The Pink Room [Paperback]

Mark LaFlamme (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 22, 2005

The world's leading physicist attempts to use string theory to bring his daughter back from the dead. A novel from award winning Maine journalist Mark LaFlamme.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

The Pink Room is a place where lost loves come home. And you can't send them back.

From the Inside Flap

There. From a distance. Soft and faint like rain on the roof, a melody floated down from above. Notes that jabbed the air like probing fingers. A sound like fairies dancing in an acid dream.

Fur Elise.

For Cain, it was like stumbling into some terrible scene he might have written himself. His entire body went cold. He felt a pounding in his temples as the adrenaline of fright fueled his pulse. He was aware of a full bladder and had to concentrate to contain it.

He fumbled with the sleeping bag zipper and squirmed out of it as though it were full of spiders. He knelt on the hard floor and strained to listen. Still the music played, the quick melody losing energy but still recognizable. Fur Elise from the snow globe, floating down from the very top of the turret. Beautiful, terrible music from the pink room.

It wound down. I heard it wind down. There was not a single note left in those springs and cogs.

He stood and pulled on a pair of jeans. He reached for the flashlight and switched it on. He aimed it at the staircase, terrified at what he might see there. But again, there were no leering faces or crouching ghouls. Only the darkness of the second floor. And above that, the turret from which the haunting melody continued to play.

I can’t go up there. I think I’m physically incapable of climbing those stairs.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc. (November 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591138531
• ISBN-13: 978-1591138532
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #635,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark LaFlamme is a crime reporter and columnist at the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine. His weekly column Street Talk has been named both Best in Maine and Best in New England. In 2006, LaFlamme was named Journalist of the Year by the Maine Press Association.

He is the author of the novels "Delirium Tremens," "The Pink Room, "Vegetation," "Asterisk: Red Sox 2089," and "Dirt: An American Campaign," as well as the short story collection "Box of Lies."

Mark stays up until dawn, sleeps until noon and takes the week of Halloween off each year. He rides a dual sport motorcycle named El Mechon and whines constantly when there's snow on the ground.

Learn more at www.marklaflamme.com
Find Mark on Facebook at facebook.com/marklaflamme1
Or at Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/891271.Mark_Laflamme/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific new author, January 24, 2006

By 

Holly Rahmlow "hollytrr" (Lewiston, ME) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pink Room (Paperback)

I generally don't read horror, but I work with this author and really wanted to see if his book was as good as his newspaper columns. So I lit every light in the room (on a sunny day) and dove in. I was expecting something unusual from a guy who has his desk decorated for Halloween 365 days a year, and I got it. Wonderfully written and way too real for this scaredy cat. Eeek!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bobbie (Colorado), July 20, 2006

By 

Roberta J. Roberts (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pink Room (Paperback)

When I received this book, I immediately sat down to begin reading it. Part of the rush was that my daughter was waiting with bated breath to read it as well, the second part of the rush was that I had heard so much about the book that all else had to be put on hold until I finished The Pink Room.

The Pink Room lived up to all the hype that I had heard from various people about how good it was, what a page turner it was, etc. I live in an older house and as I sat down to read The Pink Room, the house decided to settle in ways that it had never done before-or since. I kept looking over my shoulder as I turned each page and even my pets (1 dog, 3 cats) were eerily quiet that day-maybe they were afraid that they would be included in Mark's next book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the horror genre. The ending was a surprise, but fit in well with the story. For anyone that is interested, Mark has a new e-book out, Red Sox 2086. It's available for download from Mark's website, www.marklaflamme.com and worth the cost of the download.

I'm anxiously awaiting Mark's next book. I know that it will be just as good, if not better, than The Pink Room was.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mayra Calvani - Armchair Interviews, October 4, 2006

By 

Mayra Calvani "Multi-genre author and reviewer." (Brussels, Belgium) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pink Room (Paperback)

Do you enjoy a good scary story that weaves elements of science and horror yet stays traditional without too much techno slang? If yes, then this is the book for you. In The Pink Room, talented author Mark LaFlamme takes cosmology, quantum mechanics, and the string theory and mixes them with the supernatural to create a compelling scenario that will both pull at your heart strings and chill your blood.

The story begins as the protagonist, well-known horror author Jonathan Cain, moves for the summer to a mysterious Second-Empire-styled house bordered by woods in the small town of Mulberry, Maine. Though most believe that the author is there to write, Cain has his own hidden agenda.

For a short time, the house used to be the home of the world's top physicist Theodore Currie, who had built it himself following some very detailed and strange specifications, complete with the turret tower--or the `pink room'--which happens to be an exact replica of his little daughter's room before she died. Currie also had a hidden agenda--he believed he could bring back his beloved little girl. That is, until his dead body was found filled with bites in the woods nearby the house...

Now, Cain is sure he can succeed at what Currie failed, and that is to bring his beloved Kimberly back from the dead and make her stay....

The Pink Room is one of those books you won't like to read alone at night. It will make you look over your shoulder and go jumpy. The little town, the dense woods, and especially the house all add to create an excellent atmosphere of darkness and threat. The novel touches the reader intellectually and emotionally, making it all the more terrifying. Though LaFlamme uses the science to add depth, he doesn't let it get in the way of the story with too much heavy vocabulary. The pace is fast, the characters' motivations real, and the suspense doesn't let down. LaFlamme has a real talent for knowing what resides in the mind of the horror author. This novel will be thoroughly enjoyed by fans of the genre, as well as by horror authors themselves. Highly recommended.