Victoria loves to write dialogue, massage scenes and add layers and humor. We love to have our hands on every scene, including brainstorming, drafting, editing and idea creation. Our favorite thing about co-writing is that it creates a mini writers’ room where you get to collaborate, bounce ideas off each other and solve story problems with your BFF.
Any horror film recommendations for us?
Faith: I really loved Malignant, which stars Florence Pugh, and is about a creepy house and a girl who doesn’t believe she’s truly psychic. I also really dig anything Ari Aster directs, loved the Fear Street trilogy, and will never get tired of watching Scream.
Victoria: My favorite horror film of all time is Silence of the Lambs, and I also love Paranormal Activity and actually voted for the first film to come to my hometown when it was still a very small indie flick. It’s also worth mentioning my favorite true crime show (besides the obvious Dateline) – See No Evil is a terrifying show about crimes solved using footage from surveillance cameras.
And lastly! What are some of the best author moments you’ve had so far?
Definitely seeing our book on the shelves in a bookstore! On launch day we took a drive around LA and signed in-store copies, and seeing the autograph sticker on the front made us feel like celebs.
Thanks so much for chatting with me today, Victoria & Faith, and congrats on your release! We’re excited for whatever you write next!!
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I’m really excited for this one, the synopsis and cover sound awesome!
Definitely a fun read!