I’m the first to admit that while I am a connoisseur of young adult horror fiction, I don’t read much in the way of adult horror. I’m a wee babe when it comes to scary things, and I know my many limits. Yet when it comes to Indigenous horror, I nearly always jump at the chance to read it. Stephen Graham Jones, Shane Hawk, and Nick Media always knock it out of the park, and Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris was one of my favorite books of 2023. So it should be no surprise that when I heard about Erika T. Wurth’s new novel The Haunting of Room 904 I was excited to cover it.
The story begins simply enough. Olivia Becente gave up an impressive career as a professor and academic to become a paranormal investigator. She and her best friend Alejandro run a business in Denver, Colorado where they help people dealing with a ghost infestation. Sometimes they even buy “haunted” objects off eBay to release the spirits trapped within. An innocuous job for a white woman sets off a string of connected events. The spirits of those slaughtered by US troops in the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864—where 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho, mostly women, children, and the elderly, were cut down and their bodies desecrated—seek revenge and justice, and Olivia is the perfect person to help with that. She has no tribal affiliation, but her ancestry (she’s of Apache, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Latinx, and Irish heritage) connects her to these spirits.
Once she makes contact with one of the spirits, the story twists into more of a murder mystery. A few years prior, her sister, Naiche, died in room 904 of the Brown Palace, a notorious Denver hotel. Whatever drove Naiche to her death is now after Olivia’s mother. But she can’t focus on Naiche when Josh, Olivia’s obsessive ex, keeps stalking her and threatening Alejandro. Jenny, a Fox News-style op-ed writer with a grudge against Olivia, spends her time making Olivia’s life worse by writing hit pieces on her to rile up Denverites against her. And then there’s Dorian, the sexy new addition to her friend group who is connected with a spirit trapped in room 904. The story twists again as all these threads are woven together. She only has a few weeks to untangle this mess and save her mother.
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The Haunting of Room 904
The Haunting of Room 904 is overly complicated while also relying on a narrator who is frustratingly oblivious. It takes Olivia a ludicrous amount of time to figure out what’s going on, largely because she never thinks to ask some pretty basic questions. There are half a dozen subplots going on, all of which are fairly straightforward in terms of resolving them, but instead of dealing with them Olivia just moves onto the next one. These subplots are connected together in ways that don’t hold up well upon reflection, and the final reveal doesn’t have the punch it needed. Because Wurth jumps around so much, we get shallow touches on deeper themes. Mental illness, addiction, suicide, the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis, mythologizing American history, xenophobia, anti-Native racism, slavery, the patriarchy, misogyny, and blood quantum are all referenced without much exploration.
Even if the structure didn’t work as well for me as I wanted, the rest of the elements Wurth added to that structure made this an overall enjoyable read. If you want a book about queer people in horror situations, here you go. One of the main ghosts Olivia deals with is a Two-Spirit medicine person, and Wurth gives us several chapters from their historical perspective. The modern-day cast is wonderfully diverse as well. This is one of those friend groups where nearly everyone is queer in different ways. There’s a love triangle between two women and the husband of one of those women. Alejo is gay while also in what amounts to a queerplatonic relationship with Olivia, who often felt aromantic to me (I’m ace/aro).
The Indigenous history was also incredibly impactful. I didn’t know much about the Sand Creek Massacre or the history of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people—I’m from California and mostly know about local Indigenous history, such as the 1824 Chumash revolt and the Bloody Island Massacre of 1850. Wurth provides a strong rebuttal to Manifest Destiny with this novel. Various Indigenous practices from around the world pop up in Olivia’s ceremonies, but they never feel like cultural appropriation. Olivia treats these practices just like she does the spirits she releases, with respect and compassion.
Erika T. Wurth’s The Haunting of Room 904 had the feel of a TV show. I can picture this being stretched out to a whole season of a broadcast show about a ghost hunter and her gaggle of queer friends, and I’d be seated for every episode. It’s a fun if messy ride that has just enough horror to keep fans engaged while also appealing to readers who like their thrills and chills on the lighter side.
The Haunting of Room 904 is published by Flatiron Books.
Read an excerpt.
