Guest writer Nmesoma Okechukwu delves into Simone St. James’ A Box Full of Darkness!
Before I start off on this, I’d like to note that I discovered A Box Full of Darkness on a site that recommended the ten best horror and psychological thrillers of 2026. So far, of course. Something about the book immediately stood out to me. Maybe it was the little description that says that a long dead little brother has called his siblings home, after so many years of said siblings running away from the property. Or maybe there’s something about long buried secrets being reopened that’s completely enticing. I’d just finished binging Steve Cavanagh’s FIFTY FIFTY, and I was itching to delve into another world that’d keep me on my toes. A haunted house seemed like just the thing that could do it.
Here’s the synopsis to get you a little bit up to speed: “Siblings return to the house they fled eighteen years before, called back by the ghost of their long-missing brother and his haunting request to come home. Strange things happen in Fell, New York: A mysterious drowning at the town’s roadside motel. The unexplained death of a young girl whose body is left by the railroad tracks. For Violet, Vail, and Dodie Esmie the final straw was their little brother’s shocking disappearance, which started as a normal game of hide-and-seek. As their parents grew increasingly distant, the sisters were each haunted by visions and frightening events, leading them to leave town and never look back. Violet still sees dead people – spirits who remind her of Sister, the menacing presence that terrorized her for years. Now after nearly two decades it’s time for a homecoming – because Ben is back, and he’s ready to lead them to the answers they’ve longed for and long feared.”
But let me tell you, first chapter in and I was already questioning everything I thought I should expect going into Simone St. James’ latest offering. Not that I’d read any other work by the author. Though for me, one of the sweetest parts of being a reader is discovering new authors to love. Written in the first person and following the three Esmie siblings, we get glimpses into a world of ghosts, unexplained happenings, and maybe even UFOs? Yeah, I’m not kidding. The story was burning rubber right off the bat. The first sentence you read in the book goes, “When I wake in the middle of the night, I don’t always see darkness.” They say first impressions matter, and this book did just that.
However, a little further in, it started to feel a bit too fast-paced. Like more information was springing out before you’ve even had the chance to digest the previous one. To balance it out, I guess the author’s writing style kind of makes it so easy to get into the story. A few more POVs in and I was starting to get into the groove of it. It no longer felt fast-paced, but for some reason, with every chapter I read, it felt like I was leaning in closer and closer to the abyss, straining to see what lay inside. Is it something supernatural? Is it something literally out of this world? Are we dealing with ghosts or probing aliens, or both? These questions ran in concentric circles around my head. I genuinely can’t remember the last time a book made me feel nostalgic, curious, and confused all at once. It had that coming-of-age feel, with just enough sidelining to put Dean Koontz’s Strangers to shame.
Violet, Vail and Dodie Esmie’s hometown Fell seems just like the place where bad things happen for the sake of happening. There are no mysteries behind it. No profound stories to thrill you. That is, if you forget about that one little Esmie brother who went missing during a simple game of hide-and-seek. At the age of six, Ben Esmie diappeared completely, without a footprint in the snow, without a single clue as to where he might have gone. What we do know is that a body was never discovered, and now he’s in the house again, and he wants his siblings to come home.
If there was something that bugged me with the story, it was their obsession with this long-lost brother. Their need to “find” him somehow trumped every other human desire, much to the extent that they were willing to do any unspeakable thing for it. I also found myself feeling some anger towards the way the characters, most especially Violet, seemed to expect the world to stand still for them, just because their brother disappeared 20 years ago and now they’re back to find him. To be honest, there’s not much to love about any of the characters, but if this was that kind of story, I’d probably haved DNFed it like so many chapters ago.
The beauty of the book, therefore, lay not in the likability of its characters, but in the ever-pulling, ever-encompasing writing style. In short, the plot is the selling point, and it leads you on as by a noose, while dangling a big juicy package just slightly out of reach.
I’m naturally someone who loves to predict something about a story even as I am reading it, but to try and figure out what I think may be happening in A Box Full of Darkness, I had to come up with dozens of theories. It wasn’t until way after the midpoint of the story that I started getting more answers than questions.
For me, A Box Full of Darkness is not necessarily horror in the truest sense of the word – I scare easily and it didn’t quite do that for me – but even at that, it still had its charms. One thing I noticed is that it tended to suck the joy out of me even as it filled me with myriad questions. I recommend it for readers who love fast-paced stories, are into small town secrets, and/or are generally looking for the type of mysteries that sink their teeth in and don’t let up.
Meet Nmesoma!
Nmesoma Okechukwu developed a strong love for words at a young age. This passion soon turned into an obsession that led to a career in journalism. These days, you can find her writing entertainment articles, lifestyle blogs and cultural essays, playing volleyball, or trying to convince anyone willing to listen why they should buy her debut sci-fi book, ‘Cybernetics Within Us.‘
Nmeso’s light burns the brightest when she’s impacting knowledge and joy to others, and this drive has helped her to both hone and sharpen her writing craft. Her works have appeared in a vast number of publications, including Tom’s Guide and The New Black Film Collective.
You can check out Nmesoma’s book at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WWK33QZ and follow her online at x.com/nmeso4dworld.
