Behind the Outside by Milan Jaker
Humans have always been fascinated by the macabre; just look at the popularity of authors like Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe.
If that is the vein of literature you find yourself drawn to, then look no further than Milan Jaker’s debut novel, Behind the Outside (Barnes & Noble Press). It’s the kind of horror story that relies on both vividly frightening imagery and complex plot to leave readers shocked and begging for more.
All Ye Who Enter Here
High school freshman Danny and his friends, Ed, Malte and Mark, are unenthusiastic about going on a week-long school excursion to the old ruins of the Villa Ravan — a supposedly haunted, castle-like manor surrounded by an impenetrable forest.
Creepy things start to happen before they even arrive; on the bus ride into town, all the students experience fearsome visions due to a supposed airborne hallucinogen. And things only grow more sinister from there.
Once at the villa, Danny and the other students begin to see living copies of themselves and their friends. From the ominous figure that creeps into one student’s bed to the bathroom reflection that moves on its own, these demon reflections continue to haunt and terrify around every corner.
Meanwhile, back home, Danny’s adopted brother Tim keeps finding these eerie pictures plastered on his bedroom wall with no recollection of drawing them. Is it just simple memory loss or a split personality as a side effect from his accident years ago, or is something much more sinister at work?
Horrors Mount and the Plot Twists
Back at Villa Ravan, Danny and his friends slowly start to piece together that something isn’t right, but they’re willing to put their fears aside until the unthinkable happens. On a class hike through the woods, Danny, Ed, Malte and Mark are separated from the group when one of the demon copies attacks, leaving behind a horrifying crime scene.
Officer Nelson comes to investigate, and with a past connected to this very manor, Nelson promises to find answers … but will he become just another victim for these reflections?
Even after a gruesome murder, the class teacher refuses to leave, and the boys become desperate. They make drastic moves in their search for answers, and things only continue to grow more perilous until the climactic ending. Expect the unexpected in this intricate plot, and an ending that will leave you slack-jawed.
Illustrations That Will Haunt the Mind’s Eye
Jaker paints a truly gruesome portrait in Behind the Outside, the perfect combination of gore and suspense that will terrify readers. You might find yourself needing to put the book down after a few exceptionally tortuous moments.
Intense imagery brings these scenes to life in a horrifying way. The eerie ambiance is furthered by Jaker’s interspersion of unnerving, ghostly sketches. Ominous shadows, blood-soaked faces and gaping maws jump off these pages. Behind the Outside reads like a classic ghost story that makes readers jump out of their skin. If you enjoy high-stakes tension and imagery that will keep you up at night, then you won’t want to miss this book.
Milan Jaker, born in Schleswig-Holstein in 2004, graduated with a vocational diploma in June 2022. Since his childhood, he has already been active as an author, and at the age of ten, one of his texts was published in the Austrian magazine Augustin for the first time.
Apart from his gloomy creativity, the scary components as well as his aim to encourage the readers to sophisticated thinking for themselves are in the foreground of Milan Jaker‘s debut novel. Stephen King, Dan Brown and H. P. Lovecraft count among his literary examples.
The story is substantially characterized by Milan Jaker‘s impressive drawings. Since his early childhood, he has regularly taken art classes at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, where he has created scenic illustrations in dealing intensely, for example, with Goethe‘s Faust. First illustration orders were portraits of composers for the learning booklets Epochen der Musik, published by the AOL-Verlag Hamburg (2018 and 2019).
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